Charter Cable Download Speed
I have been experiencing some very slow download speeds in the evenings.
My ISP is Charter Cable and the location is Arch Cape, Oregon. In "off
hours" I get good download speeds sometimes approaching 30 Mbps. But in
"prime time" (when everyone wants to stream video) my download speed
plummets to somewhere between 2 and 4 Mbps. Often the speed slows to the
point where streaming video is no longer possible without suffering many
pauses in the video.
Plotting my download speed shows this:
You can see that the download speed is cyclic - sometimes good and sometimes
bad. I was initially sampling the speed once an hour and around July 20
changed that to a 15 minute sampling rate which is why the plot appearance
changes a bit. Those bad times are in the evenings as can be seen by looking
at an expanded bit of the plot:
Every evening between about 9 and 11 the speed really drops. You can view
the full pdf here.
I called Charter on July 11 to report the problem and was told that my modem
was old and they would send me a new modem. I left on vacation and had the
new modem waiting for me upon my return. Note that the plot above reflects
no data streaming taking place between the 14th and 18th other than the
speed test.
I installed the new modem on July 23rd and found no change in download
speed:
|
Old modem:
Ubee Model U10C035
Last Result:
Download Speed: 2.19 Mbps (0.27 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3.59 Mbps (0.45 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 22 ms
Jitter: 4 ms
Wed 23 Jul 2014 08:58:08 PM PDT
New modem:
Arris Model TM822A Part Number TM02DLD822
Last Result:
Download Speed: 2.22 Mbps (0.28 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4.34 Mbps (0.54 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 21 ms
Jitter: 7 ms
Wed 23 Jul 2014 09:17:28 PM PDT |
Those measurements above were done using the URL speedtest.charter.com.
My other speed measurements were made using a command line speed test that I
could automate. Both measurements are in agreement as to the extreme slow
down in the evenings.
The raw data file containing my speed data can be found here.
A Charter cable technician visited my house a little after 1 PM Thursday
July 24. Ticket number for the visit is 413709. No problem was found in the
house, signal levels were fine. The next step is for a BBE (Broadband
Engineer) to visit Arch Cape. I requested that I receive a phone call from
the BBE. The Charter technician stated that he was forwarding my
documentation of the problem to those at the company that could drive an
investigation into the problem.
Other houses in Arch Cape observe the same slow download speeds. Here is
some data from nearby houses.
This from a house diagonally to the southwest of my house, measuring
download speed from speedtest.charter.com:
| Date |
Time |
Speed Mbps |
| 7/20/2014 |
11:16 PM |
2.84 |
| 7/21/2014 |
2:31 PM |
2.85 |
| 7/22/2014 |
10:34 AM |
6.76 |
| 7/22/2014 |
11:06 PM |
4.68 |
This is data from a house diagonally to the northwest of me:
| Date |
Time |
Speed Mbps |
| 7/21/2014 |
8:56 PM |
3.08 |
| 7/22/2014 |
8:32 PM |
4.17 |
| 7/22/2014 |
9:04 AM |
3.08 |
| 7/31/2014 |
8:46 PM |
3.12 |
I set up a second computer system at a home on Leech Street, two streets to
the south of me. This system is connected to a router connected to the
incoming Charter Cable
without passing through a wireless network. The system collects data every
15 minutes at two minutes past the hour and then again at 17 minutes after
the hour and so on. This is a delay of 2 minutes after my speed measurement
is made. Graphing the speed recorded by the house to my south and my house
show the same phenomenon of slow speeds in the evenings however this house
seems to obtain better download speed than do I. My system is recording
speeds at even 15 minute marks, also hard wired.
In the graph above the red dots are my house and the green dots the house to
the south of me. Both houses show the same slow performance every evening,
however for reasons that are not known my download speed seems consistently
worse than the house to the south of me. While these measurements were made
I was not trying to stream video in the evenings. You can view the pdf file
for this graph here.
For the days above the slowest download speeds seen were:
| Date |
My House |
Two Blocks South |
Raw data
my house |
Raw data
other house |
| July 26 |
1.97, 2.03, 2.07, 2.29 |
3.07, 3.12, 3.34, 3.41 |
Jul-26-1 |
Jul-26-2 |
| July 27 |
1.82, 2.01, 2.04, 2.40 |
4.04, 5.21, 5.27, 5.62 |
Jul-27-1 |
Jul-27-2 |
| July 28 |
2.23, 2.3, 2.34, 2.52 |
3.72, 3.94, 5.85, 6.76 |
Jul-28-1 |
Jul-28-2 |
| July 29 |
2.71, 2.99, 3.11, 3.26 |
3.60, 4.23, 5.36, 5.93 |
Jul-29-1 |
Jul-28-2 |
I called charter again Thursday July 31st and Charter scheduled a visit from
a technician on Sunday August 3rd. Ticket number 416488. The
technician told me that the cable feed into the house did not meet Charter
specifications as the feed should be to the point where power comes into the
house and that the cable feed should be connected to the power ground. The
Charter technician provided me with a new cable drop, now coming from a tape
one pole to the east on Oceanview Lane and hitting the house near the
incoming power line drop.
Before the Charter technician came I checked my download speed with
speedtest.charter.com and measured:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 33.25 Mbps (4.16 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4.39 Mbps (0.55 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 20 ms
Jitter: 2 ms
Sun 03 Aug 2014 01:18:04 PM PDT
After the Charter technician left I checked the speed once again:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 4.6 Mbps (0.57 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4.46 Mbps (0.56 MB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 19 ms
Jitter: 7 ms
Sun 03 Aug 2014 05:28:49 PM PDT
So before the visit I measured 33.25 Mbps download speed and after the visit
I measured 4.6 Mbps download speed. Seems pretty clear that nothing was
solved by the new cable drop to the house.
The following plot shows the most recent
data. It will be updated automatically each night. The red line (Arch2) is
my house. The green line (Asbury) is a house two streets to the south on
Leech.
The full pdf for the plot above is available here.
List of 7 day speed history charts archived here.