BroadbandVI Service 🙁

i'm always connected with broadband.vi at 100 mbps,never more never less

i use broadband and we havent had any problems, knock on wood. the speed seems respectable too. now at work its a bit slower?? dont know why.

Yes I had problems with broadband. They told me they had plenty of towers in my area but the service was never good. Had to call like you for the "fix". Luckily waited to cancel innovative dsl. I had to drop broadband. The only solution they had was to bump me up to a much more expensive plan that I really doubt would have been any better.

I think it is a little bit like choice (but not as limited) it depends where you live. Its not going to be the best choice depending on where you live. You might want to try one of those cell phone cards or innovative.

Mine has always been very reliable and I use Skype without issues everyday.

I've had the same experience as you: really bad speeds, so much so that I can't use Skype at all (which is a huge problem for me, as it's my primary business phone). I even upgraded to the 1.5 MBPS service and, after a brief spurt in speed, it fell back to it's usual pattern. I've found them very responsive, but unfortunately, they don't solve the longer-term problem.

I went to a couple websites that enable you to check the upload and download speeds of your connect. What I found was very interesting. The connection speed fluctuates wildly, swinging from 1.5 MBPS one second to 200 KBPS. I think this fluctuation is what makes using Skype impossible, as one second I can hear the other party perfectly, then the next they sound like Robby the Robot.

Bernie

it sounds as tho you have a location issue , or a wiriingf/cable issue. have anyone looked at the connections on the calbles from Broadband VI?

Are you on a wireless router? have you eliminated that?
sloop jones

I am on a wireless router. The signal from the wireless doesn't seem to vary at all--always showing as nice and strong. But I think I'll try it without the router to see if that makes a difference. I'm definitely calling Broadband to have them come out and look at things.

Bernie

The speed issues have nothing to do with location. When your speed gets slow, do this... open up a "terminal" window on your mac or a command window on windows. On mac type "traceroute dell.com" without the quotes, on the PC click start, run, type "cmd" and in the window that opens type "tracert dell.com" without the quotes.

What you'll find without fail is that your speed to their network is "ok" but that your speeds get really really slow in the ackley.net area.

So a speed of 6ms would be great, a speed of 2000ms would be really really slow and be causing issues. Every time I see these speed issues it's on their network in their vlan. Their tech's claimed something was wrong with their access points.

We'll see, may be making a phone call to innovative to get dsl which while slow is at least predictably slow. How disappointing 🙁

Just an FYI, the ms you see is not the speed, it is latency 🙂

I use broadband vi at work and innovative dsl at home and there's no difference. We upgrade one step above basic dsl. If you have cable, phone and dsl you get a bundle discount which mostly pays for the upgrade.

Cold.........we have had the same terrible experience with Broadband!
Jumped thru all the hoops they tell us to & it just fades back to unreliable turtle service............still waiting for them to come pick up the equipment........

Has anybody else here had just a terrible experience with broadband vi? I chose them over dsl because the rumor was that their service was faster and better, i've experienced the exact opposite. Speeds so slow I can't even have a skype conversation with somebody else, google takes 2 minutes to load etc..etc.. Phone calls to them fix it immediately, but the service seems to slow again after about 4 hours which then requires another call and another magical "fix" happens.

Is this just a case of a company promising speeds and not delivering them on purpose? Or is it just incompetence?

ColdWhether, who are you?
Where do you live?
Have you called customer support?
Will you call Mike at 719-2943? (ext 138 thru Wed)

Bathiel, have you tried qos settings for your router to prioritize skype voice traffic?
http://www.techtipsblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/improving_skype_audio_in_windows/
are you using a wireless router to connect to your computer? a direct connect would help the connection 20-30%
btw, you do live as far away from Global Crossing as possible.

Beeski: It doesn't do me any good to bypass the router because we have two laptops here that need access all day. And as for "have you tried qos settings for your router," I have no idea what that means 🙂

I did talk to Broadband today, and it seems like our problem may be inconsistent power supply to our condo. We have noticed flickering lights occasionally, which can, I'm told, wreak havoc with the web connection. So we may end up getting a UPS to solve that problem.

In all, I'm not at all unhappy with Broadband. They've been very responsive. I'm just unhappy I can't seem to make this thing work as advertised.

Bernie

Good Morning Bernie,
Let's take these on one at a time:

a) wireless routers cause a 20-30% efficiency penalty when you are using them for your connection to the Internet. Also, they lose a tremendous amount of packets when there is a concrete wall/metal/glass with metal in it/reflections between your laptop and the router. If you were to use a switch and run a cable to each of the two laptops that need access all day, you would eliminate a possible cause of your problems.

b) we need electricity to function. If you have taken a lot of power hits, your wireless router could be damaged. They are cheap consumer grade products that are considered disposable by their manufacturers. They are not designed to last 10 years.

c) Broadband VI never advertised support for Skype. You have to remember, you are on an island in the middle of the Caribbean. Geography and physics equal longer ping times to the States. Long ping times make VoIP a challenge. I dare say we have the lowest ping times of any of our competitors, but you're still 1000+ miles from Miami.

d) I included a link to setting up qos = Quality of Service for skype in your router in my post above. If you need help, two computer consultants I would recommend are:
Chris Computer Services 719-9057
Kelly Smith 690-2874

Beeski--thanks for the additional information. Very helpful, especially the stuff about the wireless router. I'll try the direct approach, bypassing the router, and if that seems to do the trick, I'll pursue the switch-and-cable route you suggested.

Also, just for the record, I totally understand Skype is not Broadband's problem, and was never under the illusion that they were responsible for tech support for Skype. I was merely indicating that the connection problems were making it difficult for me to use Skype.

I also want to go on the record for all reading these posts that Broadband has been very, very responsive to all of my inquiries and I would not hesitate to recommend the company. It's becoming clear that my connection issues are not Broadband's fault but, rather, probably related to the quality of electrical service I'm getting in my condo. So I don't want anyone to think I'm slamming Broadband because, frankly, they've given me the best service of practically any company on island.

Bernie