Suddenlink Internet Problems

If you live in the Amarillo Area, or are having a lot of dropped internet problems, here’s some information for you.

You will need to go get a DOCSIS 3.0 compatible cable modem. You can go to this page: http://aaronsarea.com/install-cable-modem/ on how to install it yourself. It’s super easy.

On to my rant about Suddenlink…

I’ve had cable internet with Suddenlink for some time now and I’ve had zero problems with them. The speed has been as promised and I would wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone, at least in my area.

A week or two ago I started getting dropped from the internet a lot. We’re talking several times an hour. My fiancé was getting pissed at me it was so bad. So I finally called tech support and rebooted it and my router a few dozen times with them. They always ask you to do that. I’m an IT guy, it’s the first thing I try, but I understand their reasoning. The girl I talked to said it was probably the modem and that they’d send a tech out since I lease the modem. They also said they’d send him out three days after I called.

I decided that I’d put off buying a modem long enough. If that was all it was, I’d be taking an hour off work for something I can do in twenty minutes. Plus I didn’t want to wait three days for a guy to put in a modem. See, I’ve installed several cable modems before, and know the drill.

So I got the new one, put it in and called them as you are supposed to do. I got the same model that they had installed. I was mentally preparing myself to go take the other one back and save $5 a month. I didn’t cancel my appointment on the advice of the tech support agent. It looked better that evening and I thought that had fixed it so I canceled the appointment that next afternoon.

I still had packet loss and dropping internet the next day.

It was worse in fact.

So I called tech support again and got another appointment for a technician to come out. The guy really knew his stuff, and was able to figure out what the problem was.

The problem was that Suddenlink has upgraded their systems, at least in the Amarillo area and failed to tell people they needed to upgrade their modems! He told me they were putting in upgraded modems on new installations but not for existing customers.

This pissed me off.

I totally understand that if you own your own modem (which you totally should) that they won’t offer to replace it. They should send out a notice in the form of an e-mail or a flyer when they upgrade. They might say it’s expensive but, I get two ads from them a week for services I already have!

They should have at very least informed me of this over the phone when I called.

After installing and getting the second modem provisioned I wasn’t able to connect to the internet at all. I was resolving DNS, but not getting any traffic back. I ran a trace route while I was on the phone with the guy and saw it dropping about five hops past my router. That’s fancy IT guy talk for, “The problem is obviously on the cable company’s end.” The tech support agent offered to send a tech out again, blaming it entirely on me. Then he said they’d charge me $40 since it was ‘obviously my equipment’. I had even hooked my computer up directly. It’s highly unlikely both computer and router were both bad, especially when I had been on the internet with them not eight hours before.

That’s terrible customer service Suddenlink.

His name was Dan. If you get a guy named Dan with Suddenlink tech support, just hang up and call again. Get someone else. There may be multiple guys named Dan, just hang up on all of them. Do not waste your time being polite. He started trying to get me off the phone almost as soon as he got on the phone. Personally I think the issue was because he’d just made a simple mistake. God knows I did that a lot when I worked at an ISP. He just wouldn’t own up to it.

I called bullcrap on all this and called them again the next day. I talked of a girl named Amber. I told her the problem. She had me run through a few things and only asked me to reboot a couple of times. After about twenty minutes on the phone she asked me to try my internet, and it worked! She said that there was an auto-configuration script stuck and she was able to get that resolved on their end. It was on their end, just like I had informed Dan. I suspected a routing issue, but stuck script makes sense too.

She cancelled my appointment and I haven’t had any issue since! Thank you Amber with Suddenlink!

I would have switched to Clear the next day if she hadn’t. Also before you call Clear if you’re interested in their service, shoot me a message on Facebook or leave a comment with your e-mail. I know a great sales guy who really knows his stuff there.

I really hope no one else has to go through this. I work in IT, I’ve been down this road before so I knew when I was being lied to. If I hadn’t been, I could have gotten a bad technician out here and might have paid $40, plus new modem costs and it would have been completely unnecessary to do so. Meaning I could have been ripped off by my ISP all because one of their guys just needed to re-provision my modem.

The sad thing is, I’m sure the higher-ups at Suddenlink wouldn’t have wanted this to happen in the first place.