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DLabit29's avatar
DLabit29
Contributor
3 years ago

Question about infrastructural Network oversaturation

I've been dealing with internet issues as far as I can even remember.
While normal use of the internet seems to work fine, trying to game on this network is a complete nightmare.
Recently I've learned more about how to diagnose and detect where the issues are happening using ping plotter.
I've been trying to get this fixed with complaint calls for years, and they always put in a ticket for "node maintenance", and nothing ever changes for me.
Well, THIS time, they're telling me that they must perform a node split and that the work is scheduled for 2022.. I was told this at the beginning of November.

Anyways..upon more testing, I noticed that my downstream latency is a solid 30-40ms at any given time.
But my upload latency is never lower than 180ms. To me, that sounds about right due to the idea that when playing online, the server runs fine...it's is only I that is skipping around and getting super late Registry etc...

My question:
They're telling me that my issue is due to oversaturation of the network in my area..(and yes, this was happening way before "covid")

The thing is that I was under the impression that in order to have oversaturation, the case would have to be that too many customers are utilizing the network at the same time and it becomes overloaded and congested.

Now when I asked cox tech support about why the same issues happen during non peak hours on any given day....during the hours of 1am to 5am on a weekday, for example.

He pretty much told me that people are most likely overloading the network at these times as well.

I find that VERY hard to believe.

So...are there situations where I would face these issues of "oversaturation" when the majority of people aren't even using the internet?

Because I feel like I'm being thrown into that category out of the simplicity of just being able to say it, followed by thanking me for being patient

1 Reply

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  • CrystalS's avatar
    CrystalS
    Former Moderator
    3 years ago
    Hello @DLabit29,

    I understand service issues can be frustrating and I want nothing more than to have your service work as intended for you at all times. We are aware of the nature of the trouble you see and are diligently working to restore your full internet experience. A Node split is not as simple as it sounds. It requires having a very large portion of our customers offline for an extended amount of time. Before being faced with COVID-19, we had scheduled a number of soft and hardware updates, to better the signal experience for all of us as customers. However, once we were all forced to stay home for our safety and begin to try to normalize ourselves online, the flaws that we going to be corrected throughout the year became eminent opportunities while we transitioned. As we now work in our new normal, as odd as it was before the pandemic to be on an overloaded network at that hour, it is not odd now, this is mainly due to the overnight work from home agents, students, and gamers. This along with how the gaming companies run their prioritize their servers can truly cause an issue. As you know, we don't have the node's capacity information. We have no further details regarding the node work scheduled for this year. Our network engineers handle the planning of network improvements and work tirelessly to adjust the schedule based on customer bandwidth needs and external issues. Our team doesn't participate in this planning and scheduling process as it is outside our scope of support. I'm sorry we're unable to provide further information. We do and will continue to keep all of our customers, such as yourself, updated as we become updated.

    Crystal S.
    Cox Support Forum Moderator