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I work in IT. More specifically I work in Networking. So every fucking day.
Best one was when I was working for an internet provider. Customer was complaining every other day their internet was not working to spec. They ordered a 100Mb service and could never get more than around 60Mb. Somehow they got it into their head that our on prem gear was the issue. But our on prem gear was gigabit capable.
But they never listened and eventually it got to the point where ceo to ceo calls were happening.
My ceo managed to make them agree to a call out where if no problem was found in our gear they would pay the $120 callout plus time for the 2 hour drive to the customer office but if I found a problem on their side we would compensate them for the services until it performs as ordered.I get there plug my laptop into their network and sure enough I get 60Mb speed tests. Moved my cable from their firewall to the spare port on our gear and get the full speed.
They wanted me to do the tests a few more times and I do and get the same result.
I looked up the spec sheet of their firewall and third line down of the throughput graph shows their setup only has a rated capacity of about 60Mb. Never heard a peep from them after that.I had a similar issue, except from the customer side. I had worked IT for 20 years in the US Air Force, and when I retired 2 years ago, I moved back in with my elderly dad in my old childhood home. I found out he was paying for 40Mb service (the best offered to our secluded countryside home), but we were lucky if we could get 15-20Mb at the best of times.
I spent several weeks troubleshooting over the phone with his ISP and they insisted it was a problem on our end. I rebooted our modem so many times, even configured it from scratch several times. I ensured the WiFi router I set up to extend the range across the house wasn't slowing anything down along the way. I swore there was nothing out of place on our end and they needed to check the connection to our house. They didn't believe me; thought I was just claiming to be an IT expert to skip steps and get someone out to our secluded neck of the woods (fair, but still...)
Eventually, I convinced them to send a technician out here, an hour away from their offices. The tech connected to the line outside the house and immediately packed up his tools and went back to his truck. He said he doesn't even need to check my equipment; there's definitely something wrong with the external line.
Turns out they have a service box at the end of my street. They don't have a dedicated 40Mb line for my home, so they paired two 20Mb lines. One of the lines was completely disconnected; removed during maintenance and they forgot to reconnect it. The other was a shared line with my small neighborhood, which explains the drop in connection during high usage hours. The service tech connected the second line and we got twice the speed we used to.
I ended up dropping that company for Starlink shortly after, since they had no higher speeds in my area. Which was a significant improvement (200Mbps), but not quite the speeds I had hoped for. Now, thanks to Biden's high speed Internet initiative, I'm getting Gb speeds to my neighborhood this summer. Can't wait for that; as much of an improvement as Starlink has been over my old connection, it's still slow compared to what I'm used to from my military service.
thanks to Biden's high speed Internet initiative, I'm getting Gb speeds to my neighborhood this summer.
That's actually happening this time? I'll admit I haven't payed any attention to this, but I kind of figured the isps would just pocket the money again.
My hometown had to request a local ISP submit a grant request to the federal government in order to fund the expansion of high speed Internet in our area. My town and 2 others were approved; a 4th town in my area was denied and needed to re-accomplish and resubmit their grant request.
I don't know all the fine legal details of the grant, but I know that the ISP is required to put the funds toward development in the areas outlined in the grant request.
The last time our president attempted a high speed Internet initiative (I think it was Bush Jr?), they just gave money to ISPs and told them to spend it on upgrading their networks. There was no accountability, so most companies just pocketed the money.
Yeah Verizon did this shit so hard in West Virginia. Sure they pulled fiber all over the state, but they stopped at the cities. They made so much money, but hardly anyone could access the network.
I got fiber to my home 15 years later from a different company.