1.5gbps service less reliable than 100mbps?

[Georgr]

Hi i recently got Ignite 1.5gbps internet service and I'm finding the speed to be inconsistent and that i have semi-frequent internet disconnects. Previously i has 100mbps service through a reseller that was rock solid using the same cable lines. I have already tried rebooting the modem with no improvement, and am using all the cables and hardware provided by Rogers. When i look in the modern page i notice a high rate of uncorrectable codewords in the CM Error Codewords table. Trying to reach out to rogers tech support has not been helpful, I've been suggested to try posting here. Any suggestions how I can get this resolved? Below is the CM Error Codewords table showing the uncorrectable counts within 2hrs of a full modern reboot.


Index
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5
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8
9
10
11
12
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15
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17
18
19
20
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Unerrored Codewords
231661926
261014023
259915478
259935018
259956852
259976661
260001165
260022953
260042449
260064900
260175647
260187559
260207842
260227967
260250788
260272229
260291694
260312646
260332439
260354056
260453372
260473712
260493688
260508355
260529211
260550608
260570617
260590391
260610786
260632003
260662524
260663962
231661926
Correctable Codewords
222695093
1219
195
216
203
235
252
220
198
203
174
217
194
208
285
260
200
202
192
181
203
179
236
268
186
237
233
204
202
180
145
237
222695093
Uncorrectable Codewords
78916
2487
129
64
66
278
137
124
89
74
183
268
321
303
190
89
109
44
55
163
145
180
250
160
114
163
109
39
82
116
118
84
78916

***Added Labels***

[-G-]

Having a huge number of uncorrectable errors on the downstream OFDM channel(s) is not good.  When you called tech support, what did they say about the signal levels to your modem?  If they are outside the acceptable norms (see here for more info) then they should have dispatched a tech... and if the field tech cannot resolve the issue, then it should get escalated to maintenance.

Rogers may also not dispatch a technician if there are known issues in the neighbourhood and an infrastructure upgrade is planned (e.g. Node upgrade) or if maintenance activities have been scheduled.

[Georgr]

Thank you for the feedback. This is helpful.

When I first called the modem wasn't connecting at all using the app. The agent helped me with connecting to the modem manually. Once that was up and running I mentioned that the speed wasn't what I was expecting and the agent said it would improve in time and that my devices must be the reason I'm not getting full bandwidth.

I tried using the live chat today to follow up but it didn't work at all, leading me here. I was hoping to get this resolved without the long hold times calling on the phone is known for.

[-G-]

@Georgr  There may be a number of factors that are causing issues with speed and stability.

The first thing to check are your signal levels.  Ideally, the Power Level on each downstream channel should be  roughly 0 dBmV and your SNR (signal to noise ratio) should be 38 dB or higher.  If your power level is a bit lower or a bit higher, that's okay.  When your SNR drops below 35 dB, that's not good, even if Rogers says that it is within norms.  That's the point where you will start to see uncorrectable errors on the OFDM channel(s) carrying your traffic.

If your signal levels are marginal, Rogers should dispatch a tech to check things out otherwise, things will get worse with the hot summer weather.  The tech should then check the signal levels inside your home, where your modem is connected, at the grey Rogers box (the NID) outside your home, and at the pedestal on the street.  That will confirm whether it is an in-home problem, a problem with the cable feeding your home, or whether it is an upstream problem that needs to be escalated to maintenance.  (The tech may do additional testing depending on what he/she/they find, but you get the idea.)

The fact that you are seeing correctable and uncorrectable errors across all channels suggests that it is signal related.  It's also possible that your Ignite gateway is faulty.

If your signal levels are low, double-check to make sure that all splitters in your home have been removed and that the signal path to your Ignite Gateway is as clean as possible.  Your Gateway should either be connected at the point of entry or the Rogers line coming into your home should be directly-connected to the cable leading to your modem's wall plate with an F81 barrel connector/coupler, which Rogers should have shipped with your Ignite gateway.

As for your speed issues, if you are finding that your file transfers are bursty, that could be due to a high number of uncorrectable errors, which is packet loss.  It could also be an upstream issue.

If your speeds are consistently slow, it could be a provisioning issue or due to how your computers are connected.  The only way that you will be able to get speeds higher than 1 Gb/s is if your computer has a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet adapter and is connected to the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port on an XB7 or XB8 Ignite Gateway OR if you have an XB8 gateway and have a computer connected through Wi-Fi 6E at close range.

In my neighbourhood, I used to have old Rogers infrastructure and marginal signals (which have since been fixed with a Node upgrade) but was still able to attain 1.8 Gb/s transfers with my Ignite 1.5 Gigabit service.

Without more information, it's hard to say what could be causing your problems.  Rather than waiting on the phone or chat for tech support, I would send a private message to @CommunityHelps  and ask them to double check your signal levels.

[Georgr]

Thanks @-G- .  I had a tech out today.  It was a challenge to convince the support person to send a tech, despite the frequent disconnects uncorrectable errors and the out of range SNR (1/2 of the channels are below 38dB, 7 channels are below 35dB), but they arrived.

They went to the box on the outside of the house and found a splitter there, so they removed it and said that was likely the problem.  Signal levels stayed the same.  Then they said they wanted to add a filter, which they did, and that appeared to make things worse so they removed it.  They told me there's nothing they can do if these two things didn't fix it, that they need to put in a ticket for a different tech to check the neighborhood box and that will take 3 weeks for anyone to even look at.

My OFDM channel is 38.5dB with a power level of 10.5dBmV which seems high.  It's much higher than the other channels, many of which are +/- 5dBmV. 

I'm more concerned with the disconnects than I am the speed.  Getting only 1/3rd of the speed is frustrating but usable and is better than my previous carrier.  The disconnects, however, are incredibly frustrating and problematic.  I'm strongly considering cancelling my service and going back to my old provider.  At least the service was reliable.

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @Georgr.

Thank you for joining our Community and posting your Internet service concern; intermittency can be disruptive. We can further investigate your connection; please send us a private message, as @-G-  suggested in the previous post.

I appreciate your patience.

Cheers,
RogersMoin

[Aard]

You and me both.  Upgraded to 1.5 Gigabit from 150 Mbit maybe 4 months ago and have been dealing with regular disconnects since then.  The connection to the internet will regularly go down for 6 minutes here, 3 minutes there, sometimes as often as 10x per day or more.  I almost never had disconnects when I was at 150 Mbit (that service was also provided by Rogers so I'm thinking it's got to be the modem or something on their end causing this).  

I can't say I've had the same problem with consistently slow speeds (knock on wood) but the frequent disconnects are quite irritating, especially when they get you booted out of a battle royale when it's down to 3-5 people left.

I really don't like these modems, mostly because of the way it forces us to use a mobile app for things like port forwarding, not to mention how my old router had been running custom firmware (Merlin-wrt for ASUS) that did handy things like record per-device bandwidth stats and referrred to devices by hostname instead of MAC address, which makes it difficult to tell them apart.. but that's another topic altogether. 

[RogersTony]

Hello, @Aard 

Welcome to the Rogers Community Forums!

I can understand how frustrating it is to deal with these intermittent disconnects. We definitely want to look into this for you. 

Please follow the steps outlined here to provide us with your signal levels so we can review.

We look forward to hearing from you.

RogersTony

[Georgr]

2 techs down, both insisting there's nothing wrong with my line. The second one was much better and more thorough, ended up giving me a new modem and calling that fixed. Still have several channels below 35dB but I believed him that it would be fixed. And it was good for a couple days and then the same intermittent disconnects came back.

Still have tens of thousands of uncorrectable errors on all channels, especially the ODFM one. I really feel like I got got by the deal presented by the sales guy. I should've just stuck with what was working.

[Georgr · Accepted solution]

Update for anyone interested. After 6 technician visits, the problem is finally fixed. Technician 4 said "if this doesn't fix it you need a new line" after changing ports at the community box. Technician 5 said there was nothing wrong with the line but he had no idea what the problem was so he flagged a senior tech. Senior tech hooked up his test device, everything looked fine, then he jiggled the wire and his connection dropped. Bingo. Technician 4 was right after all.

Other interesting tidbit, I have had network monitoring going for years and always saw intermittent drops recorded but it never actually affected anything so I never tried to do anything about it. It wasn't until switching to the Rogers XB7 modem that I experienced any problems because any time a drop would happen it would take 3 minutes to reconnect. I guess my old modem was better about handling the drops

Problem solved, it was the wire in the ground after all. Thank you to all the technicians on here I spoke to throughout for helping me get it fixed.