Huge fluctuations in download speeds

[pp171]

I am on Ignite 500/150, which used to be 150/30, but Rogers upgraded it to higher speeds some time ago.

Until recently I have been happy with what I was getting, and really never doing any speed tests, but in the last month or so, I have noticed some crawling speeds, and started to check my download/upload speeds, using several different test tools. While I still get something in the vicinity of 500 Mbps on occasions (not very often), it is typically around 250 - 280 Mbps, but sometimes it goes as low as just 10-15 Mbps, and that is how I first noticed it.

I am in an apartment building, not a house and I have been doing speed tests both through wifi and Ethernet connections, not seeing any difference between the two.

Called Rogers and booked an appointment with a technician, but I'm not sure if they will be able to do anything, because the speed may be up to over 500 Mbps when they arrive. So I put that call on hold, and I'm thinking if I should proceed or cancel it completely. Most of the time I am getting around 250-ish Mbps, but I'm really worried when it drops to much lower than that.

Are these pretty big fluctuations normal, or do you guys think there may be something wrong with the the equipment / connection.

***Edited Labels***

[Datalink]

@pp171 here's some food for thought:

1. You should be seeing over 500/150 on a speedtest.

2.  There are two ways to run data to your modem, the first is from an external tap, which is housed in a ground based pedestal, or up on the nearest utility pole.  The second is to run one singular cable line in to the apartment and then use a Multiple Dwelling Unit which is basically a large splitter to feed data to all of the apartments.  There could be issues with either one, depending on what you have for a data source.  An external data source could have issues with the cable run to your apartment due to deterioration of the cable.  They don't last forever.  If there are issues with an internal MDU, that will require a Senior Rogers tech (real Rogers tech) to rectify.  

3.  Your neighbourhood node, to which you are connected, could be overloaded.  This would be most noticeable in the evening when everyone is home, streaming, web cruising, gaming, etc, etc.  If that's the case, there isn't anything that the tech can do for you.  That is a Rogers engineering issue that is only rectified by splitting the node so that each resulting node runs half of the current load.  That takes weeks if not months to accomplish. 

4.  The Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) which connects to all of the neighbourhood nodes could also be highly loaded.  That is another Rogers engineering issue to asses and sort out.  

5.  The cable system in your apartment might use RG-59 cabling instead of RG-6.  RG-59 was designed for antenna systems.  It has a smaller center conductor and less shielding than RG-6 which is used in the current cable industry.  RG-59 also has higher signal losses in the higher frequency range.  Rogers introduced Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) (downstream) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) (upstream) modems over the last few years.  Both OFDM and OFDMA use thousands of low power sub-carriers to carry data, versus the long in the tooth Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) that has been used since the early days of cable tv systems.  QAM uses higher power signal levels, which are spaced 6 Mhz apart.  So, if you have a combination of RG-59 (higher losses) with a modem running OFDM and OFDMA, (lower signal levels) you could definitely see problems.  Rogers has also been enabling OFDM channels at higher frequencies, so, that might add to the issue, where the signal losses in those higher frequency channels are causing data loss.  This would result in retransmission of the same data to the modem, resulting in lower data rates. 

So, there are a number of issues which could affect your modem data rates.  The only real way to sort these issues out are with an onsite tech.  Hopefully he or she won't find that there isn't a problem, resulting in a tech charge for you.  I think you need to document, thru tech support, the speeds that you're seeing.  If you have time, when you see that the modem is running slow, call in.  Tech support should be able to trigger a speedtest and see for themselves how slow the modem is running.  That needs documentation so that repeated calls build a history of poor data rates, leading so some action to rectify the issue.  You'll probably need more than one tech visit. 

Fwiw, talk with your neighbours to see if they see the same issue.  That will tell you if this is a "one of" type of problem, or if the whole building is affected.   

[pp171]

1. Yeah, that's what I thought too. I should be seeing 500/150, but that is obviously not the case. Sometimes, like just now, I am getting over 500/150 (604/174 right now, which is the highest I've ever seen), but other times, it will be closer to 275-ish, and whatever the upload speed is.

2. /

3. I have not seen absolutely any correlation to the time of the day.

4. /

5. /

As I said, my concern is that if a technician comes at the time when the data rates are as specified, there will be nothing for him/her to look into. Therefore, and as per your suggestion, it may be best to keep running speed tests, and call in whenever I see an issue. Hopefully, hold times are not that bad. Last time I called, a few days ago, I got through very fast, and the person I talked to ran tests, and decided to send someone, booking me an appointment. Since after that I saw data rates really fluctuate at will, I rescheduled the appointment, which is now supposed to happen 2 days from now. Again, if the speeds are fine when the technician arrives...nothing to troubleshoot.

Btw, I just tested it again right now, and it is 637/177...perfect, but I won't be too surprised to see it go down to half of that, or worse, at any time. The worst was just a day before I made a call to Rogers, and it was barely 10 or 15 download, being the reason for me to make that call.

I suppose I should cancel the scheduled appointment, and just keep calling in when I see data rates go down.

Thank you kindly for your reply.