Comcast internet speeds slow at night
Every night between 8-11 pm my internet speeds drop from 25/5 (what I pay for) to >10 (sometimes as low as 1) dwnload speed but my upload speed is consistent.
What is the point of paying for 25/5 when I can only get those speeds from midnight-7pm. I watch and surf the internet Between 8-11pm and it's getting annoying receiving less than half of the speed I pay for. I live in independence between the QC on 517 and Mattars. My research says Comcast may need to "split a node" - whatever that means...
Has anyone in my immediate area had problems with slow speeds between 8-11pm?
ConsigliereI live in the same area and while I’m usually at work at night, I’ve noticed it on my nights off. I always just chalk it up to comcast being terrible.
Katherine Thats true, Bug3 but it doesnt matter. I have a pc gaming friend in Manhattan that gets the speeds he pays for all hours of the night and day. Do you think they have more people using the internet in Manhattan or here? I've had high speed cable internet (25/5 may not be considered "high" anymore) since companies first offered it. DSL before that. "too many users" may be the reason the speeds are slow but its not supposed to be like that. This started maybe a month or 2 ago. Theres something obviously wrong on their end. The population doesnt matter.
Skippy I live in Hackettstown near the hospital. I just tested my connection using the Xfinity Speed test and got 249 down and 12 up. Last night I got 49 down and 11 up over my in-house wireless. Paying for 25/5.
rbilly We have Comcast Blast and get 250 down and about 12 up most of the time.
The only thing is that once in a while at 10pm it will slow down or cut out completely, just for about 2 minutes or so.
Reggie Voter 
CraftBeerBob 
Jersey Girl Jersey Girl---just Google "Internet Speed" and lots of sites offer it.
Here's one, for example: speedtest.xfinity.com/
Mr. Resident I've done a lot more research. The node on the overhead (telephone pole) line most likely services too many users and it needs to be "split" to allow more users to get more bandwidth. Apparently this can be expensive for the cable company to do but they techinically have to do it because I'm (and presumably others on this particular node) not getting what I'm paying for between 8-11pm. Less than half the speeds.
They ought to be able to afford splitting the node. I just got notice of price increases in my COMCAST bill.
BC Negative - splitting the node is a traffic engineering strategy - how this works is you have two downstream CMTS (head end) ports on a 1-to-1 combining ratio - they are 500-home nodes clustered in a serving group attached to their own transmit/receive lasers. - splitting the node yields two additional downstream channels to bond to. You essentially share the traffic load so that the two existing CMTS ports feeding that node now feed two nodes. Throughput-wise, the node split gets 77.6 Mbps of additional bandwidth - but since it’s split it yields 155.2 Mbps of throughput.
There’s no cost to the cable company - they just have to have someone who is actually doing capacity management - which they are most likely not - why would they it’s a government granted monopoly.
Thanks skip. So, you're telling me I'm SOL? I called Comcast and the outsourced CS rep made me read her all my serial numbers, reset the modem etc. I tried explaining the situation but she didn't know what a node was.
Well - not sure what they use now there - what is the model of your modem - the reason I ask is because they may have a docsis 3 model that supports more channels to bond to (if yours isn’t already)
I would start bombarding them on Twitter and emailing We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com until you get a tier 3 tech to look at your node and encourage your neighbors to do so as well.
They may have already split several times and are hitting the cap of the fiber network - if it’s a situation that only occurs during peak times it may not make fiscal sense to do anything until enough customers are complaining.
It may also be a case of them waiting for additional capacity in their backbone and there is a port density issue - ergo there’s literally no more capacity at peak periods.
None of this will be discernible until you have this looked at by a senior technician. One way to do this is open a ticket every time this occurs until such time as you become what is termed to be a “chronic” and you get escalated to that team.
Another way is to demand a “truck roll” to check levels every time this happens - they will have someone look at your ticket assuredly
Wow thank you very much, skippy. VERY good info. Does this mean a level 3 tech will come out when it's happening (8-11) or can a truck roll diagnose the problem at off-peak hours?
The router is one I rent from Comcast. It's a router and wifi in one and after looking up the model I can confirm it's docsis 3.0.
They can put a monitor on your connection and see what is causing your issue from the main office. That is how my issue was resolved. But in order for that to happen you have to call it in every time it happens and get it listed as a chronic as stated above. After 2 calls I decided the 3rd time to visit the Port Murray office. The gentleman was very good and got me a truck roll the very next day. The two techs dispatched for my issue were fantastic. Their service model has improved. It's not perfect but much better then it was.
Their 3 doesn’t come out as CBB states they put a monitor in the line and pull “PM” metrics (performance monitoring)
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