7+ years of summer internet issues and packet loss in Sahuarita/85629.
Question(s): Is there a way to request an inspection / audit / health check of the neighborhood infrastructure? Does having IP addresses help narrow down potential locations? Is there a way to better seal or enclose equipment? I never had these issues over 10 years in the PHX area... and it is an objectively harsher environment for electronic survivability. I'm happy to help be part of the solution for myself and my neighbors… just let me know what I can do. However, having a tech come out to my house and start this debug dance for the 7th year in a row is just going to waste everyone's valuable time yet again. History: Entering year 7 of having summer internet issues. Always at or around monsoon season. Every year I am told that it must be my equipment. Every year a tech gets sent out at least once. Usually multiple times. Every year it takes 30-60 days of back and forth to resolve. It has always been cox equipment somewhere in the neighborhood. I work from home, and find this extremely frustrating. Every year I start all over again like bad internet groundhog day… explaining the history, potential issues, and following the same path of a tech at my door measuring MER and BER. It has never been my equipment… marginal improvement in performance gains. If I had any other reasonable option for internet service at my house, I'd have exercised it years ago. Issue: Here we are again… I was hopeful that maybe things would be different this year. However, there was broad outage in the 85629 area on 06/22/22 from around 0900-1200 AZ. After which, outbound packet loss has been intermittent accompanied by low upload speeds. This morning, my upload speeds have been abysmal. 1Mbps up to around 5Mbps. My normal upload speed is consistently ~35Mbps. Along with that, I am seeing significant packet loss. Outbound packet loss has been anywhere from 3-30%. Inbound speeds are moderately lower than normal, and I am not seeing significant inbound packet loss. Troubleshooting: 1. I've rebooted the router and modem multiple times. 2. I'm using hardwired devices, and have swapped between multiple ethernet cables. CAT5e and CAT6 on the off chance it would do anything. (I knew it wouldn't) 3. I've gone through 2 different routers, flashed the firmware of both routers, and gone direct through the modem. 4. I've used multiple computers to ensure the behavior is not limited to a single computer. 5. Still seeing the same results. Pathping: Shows no packet loss between computer and router, or router and modem. In fact, the first problematic node is 10.97.200.1 … I'm guessing the neighborhood switch, or other infrastructure. Followed immediately by 100.127.78.150, and 100.120.100.40. Ping Plotter confirms pathping's results. My neighbor across the street (who I share a tap with) sees the same frequent issues. One of my other neighbors a few blocks over is unaffected. 0% packet loss, and I believe they were unaffected by the outage on 06/22/22. Boosting my outbound power by adding attenuators has historically shown some level of improvement. 8-12dB has been the sweet spot, but isn't making a difference right now. Hypothesis: I'm going take a wild guess, and say that either the Wednesday worksite was not buttoned up properly after work finished, or another area has significant water ingress after recent monsoon rains. As the day has progressed (and the area potentially dries out), upload speeds and packet loss have improved. Twice now, the summer monsoons have flooded repair sites that were not properly sealed up. Occasionally, packrats get into equipment, and cause havoc.