Beaver Island internet capacity and TDS customer concerns.

[cjones]

Thank you Forrest.
I did contact TDS and have a ticket in place. We also were having telephone issues. Hopefully if more people address this issue we might see an improvement, although much better than previously having Dial Up. Just tested again and have 3.49 and .76.

[E. Naranjo]

Unrelated, of course! http://www.pcworld.com/article/2943457/ ... ernet.html

[cjones]

Great response from Ric. I have a new modem. (Mine was original to DSL when first obtained)
Apparently to get a true test of speed it is recommended to do so via Ethernet directly to modem.
Current Download speed: 7.41
Current Upload speed: .79
Latency: 29
Still not my 15 Mbps but better.
Plan on rechecking at different times of the day.

Telephone issues: Dead space before connecting, recording stating number is disconnected, dialing 5 times and then connecting, "if you would like to make a call", and others. It is recommended to jot the time of the day this happens and contact TDS as soon as possible and report. What may be happening is "Least Cost Routing". Check out this site and view the image of what happens.

http://www.twinvalley.net/lcr/

Today was extremely enlightening and I appreciate all Ric did for us.
Oh, don't shorten your cords in a nice little bundle......it can produce a "crimp" which can effect connectivity. True or not I am going with it.

Thanks Ric! Happy 4th everyone!

[Beaver Island Jewelry]

This has been very frustrating for the past couple of years. I tell TDS about it to no avail, plus put on Facebook to them and tweeted. It sounds like the right people at TDS are not being told about our problems on Beaver Island.

My download time today, July 5, was 1.89 and upload .38

So - what do we do? I do appreciate having internet on the island but would like it to be more responsive, especially when lots of people are here. Do we ask for a TDS specialist or what?

I will be calling tomorrow but I'm not sure that even helps.

Thank you to Jeff and Forrest for explaining some of the technical issues for us!

Nancy

[mrsmoonflower]

We have been having the same problems too. I spoke to the Atty Gen'l Office today and they said to call and request a complaint form and they would look into the problem. Their number is 877-765-8388. I have requested a form and suggest that everyone having problems do the same.

[Jeff]

Please be careful with how you complain that everyone you speak with understands how important it is to have good broadband here. If youâ??re able to reach someone who has the power to direct resources towards broadband here that is great. But please be careful. My concern on page 1 was that if people complain too strongly or to the wrong person that theyâ??re not getting what is advertised during periods of congestion during the peak tourist weeks, it would be really horrible for the Island residents, businesses, and tourism if the response was to reduce what is advertised. It could set the Island back. So just please be careful. Unfortunately as far as I know (and please correct me if Iâ??m wrong as I donâ??t have current information) Michigan doesnâ??t have a minimum requirement or major incentive right now for broadband performance that would make any of us happy, nor does Michigan require either a DSL or a Cellular/4G/LTE carrier to even provide any service to a given address. Anyway, Iâ??ll get off my soapbox now but just wanted to reiterate to be careful that your actions will help.

[Jeff]

This has been very frustrating for the past couple of years. I tell TDS about it to no avail, plus put on Facebook to them and tweeted. It sounds like the right people at TDS are not being told about our problems on Beaver Island.

My download time today, July 5, was 1.89 and upload .38

So - what do we do? I do appreciate having internet on the island but would like it to be more responsive, especially when lots of people are here. Do we ask for a TDS specialist or what?

I will be calling tomorrow but I'm not sure that even helps.

Thank you to Jeff and Forrest for explaining some of the technical issues for us!

Nancy

Are you on the 5 mbps plan or the 10 or 15 mbps plan?

I don't have any recent experience at Sand Bay, but if you're getting .38 on the upload on either the 10 or 15 mbps plans, there's something odd there. I'd have Rick take a look as that would be unusually slow on any of the higher level plans and I thankfully have never seen it impacted to that degree even a couple years ago on the 10 and 15 mbps plans. (I singled out the upload on your really slow test result just because the upload is much slower in comparison to download to each subscriber and as a result or maybe because video is the major bandwidth use which is mostly download I haven't seen the upload sway nearly as much from non peak to peak use periods at least.)

[Gillespie]

I have heard rumors that upgrades are soon to come. As Jeff states many of are are and have been happy with the service although summer does use up the bandwidth! I know people from more than one area in the state who are still on dial up so I feel pretty lucky to have dsl. If the rumors prove true perhaps we will see some improvement soon, let's keep our fingers crossed!

[duffer]

the funny thing is we live in paradise, turn that computer off and go live, for the amount of useless information, its like my mail box, mostly junk mail. so i say live and enjoy life get a some sun and read a book! JUST SAYING!

[Beaver Island Jewelry]

Jeff - TDS looked at it for about 1 hour and Rick looked at it and it still is upload around 0.38. I pay for 5 mbps.

Well - at least we have internet here!

nancy