Does Charter cap gigabit differently in regions?

jarablue

So I used to have a 1160 megabit cap on my download. I had it this way for about 6 moths after speaking with retention and going with fios. I noticed this cap was pretty much being hit nightly on my side. No problem. Then one night my modem rebooted and my cap then and now has been 100megabits exactly lower at 1060 download. I have 0 issues with my cabling or connection. I have a 2.5gig nic and my modem has a 2.5gig nic in it as well. This was not an issue for half a year. Has anyone else noticed this with their gig connection? Makes me wonder if my headend is doing this for management of the network in my region. I find it funny that it is exactly 100 megabit less than what I used to get back when they offered me a better rate from going with verizon.

Motorola870

jarablue They changed the expected top out speeds on the broadband label website some months back not sure if they touched the config file cap out speeds. They lowered the upstream expected on the gig tier when they added the 2 gig download broadband label. The changes shouldn’t drop you below the advertised 1000/35Mbps speeds just they cut the over-provisioning.

quite frankly I can see them lowering the config file overprovisioning to save on capacity. They seem to be trying to keep from adding OFDM capacity unless absolutely necessary. By default they use a 96MHz wide block to be able to handle the gig tier and I believe it is doubled for 2gig areas that have at least 1 active customer who has ordered the new tier. They seem to not be in a hurry to go up to 1GHz in high-split markets yet.

Jaybonaut

You can check the broadband label. It tells you what they provision you for. Here: https://bcl.spectrum.com/

CBusdude

Jaybonaut That isn’t true, they provision for higher than the broadband label but that is just the “average user experience”

Jaybonaut

CBusdude Which link would you like to provide him that will give him the answers he seeks instead? I would be interested in bookmarking your site that shows what the higher provision listings are for my connection as well.

terabitz

Jaybonaut Assuming they still overprovision by 15-20%, but the customer may not see that full amount on speedtests due to subscriber demands on the node. The broadband label is just a guesstimate and basically a way for Charter to have their asses covered if the customer complains that they are not seeing the full amount of bandwidth that the label says they are “typically” supposed to get.

MacLeech

jarablue So I used to have a 1160 megabit cap on my download. I had it this way for about 6 moths after speaking with retention and going with fios.

It was probably a mistake when the original config file was written, or their engineering group thought better of it and reduced the speed slightly to avoid congestion a little longer. Headend has zero control over modem config files or provisioning. Either way, you’re stuck with what Charter configures it at no matter what they do in other areas.

You should go back to FIOS. You can get 5 or 10gbps there, and you want to pay for it, right? You’ll be able to send those gold images of discs you create for DR services at your job at a much faster rate and be happier. I am amazed you would EVER choose to pay Spectrum since FIOS offers at least 1gbps upload speeds in their GPON areas. 😘

jarablue

I am moving soon and will ride it out. Thanks.

CBusdude

Jaybonaut Which link would you like to provide him that will give him the answers he seeks instead? I would be interested in bookmarking your site that shows what the higher provision listings are for my connection as well.

I don’t think Charter posts what they provision the modems for exactly. I really don’t know any ISP that does. I can just say the speeds I get exceed what the bcl.spectrum.com website says by about 100mbps (I typically see anywhere from 1120-1160mbps on the download although I’ve noticed over the past month or so it has been closer to the low end during peak times where it used to be towards the high end at all times before. I will say Charter only promises 1000/35 so unless you’re getting less than that there’s nothing they’ll do about it. And the broadband nutrition labels are supposed to show the “average expected experience” so it can be a good gauge as to how your speeds stack up on average it won’t tell you anything about what the provisioned speeds are.

Man-of-Leisure

MacLeech I am amazed you would EVER choose to pay Spectrum since FIOS offers at least 1gbps upload speeds in their GPON areas

Why? Tons of people in fiber areas still pick cable.

You’re the one who usually cites the 30% fiber penetration rates lol

Pretty much no one needs 1Gb upload for anything at home.

CommunityMember

Man-of-Leisure Pretty much no one needs 1Gb upload for anything at home.

And no one needs more than 640K of ram. That statement, also, did not age well (and neither will much of anything else you say).

MacLeech

Man-of-Leisure Why? Tons of people in fiber areas still pick cable.

Pretty much no one needs 1Gb upload for anything at home.

Follow the link in my post, it’s just before the part of my post you quoted.

jarablue desperately wants Charter to have faster upload speeds (5 or 10gb that he claims a “majority” of other providers offer) so he can upload large files faster for his remote IT job. He claimed he was willing to pay more for it, so apparently it’s not a cost issue. YOU even argued with him about it in the discussion I linked to. He previously made it seem like Charter was his only option and has ranted about their slow speeds (including their current upgrades to increase upload to 1gb, which is 25x over what he currently has) countless times over the last 2 decades. It’s a disingenuous argument if he has FIOS available.

CommunityMember

MacLeech It’s a disingenuous argument if he has FIOS available.

It is further disingenuous if he is willing to pay, as he can also get a Metro-E provider to run fiber to him (most locations have at least one such provider, and some have dozens). Not cheap, of course, but if cost is not an issue…..

Man-of-Leisure

CommunityMember And no one needs more than 640K of ram. That statement, also, did not age well (and neither will much of anything else you say).

I didn’t say forever lol I said today.

Though I still can’t imagine what for. Unless you run a video production studio out of your home or something, most people aren’t generating large amounts of data at home that they need to upload.

Chris123NT

Man-of-Leisure you’re not wrong at all, noone needs a gig upload, but I think most would like their advertised 20-40mb to be there when they need it, and Charter can’t even do that in most areas these days. I’m currently waiting to be hooked up to a local fiber provider after not being able to even maintain a stable twitch stream on and off for the past 4 years because every time myself and the neighbors complain they slap a bandaid on it and 3 months later we’re back to square one. If they can’t even muster 20-40mb, “symmetrical” is going to be an absolute shit show in this area lol.

rebus9

Chris123NT
Upload continues to matter more. Take Windows 11 and its fetish for syncing everything up to OneDrive by default. Offload 50 GB of photos from your phone to PC, and automatically the PC sends a full copy to OneDrive. About 6 hours on 500/20 cable, but under 10 minutes on gigabit fiber.

Backup a TB of misc stuff to Backblaze and it’s 2 hours on fiber, versus 4 days on cable. I don’t do big uploads very often, but when I do I’m thankful for the speed.

Man-of-Leisure

rebus9 Backup a TB of misc stuff to Backblaze

How many people do you think do that?

CommunityMember

Man-of-Leisure Though I still can’t imagine what for.

I do not recall anyone on this board to have ever stated that they doubt your lack of …. imagination.

Man-of-Leisure

CommunityMember Tell me, what do you need 1Gb upload for?

Chris123NT

Man-of-Leisure It’s not so much an immediate need, but the internet is not a consumption only platform anymore as most Cable ISP’s assumed 25 years ago when they jumped on the bandwagon of asymmetric services. Now the internet is just as much a platform for creation and there are legitimate needs for that kind of connectivity. Do most need it right now? No, but Cable ISP’s need to face the stark reality that they either get with the times or get left in the dust by competition within the next five years, and that’s assuming that ISP’s like Charter can even offer the upload they advertise, and in my neck of the woods they definitely cannot, my upload speeds drop to below 2mbps during peak and I get told it’s normal. So now that fiber is about to be available here I’m voting with my wallet and going to a superior offering in every way.