all of the sudden my new internet service sucks. why?

thetrooper · EVDO Newbie Joined: 20 Apr 2009 Posts: 9

I switched to alltel internet from satellite and it was great i was getting 1200 download speed and 300 upload speed with an antenna. until 2 weeks ago all of the sudden im getting 180 download speed and 70 upload speed. i dont have any hardware issues ive tried with and without my antenna, router, and on different computers. alltel has been called about 4 times with no help. does alltel let you have good service for the first month then cut you down to dial up speed? whats the deal?

daddyzlod · EVDO Newbie Joined: 28 May 2009 Posts: 3

I have had Alltel wireless, just outside of Birchwood, WI., since Apr.1st.
of 2008, and the speed was real good, up until about 4 months ago, and
then it went in the crapper, as about the same time that Verizon took them
over. Calls to Alltel resulted in advanced tech., telling me that the trouble
ticket shows that, I am not in their coverage area, but still getting 77Kbs
down, which they can't figure out, and they offered to let me out of the
contract, but I told him no, that I will limp along, and cancel if the speed gets
any worse than the fast dial up, that it is now, for $65.00 a month.
When I signed the contract, they said that I was in the coverage area.
On June 1st. I will be cancel my two phones with them, which we have had
for 4 years now, and contract is up on the last new phone on July 10th.
Alltel has gone from a real good company to deal with, to a piece of you know what, in short order. If I have to, I will go back to dial up, as the page loading now, is not much better.
So buyer beware. I will not use Verizon, as I have read to many horror
stories on the web, about them.

Bert65 · Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:13 pm Post subject:

thetrooper wrote: "does alltel let you have good service for the first month then cut you down to dial up speed? whats the deal?"

Not to my knowledge, I have had Alltel service for about 9 mos. and once I got the modem located for best signal it has remained fairly constant. A month or more past rev A came online in my area and while it hasn't increased my d/l speed there was a big improvement in my u/l speed. And when the leaves came out my speeds decreased slightly.

You state you have an antenna, is it outside? If so was there a storm or high winds in your area 2 weeks ago. Check the antenna for damage or if it has shifted due to winds.

gamer411 · EVDO User Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 39

Yes i agree alltel SUCKS now, it makes me sad really......for a year it worked so good and me and my wife could game and DL at the same time if we wanted to. Now we can barely browse and listen to Sirius radio at the same time....Oh and we used to be on DO now we are on R-A, so that makes it sting even worse, now that 60 a month for this crap is making my stomach turn!

So lets see, 600 dollars to install satellite internet, 60 a month for crap, 240.00 for a air card router, 80 for an antenna, 60 a month for dial ups retarded sibling (evdo POST verizon takeover).......oh and the 2 game accounts that are paid for a year which are now rotting away, along with all the relationships i built up in the game because i cant log in to play due to being throttled on a "unlimited" plan..........So i guess us ppl 10 mins out of town arent good enough to get decent internet after all this sh*t, saddest part is i am one of MANY who are held back on whatever they do on the internet due to where we live.

Oh and one last thing........i hear ppl complaining their downloads arent going at 250kbps and are actually going at 100 on their cable or DSL internet, oh and lets not forget FIOS, such a tragic story to hear i tell ya!

Evil or Very Mad

frostedflakes · EVDO User Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 43

My main experience with internet through Alltel is that performance varies, A LOT. I've had Alltel EVDO for about 2.5 years and there have been plenty of times where internet service will just kind of suck for a few days or weeks. Maybe call up tech support and see if they have any ideas, but if not I'd just stick it out for a few more weeks, hopefully performance should improve.

I'm actually having the same problem, my download/upload drops to about 200/100 at night. Maybe just network congestion or something, because I can get good speeds (1Mbps+, more in line with what I had been getting all the time) during the day. Verizon might also be doing work on the network and that could be hurting performance. I'd imagine it's no simple task merging the Alltel infrastructure they've obtained with their own.

Either that or they're throttling us. I use WAY more than 5GB/mo, probably closer to 30GB/mo, so it's possible. Sad

gamer411 · EVDO User Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 39

basically 30 seconds after i start a download on a p2p network my internet crashes for about 5 mins, and i cant even bring up a website.....and the same thing happens when i try and play online.

whyzeman · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 128

Good. I'm glad I wasn't the only one that experienced the coincidental super high speed during the trial period then sucky service when the "You can cancel for 200 bucks" clock starts.

Jimmyjoe Jimbob · EVDO Newbie Joined: 28 May 2009 Posts: 4 Location: THE 903

Going on a year, mine doesn't seem to be throttled

F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 196

This has been going on for a few months for me now. Used to get 1800 down on DO, and now I'm on Rev A i haven't seen anything above 1300, and these speeds are all too commonplace.

whyzeman · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 128

Sympathize with me... Sad

F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 196

This is about normal for me these days. I wish the d/l would go back the way it was, but I do appreciate the extra upload.

thetrooper · EVDO Newbie Joined: 20 Apr 2009 Posts: 9

alltel sent me a new usb card and the same thing happened. i had the same high speed as i did before. 6 weeks later and now its back to the same slow speed. alltel isn't going to give me a new on this time so ive been stuck with a consistently slow speed for 2 months.

I believe my theory is true now that i have been through the same thing twice.

The card must be programmed to stop its high performance after 6 weeks.

Both times during the first 6 weeks i had the same top speed but it was inconsistent at times when the tower should be busy.

Both times after the first 6 weeks my internet had a consistently slow speed. since the slow speed is consistent it seems like the card has been cut off from its correct signal or something.

And as soon as i got the new usb modem it was back to high speed for 6 weeks.

Jimbob111 · EVDO User Joined: 22 Dec 2005 Posts: 26 Location: Arkansas

8 months ago I was getting greater than 2.4m downloads regularly. Now, my connections are sporadic, even before the great Verizon Meltdown two weeks ago when most of their national data network was down (according to their tech support guys).

I say just keep calling tech support about the speeds. I have no idea what the problem is but initially tech support wants me to reactivate my card. Again and again, I've reactivated the card, changed the MIN and SID per their request and nothing...I'm lucky to log on here.

The first time I called tech support the girl on the phone couldn't even update my prl...she said she would try to email it to me "if I could figure out how to install it"...and then, her grand suggestion for "fixing" my connectivity issue was "maybe you should just exchange your device, Verizon doesn't recognize this device" for my kyocera kpc680.

I couldn't quite get her to understand that it didn't make sense to exchange a device and sign a new 2 yr contract for a service that didn't work...never mind that according to Verizon, they're using the same equipment as before.

In short, I've given them 3 weeks so far to iron out the kinks in my area and so far, nothing. Sprint's looking better and better. Coverage is the same in my area.

GLTurn57 · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:27 am Post subject: Me too!

I just signed up for wireless internet service with Alltel back on July,2nd this year. This is EVDO Rev A. I also got a Huawei EC168 USB card.

For the first three weeks, 24 days to be exact it was great. Download speeds were running 1600 to 2000 kbps with a 100 percent signal all the time day or night. This was on both my desktop and laptop.

Then on the morning of the 26th it went into the crapper. Now on my desktop most of the time it's around 600 kbps. I rarely get 800 to 1300 kbps D/L speeds tops. Sometimes it'll switch to EVDO Rev 0 or RTTx1 in which case I then can't load anything because my browser times out. Also there's a slight delay of one to several seconds before it'll respond.

On my laptop it's much worse. Five to sixty percent signal. Download speed 600 kbps tops.

BTW my desktop is running XP 32 bit SP3. The laptop Vista 64 bit SP2.

Maybe Alltel does up the performance during the trial period then throttles it down after that.

I have another ten months on my contract. At sixty six bucks a month it should be a whole lot better. Mad

runkittyrun · EVDO Newbie Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 3

wow. lots of complaining and not much relevant information

to my knowledge alltel does nothing after certain service period is past, just an easy escape goat rather than excepting something is having an effect on it

1- prl issue (rather wrong tower being chosen for connections)
2- # users in your area increased
3- signal issue

while it might seem like verizon purchase is cause of all your blames, i dont belive they have had inpact on the alltel systems directly as of yet, althow alot of people have been getting alltel data cards recently do to the different data limit policy and knowing it will merge to verizon, it is a shared bandwidth tech so spike in users in your area could effect it

i believe roaming agreements might have changed between alltel and sprint, so if you were pulling from a sprint tower that was closer to your location and now your signal is coming from farther distance this would effect your speed

- if your using qlm go to help > about and look for the PRL version it should be 400xx, if it is 300xx then its evdo list but for phones and not data cards, and 200xx would be non-evdo, if it starts with anything else it is not an alltel prl and will need to be corrected, possibly manually unless your lucky enough to be able to fix it over the air, if it is 400XX series check with someone at alltel if its most current, if it is you may want to try prl's 40036 and 40031, i dont know if alltel doesn't offer these or cant legally, but you will need to get these on your own

so on prls…
- check your prl and make sure its the current 400-xx version
- if current prl not work for you try prl's 40036 then 40031

also good to know if rssi has changed, or rather the signal strength

also check the status for DO or RA, if it has to drop to maintain connection threshold, kinda like a fax that trys highest speed first then drops till it finds stable point, you will need to disconnect then reconnect to reestablish your higher connection speed

* @thetrooper - (alltel sent me a new usb card and the same thing happened. i had the same high speed as i did before. 6 weeks later and now its back to the same slow speed.) i'd bet money you have a prl issue, you'll probably need to downgrade to prl 40036(or slightly lower), btw which model and were both original and new card the same? the card comes pre-programed with a prl that is often out of date, either new prl was pushed to it that sees bad tower or it might of got non-alltel prl or 300xx/200xx series prl incorrectly which would be funny but good to know if this is happening for others

* @GLTurn57 - have cellphones at your location dropped signal at same time also, mabey tower issue, if alltel cellphones aren't having signal issue then you most likely have a prl issue, thou damaged antenna or hardware is a very small possibility

*as far as dial-up goes 77kbs is hardly dial-up if your talking throughput dial-up has performance of 4.6 to 7.8kb acctual download speeds if i recall correctly

*also if you use external antenna wouldn't hurt to check it or look over the cord, mostly areas with bends or if ran threw window or door check pinch areas and also the connection ends, could also check with an ohm meter for broken continuity, also i know a few people that have put nails in antenna cords, so if you see something shiny sticking out your cord, probably good time to replace it Razz

** (I will not use Verizon, as I have read to many horror
stories on the web, about them.) i'm not sure when you read these stories but verizon is one of the highest rated company customer service wise today, so either they are old or like you said are stories, course with any company that has 70-80 million+ customer you are bound to have few unhappy people, cant please everyone and all that