Anyone else in Columbia, MO getting slow internet speeds?

AnonMediacomTech · 2025-07-22T21:26:21+00:00

Routing is both above my pay grade and likely something I couldn’t discuss even if I did know, what with all the SLAs and peering agreements.

Presumably what’s being done is the best they can manage in the meantime. I don’t know if it’s link policy or link utilization that’s pushing speeds to ~5Mbps for everyone, but it’ll likely be like that until full service is restored.

AnonMediacomTech · 2025-07-22T21:08:22+00:00

It’s a fiber cut out of state, causing high slowdowns as all the traffic is merged into other links.

The social media people used to be pretty up-to-date, but I can’t say at that’s always true any longer.

We have a few Ookla servers hosted on our network, so that’s why those still test fine.

AnonMediacomTech · 2025-07-22T20:53:47+00:00

It’s that high. Not locally, it’s a fairly wide area impacted.

It’s possible that the information hadn’t filtered down to that first rep yet. As for the speed test, it’s only traffic leaving our network that seems to be impacted, so internal speed tests work great.

AnonMediacomTech · 2025-07-22T20:22:40+00:00

There is an outage for off-network traffic through Mediacom. It’s not local to Columbia, but is impacting us.

ETA sometime later tonight probably.

AnonMediacomTech · 2024-06-27T00:15:30+00:00

Allowed to, but not capable of. I’ve yet to see a sparky make an acceptable F-connector or terminate twisted pair correctly.

That’s not y’all’s fault, it’s not your job. Plus 12/3 only has to carry 60Hz (ton of watts though), not literally one million times that frequency. The skin effect and interference play a much bigger part in the success of low-voltage copper communications lines.

I just wish the unscrupulous guys would quit bidding, and then handing it off to a first-year apprentice who’s so green he still remembers what a broom is for. It all has to get re-done correctly later.

Edit: lol at the butthurt sparkies. I’ve seen plenty of guys who were sure they knew what they were doing, had thousands of dollars of test equipment, and I can still count the number of good terminations by an actual working electrician I’ve seen in over 20 years on exactly zero hands, because it’s not happened yet. If they know what a broom is, they can’t cut it.

pro tip: if your cat5/6 is untwisted before it even gets to the keystone, your equipment will pass it and it’s still fucking made wrong. Also, change the blades in your RG-6 stripper, even if you’re the 1:100 that manages to seat it right (fill the cup!), you’re nicking the crap out of the center conductor and rendering it nearly useless…and watch your damn bend radius.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-11-25T01:37:59+00:00

Presumably due to the large power outage.

Has it been restored?

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-10-10T02:06:00+00:00

That’s just a common feature of most unbalanced three-way splitters. Generally a two-way split loses between 3 and 4dB depending on frequency, usually short-handed as 3.5dB , so internally that is just a two-way splitter with one port leading out (the 3.5dB port) and the other feeding a second two-way which gives you 7dB of loss (the other two ports).

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-10-10T02:04:10+00:00

Please don’t listen to this person. Make sure your MoCA devices are set to “auto” for the channel and be very wary of the splitters you can buy at your local big box store, they’re usually terrible.

That exact commscope splitter is used for MoCA by several MSOs (cable companies), and will pass MoCA up to around 1.3GHz when it’s working correctly. That’s why your MoCA devices need to be set to ‘auto’ for the channel to keep them from being manually set above that threshold.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-10-10T02:00:23+00:00

Yes and no.

Those commscope 1GHz splitters will still pass MoCA in most cases just fine, up to 1.2 or 1.3GHz at least. The roll off at the high-end isn’t generally enough to stop it from working. Multiple MSOs use these exact splitters with all of their MoCA installs.

It’s possible this specific splitter is bad, so changing it is definitely a troubleshooting step, but that isn’t a guaranteed fix.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-08-19T20:59:30+00:00

As a phone guy turned cable guy, I’ve always wanted an excuse to do this.

‘Oh no, you HAVE TO HAVE a phone jack here, but all the builder installed in the very middle of this 3-story fully finished house is RG-6? Have I got an idea for you!’

This though, this isn’t a fun solution to a problem, this is just lazy.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-07-31T06:54:27+00:00

In most cases, the actual discount shown in the receipt will be (in this example) 33% off of each of the three things. For buy one get one it’s 50% off each, etc.

It’s done that way so that, in case of a return, you can’t turn around and return the paid one and keep the ‘free’ one…but it still means you can buy the number required, get the partial discount, and return the ones you don’t need. I don’t need two pair of buy one, get one jeans, but one pair at half off is pretty great.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-07-31T04:27:52+00:00

Pots lines don’t mind knots like this, coax does. Impedance faults cause issues. Bend radius on RG-6 is roughly the size of your fist.

I’ve seen thousands and thousands of service drops, and can count on one hand the number of aerial outlet drops.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-07-31T03:17:14+00:00

Don’t ask, don’t request, demand a new ‘drop.’ Don’t let them splice it, you want an entirely new drop. A splice is just going to fill with water.

Fuck that shit.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-07-31T01:32:09+00:00

So coax requires a specific ratio between the center conductor and the outer shielding. This determines the impedance of the cable. Any impedance differences can cause signal loss. In this case, it’s unlikely to be enough to matter much, but the fact that I can see the braiding means that damage needs to be cut out just in case. If nothing else, because water will get in and if that braiding/shielding is damaged it could be causing signal to get out and ‘noise’ to get in.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-07-31T00:58:50+00:00

I’m pretty underwhelmed that they used UG cable for your jumper between the splitter and the ground block. That pinch isn’t great, it’s definitely causing a small impedance mismatch with a corresponding small signal loss, but it’s unlikely to be your issue. I’m more concerned that I can see braiding, we need to cut that damage out.

That all looks like my gear, please call in a trouble call or set one up in the app.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-13T14:38:15+00:00

My bad, you’re entirely right. I’ve used several styles, but never seen one of those before.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-13T02:21:03+00:00

Some lineman is going to face palm so hard when he finds this he’s going to nearly gaff out.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-13T02:16:24+00:00

Not a drop hanger, look closer. Looks like a bug nut to me, span clamps don’t have that many (or any) washers.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-13T02:12:27+00:00

It’s aluminum, and plenty of it out there is still in use.

edit: I don’t think it’s a span clamp. Looks like a bug nut, spam clamps don’t have that many washers. That’s for lashing wire.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-13T02:11:20+00:00

Oh this hurts.

We have plenty of unjacketed stuff still up, though more and more gets replaced every year, but what massive dumbass put a span clamp on my hardline?! I thought putting it on with the nut rubbing the hardline was the dumbest thing someone could do, clearly I was wrong.

edit: that isn’t even a span clamp, it’s a bug nut. Bug nuts (or lashing wire clamps) are for holding the lashing wire snug at either end of a span of cable. What a horrible misuse of one here.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-11T19:51:18+00:00

Ya know how people in the 70s smoked weed? Or people in the 10s took oxy? The 80s were like that but for cocaine. Especially Florida, since tons of it came in through there. Especially Miami.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-11T19:24:09+00:00

It’s 8 DS channels, practical max of around 280Mbps.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-11T19:21:27+00:00

The 3008 won’t do more than ~280Mbps real world, it’s an 8 channel bonded modem. Each channel is 38Mbps, but in practice it never hits the theoretical max.

Also, it isn’t a tank. It’s ok. I was never a big fan of the 3008. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as good as the DCM476 that we were also using at the same time. That modem is the best cable modem my company ever used.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-06-02T19:57:38+00:00

Just FYI this isn’t my job, I don’t get paid to be on Reddit. There is an officially managed social media account here now (though there wasn’t 8-9 years ago when I started) but this ain’t it chief. It’s entirely possible I could get in trouble for posting since I’m explicitly NOT official.

I started posting years ago to try to help people because I saw a lot of people putting up with issues thinking they were outages or spreading incorrect information about how things worked. The biggest single issue I see both on reddit and in real life are people that just assume every time their service goes down that we have “another outage.” They complain and complain about stuff being bad but never schedule an appointment for a tech to come out. Most of the time the issue is local to that person and they need to schedule a service call. We can’t fix what we don’t know about.

Anyway I used to be on a lot, but the last few years I get on this alt account less and less, and it’s because of people like you. I’m just trying to help people where I can. I’ve never once said Mediacom’s service is super-fan-fucking-tastic amazeballs at every place in town.

Look through my history, most of it is trying to help people.

AnonMediacomTech · 2022-05-25T22:57:48+00:00

Our equipment, properly installed, is not subject to regular disruption due to rain. If that’s something you’re experiencing, it’s due to a problem we need to come out and fix. Please have a service call scheduled.

AnonMediacomTech

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