Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
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Tony_In_Mexico
MexicoPete
Trailrunner
brigitte
Pogo
9 posters
Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I posted this on TOB after reading yet another post about slow internet speeds and poor service from Telmex:
My story might be interesting in this context. I got sick of speeds below 1meg down for the majority of time (some times I got up to 2.5 late at night). So I called Telmex service and inquired about more speed. The service tech went away to check the infrastructure in my neighborhood. Then came back and told me that all was well for me to get up to 10Mbps if I bought the $599 package. I said yes and he told me to check in about 2 hours.
Sure enough, 2 hours later I had 9.5 Mbps down. I was deliriously happy. Unfortunately, the 9.5 Mbps. only lasted for two days. On Monday, the speed was back down to 1.2 Mbps. And it stayed there for the next two days - during which time I called and spoke to Telmex service multiple times. They finally decided to send a service man out to check the wiring and the modem. All was well with that. Then he checked the download speed - first on his equipment; then on my speed test app (Ookla Speedtest). Guess what! My download speed was suddenly up to 9.7 Mbps!!!! We agreed there was not much chance of actually getting 10 Mbps, but 9.7 would do very nicely. I thanked him profusely and he left.
Next day my speed was down to 1.4Mbps!
So I called again. Same deal. They sent the service guy out two days later. He came in, checked the speed on his equipment, then on my speedtest. Voila!!! The download speed was 9.8Mbps!!! I said 'Thanks.' He went away. I was suspicious.
Next morning - same thing. Speed was 1.3Mbps. Stayed that way throughout the day. I started calling at 5pm, asking for the English-speaking woman I had last talked to who sent the serviceman out the second time. When I finally got her on the phone, I calmly, gently explained all of the above events. She promised she would get to the bottom of this and have it repaired. She left the phone for a good 15 min. and finally came back saying she had explained all of what I said to her supervisor. She said they were sending the serviceman out first thing in the morning. If the same thing happened, I was to call her directly just as I had done before.
Next morning, the same serviceman was at my door. We went through the same dance. Checked the speed - 9.8Mbps!!! He left. An hour later, I checked the speed - 1.4 Mbps. I started calling Telmex immediately. The service tech I spoke to was not in. She was not in all day. This time I had to speak to a male tech named Jonathon. I told him the whole story. He said Marianna, the previous tech with the supervisor, was not at work today. But he would help me get to the bottom of this and get it fixed. Then he started into all the same questions: what was my name, what was my number, what was my . . . blah, blah, blah. I said I had given all that information - several times. It had to be there in the file. He said there was nothing in the file - no record of my having called before . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I said, "I see."
And now I really do see. I see that this whole service thing is a scam to keep a probable hundreds or thousands of Telmex customers upgrading their package in the false hope of getting faster speed. But it is a silly, false hope. But they make a lot of short-term money on it. And they do not have to pay for any more bandwidth. They just keep switching on the limited number of 10Mbps. lines whenever a customer complains long enough. Then they switch it off. And blame it on some ghost in the machine.
Too bad this does not seem to be a community wherein you can mobilize people to take the definitive action that makes all financial rip-off artists like Telmex, Pemex, Bank of America, Chase, Monsanto, etc. (you know who they are) quit their tyrannical ways. All you have to do is quit. That's all. If we quit buying their products or services - even for short periods of time - they get real nervous. Because their stockholders get real nervous. And then things straightened out for awhile. Until they get comfortable again. Then they start squeezing again. But all we have to do is quit again. We don't have to march; we don't have to shout. All we would need to do is announce that all the expats in, say, La Floresta are not going to pay their Telmex bill for the months of April and May. And then announce that all of Chula Vista, up and down, is not going to pay its Telmex bill for June and July. About the time that it is announced that none of the expats in Riberas Del Pilar are going to pay their Telmex bills for the months of August and September because of the absurdly slow internet speed - about then we would have their attention. About then, download speed would be going up and staying up. At least for a while. Yes, it would be inconvenient for a while. And yes, some might lose their phone lines and home broadband service for a while. But guess who would win in the end?
But it will never happen. There would be too much clucking and nay-saying. There would be too many who would sell out for the promises of big rewards that would be announced by Telmex. You could never get this kind of cooperative effort out of this community. Oh no. Uh uh! I am right - right?
My story might be interesting in this context. I got sick of speeds below 1meg down for the majority of time (some times I got up to 2.5 late at night). So I called Telmex service and inquired about more speed. The service tech went away to check the infrastructure in my neighborhood. Then came back and told me that all was well for me to get up to 10Mbps if I bought the $599 package. I said yes and he told me to check in about 2 hours.
Sure enough, 2 hours later I had 9.5 Mbps down. I was deliriously happy. Unfortunately, the 9.5 Mbps. only lasted for two days. On Monday, the speed was back down to 1.2 Mbps. And it stayed there for the next two days - during which time I called and spoke to Telmex service multiple times. They finally decided to send a service man out to check the wiring and the modem. All was well with that. Then he checked the download speed - first on his equipment; then on my speed test app (Ookla Speedtest). Guess what! My download speed was suddenly up to 9.7 Mbps!!!! We agreed there was not much chance of actually getting 10 Mbps, but 9.7 would do very nicely. I thanked him profusely and he left.
Next day my speed was down to 1.4Mbps!
So I called again. Same deal. They sent the service guy out two days later. He came in, checked the speed on his equipment, then on my speedtest. Voila!!! The download speed was 9.8Mbps!!! I said 'Thanks.' He went away. I was suspicious.
Next morning - same thing. Speed was 1.3Mbps. Stayed that way throughout the day. I started calling at 5pm, asking for the English-speaking woman I had last talked to who sent the serviceman out the second time. When I finally got her on the phone, I calmly, gently explained all of the above events. She promised she would get to the bottom of this and have it repaired. She left the phone for a good 15 min. and finally came back saying she had explained all of what I said to her supervisor. She said they were sending the serviceman out first thing in the morning. If the same thing happened, I was to call her directly just as I had done before.
Next morning, the same serviceman was at my door. We went through the same dance. Checked the speed - 9.8Mbps!!! He left. An hour later, I checked the speed - 1.4 Mbps. I started calling Telmex immediately. The service tech I spoke to was not in. She was not in all day. This time I had to speak to a male tech named Jonathon. I told him the whole story. He said Marianna, the previous tech with the supervisor, was not at work today. But he would help me get to the bottom of this and get it fixed. Then he started into all the same questions: what was my name, what was my number, what was my . . . blah, blah, blah. I said I had given all that information - several times. It had to be there in the file. He said there was nothing in the file - no record of my having called before . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I said, "I see."
And now I really do see. I see that this whole service thing is a scam to keep a probable hundreds or thousands of Telmex customers upgrading their package in the false hope of getting faster speed. But it is a silly, false hope. But they make a lot of short-term money on it. And they do not have to pay for any more bandwidth. They just keep switching on the limited number of 10Mbps. lines whenever a customer complains long enough. Then they switch it off. And blame it on some ghost in the machine.
Too bad this does not seem to be a community wherein you can mobilize people to take the definitive action that makes all financial rip-off artists like Telmex, Pemex, Bank of America, Chase, Monsanto, etc. (you know who they are) quit their tyrannical ways. All you have to do is quit. That's all. If we quit buying their products or services - even for short periods of time - they get real nervous. Because their stockholders get real nervous. And then things straightened out for awhile. Until they get comfortable again. Then they start squeezing again. But all we have to do is quit again. We don't have to march; we don't have to shout. All we would need to do is announce that all the expats in, say, La Floresta are not going to pay their Telmex bill for the months of April and May. And then announce that all of Chula Vista, up and down, is not going to pay its Telmex bill for June and July. About the time that it is announced that none of the expats in Riberas Del Pilar are going to pay their Telmex bills for the months of August and September because of the absurdly slow internet speed - about then we would have their attention. About then, download speed would be going up and staying up. At least for a while. Yes, it would be inconvenient for a while. And yes, some might lose their phone lines and home broadband service for a while. But guess who would win in the end?
But it will never happen. There would be too much clucking and nay-saying. There would be too many who would sell out for the promises of big rewards that would be announced by Telmex. You could never get this kind of cooperative effort out of this community. Oh no. Uh uh! I am right - right?
Pogo- Share Holder
- Posts : 215
Join date : 2010-09-26
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
e have a similar proble with Megacable and CNNinternational.The sound is so bad you cannot understand it , you complain it ges fixed for a day and then goes back to bad. They do not come to te house to fix it..they must have some kind of switch somewhere. I am going there for the 3rd time but this time I am going to ask for the money back for the service I am going to go and complain to PROFECO.. if they do not give me he money as I am paying for something I cannot use....good luck to me..
brigitte- Share Holder
- Posts : 4318
Join date : 2011-12-02
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
Pogo, why not use Telecable?
Trailrunner- Share Holder
- Posts : 8024
Join date : 2011-04-18
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
Sorry you are having such bad luck. I would be quite mad and find another alternative if I were you. I usually get about
I suspect though that they turn my speed down to 50% of that during Easter weekend. Several folks who live a block further away from Telmex than I do were also forced to change providers. They went to Telecable.
However the fastest service of all is Telcel 4G not 3 but 4G I have seen more than 30 megs down by more than 15 megs up on my iPhone 6 which has a 4g chip. The problem is though that the cost per meg of download is terribly high.
I suspect though that they turn my speed down to 50% of that during Easter weekend. Several folks who live a block further away from Telmex than I do were also forced to change providers. They went to Telecable.
However the fastest service of all is Telcel 4G not 3 but 4G I have seen more than 30 megs down by more than 15 megs up on my iPhone 6 which has a 4g chip. The problem is though that the cost per meg of download is terribly high.
MexicoPete- Share Holder
- Posts : 2275
Join date : 2012-04-21
Age : 104
Location : Ajijic, Seattle, & Vancouver Island
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I consistently get between 9.5 and 10.5 day or night, every day. However, I do have this weird thing where I'll lose internet completely for up to about 30 seconds. Sometimes happens as many as 3 times a day. However, I suspect this is an internal issue.
* LOL - it actually happened again moments ago. I pushed send and get a message from firefox saying the server can't be found. Internet just gone. Refresh about 8 times and poof! It's back. Again, thinking this might be an internal issue somehow.
* LOL - it actually happened again moments ago. I pushed send and get a message from firefox saying the server can't be found. Internet just gone. Refresh about 8 times and poof! It's back. Again, thinking this might be an internal issue somehow.
Tony_In_Mexico- Share Holder
- Posts : 142
Join date : 2012-10-04
Location : Chapala
Humor : Consistantly misunderstood
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I waited two weeks to get our phone and internet hooked up. The day they installed the phone, no internet connection. They said it was a server being upgraded. Never heard of one being upgraded off line. Anyway two or three, wait 24 to 72 hours and we'll have a tech come out. Right. I was in their office every three days. Three weeks of no internet and they only adjust my bill 50 pesos?! My internet finally came on one morning out of the blue! I credit it to our handyman who said he would call someone he knew. That was the day before it came on. I guess its back to who you know!
NEGringos- Share Holder
- Posts : 182
Join date : 2014-09-18
Age : 71
Location : Chapala
Humor : Warped
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
MexicoPete wrote:Sorry you are having such bad luck. I would be quite mad and find another alternative if I were you. I usually get about
I suspect though that they turn my speed down to 50% of that during Easter weekend. Several folks who live a block further away from Telmex than I do were also forced to change providers. They went to Telecable.
However the fastest service of all is Telcel 4G not 3 but 4G I have seen more than 30 megs down by more than 15 megs up on my iPhone 6 which has a 4g chip. The problem is though that the cost per meg of download is terribly high.
I appreciate your sentiments, Pete. Thank you. However, there is no viable alternative - and that is part of the problem. Telecable is even less reliable than Telmex. Believe me; I have checked with several Telecable customers (interestingly enough, of the eight I talked to, all had switched to Telecable because of trouble with Telmex speed). I think it is quite likely that Telmex knows that Telecable is even more problematic than is Telmex. That may be part of the reason they are not feeling a lot of pressure to fix this problem.
But fixing this problem is going to take a good deal more of a concentrated effort than merely switching to another service. There is no reason to think that another service would not do the same thing. Give me an example to the contrary and I will switch to it.
No, I believe what you are looking at is an industry standard. Bandwidth cost is going up with the ever increasing worldwide demand. Megaliths like Cisco Systems are making hay - lots and lots of it - before governments start cracking down on them. It is not unlike what is traditionally done in oil, gas, money or any other commodity for which there is huge demand. They can artificially create scarcity by simply raising the price - until people get wbut ise and stop buying. Or, someone decides to flood the market and reduces the demand. What you get is a $3.00 drop in the price of gasoline in a month. They are still making money - lots of it - but less than they were making when it was nearly $5.00 a gallon.
There is a prevailing attitude that says 'there is nothing we can do about it.' And that is why the gouging continues. But there is something we can do about it. We, the consumers, have the ultimate power over price - because we can simply stop buying. Each time I have said this to someone, their argument in reply is the same: "But I need to buy . . . . " And that is very likely true. For example, people need to buy gasoline in order to get to work. For much the same reason, people need to buy internet service in order to get to work. However, what we buy, how we buy and when we buy is very much in our control.
If you got a big enough group of people to agree not to buy gasoline on Tuesday or Thursdays for a month, what do you think might happen to the price of gasoline? The minute that suppliers realized we were serious and that we might do the same thing next month in another city - or that we might do the same thing in Chicago on Mondays and Wednesdays while we do it in New York on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in San Francisco on Fridays and Sundays, in New Orleans on Saturdays and Mondays, and we do that month after month for let's say six months. Guess who would be controlling the price of gasoline in a very short while. It would not be Exxon; I am fairly certain of that.
The same thing can be done with any commodity - including internet service. If you got a big enough group of consumers to withhold payment for a month, and did that in different communities throughout the Telmex service area, do you have any idea of what that would do to their cash flow?
And the argument always is, "Well you could never get a big enough group of people to go along with it and make it work." The argument is nonsense. We already do this with Earth Day. It is now a worldwide phenomenon. The group that started Earth Day has managed to successfully get private people, corporations and governments around the world to turn out their lights in order to help save the planet's ecology. The same group and the same approach could be used to get huge groups of people to withhold their payments for a month, to not buy gas on certain days, to mute all commercials on certain days, to block all internet advertising on certain days, etc. It is form of rolling boycott, but you don't call it a boycott. You call it Earth Day, or Save the Internet Day, or whatever. People will join the effort for a good cause - especially one that gives them a sense of control while doing something good.
This approach to the problem could fix the problems of price gouging, poor service, tyrannical behavior and possibly even poverty, starvation and war. All we have to do is stop buying and/or stop paying for a short period of time. It would clearly demonstrate who has the power over the cost of goods and services. It IS the people who buy; not the people who sell.
Would it work? Who knows? We haven't tried it yet. But what's the worst that could happen? We fail and the situation remains the same. Suppliers remain in power of distribution and Wall Street remains in charge of what we pay. We stand to lose a little or gain a lot. We won't know until we try. In the meanwhile, we have no choice - until we take a chance and try it.
Pogo- Share Holder
- Posts : 215
Join date : 2010-09-26
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I use Telmex and Telecable, as I must have reliable internet. Telmex can only supply five megabyte download speed. Telecable bills me for ten megabytes, but I consistently see close to fifteen megabyte download, with close to two megabyte upload. This is in Riberas, and I have been very happy with the Telecable service. Much less so with the Telmex. It was very unreliable. Now, with both feeding into the house, I do have reliable internet, fast too, if the Telecable is in use.
Charliej- Share Holder
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Age : 78
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I also have both Telmex and Telecable. Telecable has improved in the last year or so. I would in the past call it unreliable but I think much has changed. Telecable is improving its system. Telmex is obviously out of bandwidth and will not put in repeaters. Yes Telmex here is slow due to long distance of phone line but it is more reliable than Telecable but they both go down. Telecable is catching up fast is my point and I would give them a try if Telmex can't supply you with fast internet. I pay 600P for 10 service alone without a phone TV bundle from Telecable.
Z
Z
Zedinmexico- Share Holder
- Posts : 5604
Join date : 2011-10-28
Location : On the hill in Ajijic
Humor : Red Dwarf, Marx Brothers, SCTV
Re: Could we get higher internet speeds? Nah!
I have the exact same problem as the original poster….problem is I live south side and have no other choice. I call about every two weeks, a service guy comes out, great speed and then it is back down. I am tired of dealing with it. I pay the 599 price for the higher speed. Ofter I try to get on and it just spins in space. My problem is where I am located I feel happy to even have internet but if I am paying for the service, I want to get it consistently.
bimini6- Share Holder
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Location : Chapala
Humor : always! It is good for the soul
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