Short version of the story is as follows: I've had issues with Centurylink for years; mostly with slow speeds. Sometimes it works ok for a few months, then goes bad again, but it's never really great. No other internet options here though, so I deal with it. About a month ago, download speeds got absolutely abysmal. I'm supposed to get 1.5Mbps, but was getting download speeds around 30 to 50 KB/s. I called in, had a tech come out, they said more or less that nothing was wrong, and he'd have to check a few things on their side. About 2 weeks later, nothing had changed, so I called again. They sent another tech out, who gave me a new modem, stating my old one (a Zyxel PK5001Z) is just a bad modem overall and is known to be unreliable. The new modem is a Zyxel C1100Z.
The download speeds have improved a bit, though they're still not normal. However, now the ping time is fluctuating wildly, and is never stable. Before, when I had internet issues, they would always level off after midnight or so. Download speeds would come back, and ping would settle down to where most online games would have a stable ping of around 100. Now it doesn't matter whether it's 3P.M. or 2 A.M., the ping never seems to go below 200 for anything.
Now I'm used to seeing some CRC errors on my connection, but with the new modem I'm seeing a large increase in near-end RS FEC Corrections. While I don't fully understand what they are, my understanding of it is that they're essentially retransmissions of data that didn't go through properly. Which would make sense in regards to my highly fluctuating ping (as well as my packet loss). However, I don't know what constitutes a "near end" correction. Is it an error in transmission from my PC to my modem? From my modem to the DSLAM? From the DSLAM to me? I feel like I need to know, as after 4 days of uptime, I had over 6 million (Yes, 6 million) near-end RS FEC Corrections. I restarted my modem 40 minutes ago, and am currently sitting at 2843 errors. I'm hoping against all hope that if I can track down what's causing these errors I'll be able to fix my connection issues.
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