We just dropped our ISP(Windstream) for never once giving us the bandwidth we are paying for. Their excuse was overhead. However I was on a call with their engineering dept and one of their guys read out the QOS and it was for less than what we are paying. When I brought that up they abruptly cut off everyone but the sales guy who continued to try to blow sunshine up my ass despite knowing it was all bullshit.
Oh yeah sales people always think bringing an engineer onto a call is a great idea until they try it a few times. We’re a blunt people who want a fair exchange
Exactly, the reasons I’m an engineer are very tied to the reasons I helped a coworker with her kid’s math homework the other day. I just want to help, to understand things, and to help people understand things
Quality of Service. On the user side, it can be used to ensure high-priority traffic actually gets through first.
In networking, all of the data is bundled into packets. These packets are sort of like a shipping package; They contain a shipping label about where the data packet is going, and how soon it should be delivered. That latter part is QoS. If you have a compatible network, enabling and properly configuring QoS will allow the network to prioritize certain “urgent” data packets over other less urgent packets.
Maybe your large download is a low priority compared to your VoIP traffic. Because the download will still get done eventually if the packets get delayed by a few milliseconds, but if the VoIP packets end up waiting in line then you’ll get stuttering, bad call quality, dropped calls, etc… So QoS ensures those VoIP packets get delivered before the download packets do.
But on the ISP’s side, QoS basically means “we’re throttling the fuck out of you so we don’t have to actually build decent infrastructure.” Because if your neighborhood’s line can only handle 2000Mbps of total traffic, but the ISP has sold 3000Mbps worth of service, the ISP can use QoS to throttle everyone in your neighborhood and ensure that every user on that line still gets connectivity. It’s not the connectivity they were promised, but it’s enough for most people to not notice.
For instance, maybe you have three users with 1000Mbps connections. So when only two of them are using that 2000Mbps line, everything is fine. But when the third user connects, they find that they’re basically locked out. The line is already totally full, so all three users begin experiencing connectivity problems. To avoid this, the ISP uses QoS to throttle everyone; everyone gets throttled down to 666.66Mbps to account for that third user. No single user is getting the promised 1000Mbps, because the ISP has over-sold their infrastructure and is using QoS as a stop-gap to avoid actually upgrading. But since all three users can connect, and most won’t bother actually checking their speeds, the ISP is able to get away with it.
Nah it was very frustrating at the time. However its better since we started the transition to a new provider.
Its not complete yet but it did indeed feel good when my latest in long line of sales reps called me about a new 36 month contract. Windstream is mismanagements prototype. They have achieved greatness in sucking. They have good technical people who are prevented from fixing problems by their clueless management personnel. These people also change all the time. That revolving door there must be spinning at thousands of RPM’s.
On February 15, 2019, the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York ruled that Windstream had defaulted on some of its bonds. Consequent to the ruling, Windstream stock lost about 60% of its value.
On February 25, 2019, Windstream filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in response to a February 15th judgment against the company for $310 million.
In September 2020, emerging from bankruptcy as a privately held company, Windstream successfully completed its financial restructuring process and reduced its debt by over $4 billion.
…
Paul H. Sunu became the president and CEO of Windstream on October 30, 2023. Sunu has been the chairman of the board since 2020. He is an accomplished executive with over 27 years of telecom experience, with a focus on rural telecommunication. He succeeds Tony Thomas, who has decided to depart the Company and step down from the Board, following a distinguished 17 years at Windstream.
It sounds like they didn’t just suck at providing services… At least the old CEO that ran it into the ground is gone, so that’s nice.
That is interesting. That Windstream came to town about 15 years ago, buying the local phone company and almost instantly made the service worse. I did not know they went bankrupt, but it doesn’t surprise me.
We just dropped our ISP(Windstream) for never once giving us the bandwidth we are paying for. Their excuse was overhead. However I was on a call with their engineering dept and one of their guys read out the QOS and it was for less than what we are paying. When I brought that up they abruptly cut off everyone but the sales guy who continued to try to blow sunshine up my ass despite knowing it was all bullshit.
Oh yeah sales people always think bringing an engineer onto a call is a great idea until they try it a few times. We’re a blunt people who want a fair exchange
Yeah because we know how it works behind the curtain.
I didn’t go in engineering to fuck people over. I want to be proud of my work, and the salespeople put their dirty shit all over it.
Exactly, the reasons I’m an engineer are very tied to the reasons I helped a coworker with her kid’s math homework the other day. I just want to help, to understand things, and to help people understand things
Shit, TIL I’m an engineer lol.
QOS?
Quality of service, networking term for rate limiting. Essentially whatever the QOS is set to is the maximum speed you will see.
Quality of Service. On the user side, it can be used to ensure high-priority traffic actually gets through first.
In networking, all of the data is bundled into packets. These packets are sort of like a shipping package; They contain a shipping label about where the data packet is going, and how soon it should be delivered. That latter part is QoS. If you have a compatible network, enabling and properly configuring QoS will allow the network to prioritize certain “urgent” data packets over other less urgent packets.
Maybe your large download is a low priority compared to your VoIP traffic. Because the download will still get done eventually if the packets get delayed by a few milliseconds, but if the VoIP packets end up waiting in line then you’ll get stuttering, bad call quality, dropped calls, etc… So QoS ensures those VoIP packets get delivered before the download packets do.
But on the ISP’s side, QoS basically means “we’re throttling the fuck out of you so we don’t have to actually build decent infrastructure.” Because if your neighborhood’s line can only handle 2000Mbps of total traffic, but the ISP has sold 3000Mbps worth of service, the ISP can use QoS to throttle everyone in your neighborhood and ensure that every user on that line still gets connectivity. It’s not the connectivity they were promised, but it’s enough for most people to not notice.
For instance, maybe you have three users with 1000Mbps connections. So when only two of them are using that 2000Mbps line, everything is fine. But when the third user connects, they find that they’re basically locked out. The line is already totally full, so all three users begin experiencing connectivity problems. To avoid this, the ISP uses QoS to throttle everyone; everyone gets throttled down to 666.66Mbps to account for that third user. No single user is getting the promised 1000Mbps, because the ISP has over-sold their infrastructure and is using QoS as a stop-gap to avoid actually upgrading. But since all three users can connect, and most won’t bother actually checking their speeds, the ISP is able to get away with it.
Did it at least feel good?
Nah it was very frustrating at the time. However its better since we started the transition to a new provider.
Its not complete yet but it did indeed feel good when my latest in long line of sales reps called me about a new 36 month contract. Windstream is mismanagements prototype. They have achieved greatness in sucking. They have good technical people who are prevented from fixing problems by their clueless management personnel. These people also change all the time. That revolving door there must be spinning at thousands of RPM’s.
Is it this Windstream? If so:
It sounds like they didn’t just suck at providing services… At least the old CEO that ran it into the ground is gone, so that’s nice.
That is interesting. That Windstream came to town about 15 years ago, buying the local phone company and almost instantly made the service worse. I did not know they went bankrupt, but it doesn’t surprise me.