A WARNING TO ASTOUND CUSTOMERS
- Nizel Adams
- Mar 28
- 10 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Originally written 03-28-2025
It looks like someone started another trash fire
I want to start this out by saying I am a certified network engineer and considering my status a pretty good one. I also do all sorts of work from mechanical engineering to electrical, generally anything related to construction. I switched over to Astound from Xfinity. I specifically told the Astound sales rep I can't go under 20mbps upload especially since I have a security system with a ton of cameras that record 24/7. Ideally I need 30mbps upload speed to function comfortably, but the rep said the speed I chose might give around 24-25mbps. The tech came out to run a new supply line. The tech was nice and actually did me a solid, but it's evident that Astound like many other ISPs needs to give them more in-depth training so they know how the technology they are installing actually works. One thing I definitely noticed during the install and even the pictures from other customers is that the Astound techs don't properly terminate unused connections using coax caps. For instance my install tech cut 3 unused lines from the tap (an old WoW, Direct TV and Xfinity line) and seems to have just left their damaged ends on the tap. An exposed cable is not only causing a short, but since it is not properly terminated it causes the circuit (since wires are using electrical signals) to be open. This puts extra noise on the line that creates connection problems for everyone else on the tap and downstream. A coax cap completes the circuit and doesn't generate much noise if at all, making everyone's connections better.
The tech seems to just have looked at the speed and maybe if his signal readings were showing yellow/red on his meter, but doesn't seem to know what the readings actually mean so they left while the connection was highly unstable, but "technically" still connected. This resulted in me having less than 1mbps upload speeds and less than 90 download speeds while being almost completely unable to even load a webpage even though I currently pay for 150mbps speeds as a test to see how the service is. I couldn't make Wi-Fi calls or work at all on the network because of numerous issues.
Xfinity was still connected before the install and working perfectly fine and when they did the switch all of these issues started. I did my tests, looked at the modem diagnostics and saw that the downstream power levels were being flagged as too high which was causing disruptions to the overall connection. To explain how this works, downstream (forward path) is what the ISP is sending to you and upstream (return path) is what you are sending back. A modem/antenna increases it's gain (power) until it can find a signal. The downstream power is high because the signal from the source (utility tap) is too strong so my high-end $300+ modem is basically being overpowered by the signal from Astound. This is the opposite of the records I have from Xfinity which show Xfinity's signal was in-fact way too weak. I called the original install tech from Astound and he confirmed Astound does not use nor supply amplifiers to customers.
I did my tests, after installing a 10dB attenuator it decreased the downstream power levels to within spec, but as a side effect the upstream power levels as well as some individual channel downstream power levels increased to the point where they were now out of spec so I ended up connecting a three-way splitter to decrease the downstream by 3.5dB (7dB ports caused upstream to be too near the limit of spec) from the 10.7dBmV it was at which put it back into spec for the modem, but is still not desirable as you want the downstream power to be as close to zero as possible while the upstream should be 35-48dmbv.
For now it works until I can get either an adjustable gain subscriber drop amplifier or a high return loss attenuator to fix the problem since Astound seems to not want to do anything. Either their tap/infrastructure is defective or I need a piece of equipment installed that lowers their signal while not increasing my modem's upstream signal...it's that simple. My upload speeds are currently at 12mbps and download speeds at over 200mbps, but the connection is so unstable and full of latency. We're talking average latency of between 300-500ms during download and about 100ms during upload which is insane. That makes anything that needs a consistent connection like phone/video calls, file downloads, videogames, camera systems almost completely nonfunctional. As a person that plays online games, does livestreams & works with people remotely this has disrupted everything. If I were still a professional gamer I would never win a matchup. In layman's terms imagine you're at a Burger King restaurant. You place your order and then the staff just stands there staring at you for 10 minutes. Then, within a blink of an eye the staff abruptly makes your meal and the cashier appears in front of you, stuck in a pose where they're handing over the bag to you. After another two minutes the staff once again abruptly moves at the speed of light and the cashier is at the register taking the order of another customer. Repeat that process, randomize the times and you have Astound internet.
With all of my data at hand I called Astound to officially schedule a tech to come out since I didn't want to inconvenience the original tech by asking him to come by without a request in the system. The rep initially flat out refused to send a tech because I use my own modem which for all of Xfinity's problems, they would have never done what Astound is doing. The rep didn't care and actively was trying to get me off the phone. They told me my manufacturer needed to prove that there's nothing wrong with the modem for the to send a tech out which is ridiculous because they know modem manufacturers don't send techs out at all and modem warranties are all like 90 days and then there's pretty much no service after that. Astound seems to know that sort of request would be impossible to fulfill. Not to mention the fact that EVERYTHING WAS FINE WITH XFINITY UP UNTIL THEY SET THINGS UP FOR ASTOUND.
I ended up forcing the rep to schedule a tech and they stated I would be charged something like $80 if the tech depending on the tech's findings. So guess what? I'm putting together a whole demo for your tech and they're going to be in school for an hour or two while I teach them how all of this stuff works then prove over and over again why Astound needs to do better.
I was also not aware that Astound is terrible with VPNs which I was going to configure for my whole network. Those plans are now RUINED. It currently takes me 10 seconds just to load a simple webpage, but almost 30 seconds if it's over the VPN. It's like I'm on dial-up back in the early 90s! Astound is a complete house of cards. A total sham company that is bound to fall apart within the near feature.
0.5 out of 5 stars
✮☆☆☆☆
Update 03-29-2025:
An Astound VP apparently saw the message and has had their team reach out to find the problems in the area. Their maintenance techs noted abnormal amounts of noise on the lines in the area which may have been contributing to the numerous problems people were experiencing. They are currently working diligently on the issues. As of now the signal problems have not been resolved, but after an outage for the entire day the connection definitely seems more stable. Monitoring the network I saw latency as high as 3200ms on download during the morning and a little over 300ms in the evening after the maintenance tech called me to confirm they completed their work cleaning up things. Since 300ms is still super abnormal they are still looking into the issue. As far as signal levels, the downstream power has gotten even higher. Whether that is due to their maintenance or thermal attenuation (copper wires expanding/contracting due to temperature changes) I don't know, but no doubt going from 45 degrees and raining to 70 degrees had an effect on the signal power.
Update 03-30-2025:
After last speaking to the maintenance tech, I sent him a text about a moment during the day of the outage that everything magically started working normally. No huge amounts of latency, no trouble with VPN connections, no disconnects, etc. I gave him an estimated time around where it was in their maintenance activities so that they could pinpoint what they were doing. Shortly after that the connection once again became stable and has been mostly consistent ever since. For the last five hours it has stayed at a consistent 200-230mbps on download, less than 70ms latency during all stages (idle, download, upload) while on VPN. However the upload speeds vary from 17-24mbps. When not on the VPN there's a noticeable difference. Before it was similar to being on the VPN which was great, but around hour five the speeds were around 212mbps download, 20 upload, but with the same extremely high latency on download. The upload and idle latency while not on the VPN have improved. Nothing seems to make sense with Astound's infrastructure. There's definitely something on the backend causing latency issues and it's probably a router, DNS server or load balancing issue at one of Astound's datacenters. The signal problems with the line are still the same, in-fact Astound's signals are higher than they previously were.
After running a tracert, I determined that the latency is most likely due to either a bad route/configuration and/or failing equipment at their datacenter since multiple hops are timing out when off of the VPN. I did however noticed that the latency issues picked up when it started raining. This lead me to look into bufferbloat which is latency increases when a network is under load. After confirming I was suffering into bufferbloat I decided to enable QoS (Quality of Service) on my router, something which I never had to do in my 15 years with Xfinity/Comcast. QoS resolved the bufferbloat instantly, producing normal latency levels all around.
Update 04-02-2025:
I received another call from a maintenance tech. They were doing more work on the lines, cleaning up the nearby nodes as well. This act single handedly decreased my modem's upload power by 7dBmV (from 49dBmV to 42dBmV) which means my modem is now much more easily able to reach Astound's node. However the downside is that Astound's downstream signal got even strong as well, with my modem now running at almost 12dBmV which is out of spec. The issues have resided for the most part, but there is still a matter of the inconsistency of Astound's network. One minute it's at 250mbps with less than 60ms overall latency under load and the next I can barely get over 150 with a little over 100ms latency on downstream, around 70ms upstream latency. The VPN consistently outperforms a direct connection to Astound which shouldn't be the case since by default connection to a VPN produces an extra hop on the connection which means data has to travel even further. One thing that annoyed me was that Astound has no alert system to let you know they are working on your system so everything just goes down.
This was also doomsday for Xfinity as well since the storms caused a major outage for them & Astound. Once the maintenance techs brought my connection back up, the rain immediately caused the network to slow to a snail's pace of less than 25mbps download and 4mbps upload. Little did I know this was foreshadowing. My network wasn't functional from around noon until around 7pm when the storms subsided. It rendered all of my tests with various attenuators that arrived that day completely useless.
Update 04-03-2025:
More attenuators came and I was able to redo my tests. It was determined that a 7dB attenuator would be appropriate although it sucks because 7dB is not an attenuator standard stocked at most places and there is no high return loss version of it like with the others. High return loss is simply a better version of the device that has less signal reflection (more signal gets through which is good.) In my testing a high return less attenuator produces a more stable connection that reduces the need for overprovisioning the higher dB you go. For instance an 8dB attenuator restricted the connection for an almost perfect 150mbps every time (between 153-155mbps during speed tests) and around 20-22mbps upload. Latency levels on the downstream were noticeably increased using HRL attenuators which makes sense because they only affect downstream. As I suspected when this all began, around 6dB of attenuation was needed. With a 6dB HRL attenuator the connection is mostly stable and can reach download speeds of up 300mbps and uploads over 40mbps (at least these are speeds before the provisioning kicks in and drops it down to around 230mbps DL and 21-25mbps UL. The range of latency also is decreased which is good since we're aiming for not hitting 100ms at all during tests.
I had to eventually stop testing since it started raining which affected the network once again...
Update 04-04-2025:
Another day of network monitoring. I got onto a computer around 2pm and things seemed a bit sluggish over the VPN. At 3:45pm it started raining and the VPN connection seemed to become almost unusable. Switching over to a direction connection was immensely better for probably the first time in this experience. Still, it shouldn't be the case that I can't use my internet how I want due to weather conditions. This is a problem I don't recall ever having with Xfinity. As of now I've been without a VPN for 6 hours.
My Theory:
There were indeed confirmed noise issues due to illegal stingers (splitters used to steal cable decades ago so it's questionable how long it's been since maintenance was performed,) water ingress, damaged taps, etc. in my area and whatever else was going on at Astound's local center that caused an outage, but Astound also didn't have proper QoS setup on their end and their infrastructure is smaller/less efficient/less advanced than Xfinity's so when my network sent it's unorganized data packets it didn't handle it properly which caused a buffer between our networks. Most likely Astound's infrastructure is easily congested so the QoS policy deprioritized/dropped my traffic in favor of other things which caused the huge delays. At some point Astound's networking team noticed this and either enabled QoS or fixed it which is why everything started working perfectly. My network then for some reason couldn't respond efficiently to the organized packets so I in-turn had to enable QoS on my end as well. Now that both of our networks are sending organized packets everything is running smoothly. What remains is to fix the high signal problems. I'm surprised however that a large ISP didn't have a good QoS policy. Astound's high signal strength comes from me being at or very close to a node.
Intrusive thoughts sometimes come and make me think there may be some conspiracy along the lines of customer owned modems being deprioritized in favor of those using company modems (something the FTC would definitely be fond of looking into,) but for now I let sleeping tigers lie and await how this turns out.
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