Questions about Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP)

Charlie Hoffpauir · 2015-03-07T21:47:48+00:00

I've had WISP service for a couple of years, and a few days ago called them to get a few questions about the service answered. But all I got from them was a runaround.... the guy on the other end of the phone line seemed very knowledgeable about their service, but couldn't or wouldn't give me a straight answer to any of my questions.... so I thought I'd post here. Maybe some WISP provide who doesn't have me as a potential "loss" customer can give some answers. First, the situation. My WISP offers two levels of service, up to 3 Mbps and up to 5 Mbps. I started with 3, and after a few months upped it to 5 (which costs twice as much). With the 5 Mbps service, I really did occasionally see 5 Mbps speeds, but usually less than 3, sometimes less than 1. So my first questions was: When I'm only getting 1 Mbps on my 5 Mbps service, what are the people who are on 3 Mbps getting? After much assurances that the speed decrease was only temporary and I'd soon see faster service, but no answer to the question. I asked him another question: How do they control that I never get more than 5, and how those other users never get more than 3? He wouldn't answer that either. I was trying to determine if when multiple users all loaded the system so that my average speed was only 1 Mbps.... was everyone else (who are paying only half as much) also getting 1 Mbps? Because I couldn't get an answer, I decided to switch back to 3 Mbps service and save $50/month. So far that's what I'm on (less than a month so far) and speed still runs somewhere between 1 and 3 Mbps, depending on day of the week and time of day, so I figure the system is still heavily overloaded. So, anyone know how this works in overloaded WISPs? Any comments or links to information are appreciated.