Everything I learned fighting terrible internet providers for a decade (and how I won)

What I’ve learned over the last 15 years of paying internet bills is that it doesn’t matter what type of equipment you have, how many devices you use, or what settings you have optimized. Ultimately, if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is faulty, you will never have a stable connection.

I’ve had pretty bad luck with my ISPs over the last decade and have been through all kinds of ridiculous situations. This made me an expert troubleshooter. Here’s how I fought all my terrible ISPs to get a stable connection that lets me work and play at all hours.

You can’t beat a bad ISP

That’s why I’ve experienced several over the last decade

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

Network issues can be attributed to many factors, and of course, many of them technically. can be your fault. Maybe you’re overloading your Wi-Fi, or using bad router settings, or relying on an old Ethernet cable, or trying to use Wi-Fi while your router is far, far away… there are a lot of things that could go wrong.

But in reality, many problems can also be attributed to a bad ISP, a fact I’ve learned over more than a decade of disappointing experiences.

I’m not picky and understand that occasional connection issues can and will occur. I can and do handle disconnections or delays from time to time; this thing is inevitable. But when the connection consistently falls short of what you’re paying for, it’s time to investigate. And I did it. Several times.

I’ve replaced cables and routers, installed mesh networks, and spent countless hours on the phone with various ISPs. But ultimately, if the connection reaching your home isn’t the one you need, there’s nothing you can do on the home front.

Every time my internet connection was problematic, I found ways to fix it and found the secret to dealing with an annoying ISP.

The first ISP made some pretty ridiculous claims

But even these can be refuted

About 15 years ago I had a local ISP that was absolutely terrible. Despite using an Ethernet connection, the Internet frequently went down, sometimes for several days. And no, I didn’t live in the middle of nowhere: I lived then, as I do now, in a huge city with robust networks.

This particular vendor was very fond of trying to shift the blame to the end user instead of sending technicians out to at least take a look. So when I called them to complain that the connection had been down for two hours, I usually heard a litany of excuses and nothing else. A frustrating experience to say the least.

Some of my favorites included chastising myself for “touching the Ethernet cable, permanently disrupting the connection.” As if just touching the cable, without even removing it, could cause something like that. Unfortunately, ISPs often rely on their customers not being very familiar with technological concepts. Even though this ridiculous excuse didn’t work on me, I’m sure there are people who have fallen for it.

How did I solve this problem? I took matters into my own hands. I first replaced the Ethernet cable and found that this did not improve the connection quality. I also tested a laptop plugged directly into the modem (no router, no Wi-Fi), swapped hardware where I could, and still found the same dropouts, which made it pretty obvious that the problem was upstream.

The second ISP never kept its promises

This made 56k dial-up internet look good

Credit: Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek

I moved to a different part of town and found myself stuck with a fairly stable, but terribly slow ISP.

I play MMOs and other online games, which means I need a good mix of high speeds, low latency, and 100% stability to play properly. This ISP kept its promises on this last point, but the first two points were pitiful. I averaged about 50% of the speed I was paying for on a good day, and sometimes the connection slowed down tremendously.

Of course, the ISP blamed everything except its service. Mentioning the games was a bad idea: I was immediately told that the games themselves were to blame. This was another case of a company that had an entire customer service department dedicated to stopping people from asking for help.

Before giving up and looking elsewhere, I did all the usual troubleshooting. I tested different devices, ran speed tests at different times of the day to rule out rush hour traffic, and narrowed down to just one device to make sure I wasn’t throttling my own connection. The ISP also blamed my third-party router, so I rented theirs (a usually costly mistake) and found the speeds were even worse than with my own device, not to mention spikey latency.

At this point, there was nothing left to optimize on my end. It became clear that I was paying for something that would never be delivered to my address.

Third ISP tried to charge me $1,000 to opt out

And it still haunts me today

Credit: Nick Lewis / How-To Geek

This ISP is probably the most annoying of the three, and it’s definitely the one that gave me the most problems, so much so that I wrote a separate article about it.

To summarize a longer rant, I dealt with 20-50 disconnects per day, each lasting between a few seconds and half an hour. The connection was unstable to the point that I had to sign up with a second ISP just to have a stable backup connection; after all, I work from home.

The ISP replaced my router, but after that they claimed everything was fine on their end. Even worse, they asked me for $1,000 to break the contract early.

I was able to get around this by using software to monitor my connection. Meticulous logging proved that my internet connection was constantly disconnecting and that the problem was not me.

The key to fighting a bad ISP

And what to do to find a good one in the first place

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The secret to fighting a bad ISP is very simple. Never discuss assumptions and always bring all receipts.

Customer support can often ignore various complaints. I imagine they get hundreds a day, so I kind of understand, but it’s frustrating when you have a legitimate problem and it’s not heard.

It’s much harder for your ISP to reject a full timeline of outages, screenshots of speed tests, and logs proving packet loss. If you purchased new equipment, show them the actual receipts. If you replaced something, say so immediately. Make the problem unsolvable and anticipate their questions before they arise: test over Ethernet, then Wi-Fi. Try a device plugged directly into the modem. Run speed tests at different times of the day and track pings/packet losses, with dates and times.

Finding a Good ISP Can Be Tricky

An internet provider that does well in someone else’s area may be bad in yours. I find the best way to find a good ISP is to read reviews online, but also ask your neighbors.

Then call the ISP and ask questions. How do they deal with internet issues? How long will it take for tickets to be resolved? Can you break the contract if they don’t deliver what was promised?

Don’t lock yourself in with an ISP that might not be solid. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a bad connection and not being able to fix it.