Hey guys. At this point, I'm just exploring options and troubleshooting to try and figure out exactly what's going on, as I'm 80% certain the issue is not on my end. I've spoken with my neighbors in my complex and they are reporting similar issues, and I've also seen a new Comcast truck at my apartment complex about every day now for the last two weeks.
For general webpage browsing, the internet works fine for the most part. Pages will take a while to load when the "lag switch" kicks on and my girlfriend experiences hiccups in her music streams and/or Netflix. My problems are a bit more pronounced and obvious, as I am a gamer and a streamer on Twitch. Lately I've been playing Diablo 3 and Titanfall (and attempting to stream both) and I'll get bouts of severe lag and packet loss (rubber banding, teleporting, etc.). It's not just exclusive to these two games, as I've tried several other online games with similar results (Battlefield 4, Guild Wars 2, Dota 2, etc.).
Obviously, I cannot stream while this is going on, because I drop frames. OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) actually has a feature on the program that shows you how many frames you're losing with a visual and numeric indicator. Initially, I thought it was just Twitch.tv being slow (which isn't unusual), but it also happens when I do not stream, as lately I haven't been able to stream at all because of how often it's been happening.
This has been going on for several weeks, and I'd like to explore all the options I can here before going through the hassle of getting a tech out here. I'm definitely not going to call customer support, because I already know that will yield no resolution. I've attempted to run speed tests and ping tests but it's tricky to catch it when things are getting laggy and typically my results are fine. I'm on the Blast! package and using an Arris TG862G modem.
Is there anything I can look for to see if something is throttling my connection at random intervals? Something that might be using my bandwidth? As I said, I do not think it's exclusive to me, as my neighbors have reported similar issues, but I figure the forums would be my best bet.