DSL slow down problems, anyone over there?

[Carina]

Me and 6 of my friends all of whom have the slower Prodigy Infinitum dsl connection have been experiencing a snail like slow down since Monday morning. We're talking it takes 25-50 seconds to load www.nytimes.com and the wall st. journal, www.wsj.com never loads at all although, in the past two years my husband, AJ, probably visits this site 20 times per day.

We're curious as to whether this problem exists just on Cozumel or whether anyone in Playa has noticed it as well. Input would be much appreciated.

As anyone knows who has tried it, it's an absolutely excruitiating experience calling Prodigy "Support" (make me laugh out loud). Why? Because they absolutely refuse to even make a REPORT until you do their 45 minute dance of going through all the settings on your computer. So you hate to call them. It's just awful.

I may do it tonight, however. My plan? I am going to make them tell ME what the settings are supposed to be. Not the other way around. Then I'll just go uh huh, yep, that's what I've got alright.

I'll write down all the questions they ask and the answers and then publish them on my Coz discussion forum so it will be easier for all of us to report sh*t like this in el futuro.

So any slow downs, ping problems over your way? Try the two links I gave you, anyone who has the time. Thanks in advance

[james]

Yep, I went through the same deal here and, yep, I hate their "support."

"Is your computer on?"
"Is the monitor on?"
etc.,etc.,...

So I switched to my cablemodem (I subscribe to both services here) and the thing is zooming. The problems they had before with closed ports seems to have been fixed, so I am going to use it as my primary from now on.

[Carina]

Talked to a guy named Michael Cates who is setting up an internet cafe downtown. He's paying for 6 516 connections plus $1000 pesos month additional fee for something or other. It's coming across at 19kb/second.

He says its because Telmex has a promotion going on giving away X-Box Live starter kits plus a 12 month subscription so the little muchachos can play computer games on line flexing their geekish little brain muscles against guys from other parts of the world. (Do you know there's actually a GANG on this island that calls themselves the Nerds? Do they have a clue.) Sorry I regress. Anyway, they're giving out the Xbox kits if people sign up for the dsl and pay $360 pesos/month for it.

Michael says that the connector cable or whatever it is between Cozumel and the mainland is a fixed size so the more people using it, the slower the connection. Still, could, say 200 new dsl users slow it down that much?? Don't know.

Also is this a phenomenon being experienced with you DSL users in Playa in the past few days?

I believe it is time for another trip to PROFECO, the government's consumer protection union. But it would helpful to know if this same thing is being experienced in Playa or is it just us on our little island out here?

PS James, the cable internet here s*cks. But maybe its starting to look better these days.

Thanks