I had throughput issues, first on my apartment. That got resolved via Reddit. Then the backbone is slow from time to time which persisted. Sometimes I get a Gigabit, other times I only get 10-20 Mbps.
What did Wave say? Let's bring a tech out. I told them "it's a backbone issue" and they didn't understand me. I don't know how I would explain how networking works to a field tech who only knows how to enable a port or run basic diagnostics.
Another time, I tripped Port Security, and told them they can re-enable my port. Wave said "we need to bring a tech out" as if that will magically solve everything.
This is made worse by my apartment's exclusivity deals: only Comcast and Wave, nothing else. Ziply Fiber (bought Frontier) and Atlas Networks were denied.
Bigger companies like Verizon FiOS in NYC had better tech support, I could still get hold of a Level 2 tech for a much smaller issue (and not even on FiOS).
Wave G makes AT&T's forced router (but not the flipping bits) seem decent in comparison. I don't want Comcast but I'll happily take AT&T Fiber over Wave G even if it means trading my pfSense box for a crappy AT&T gateway (worse case scenario I could bypass or root the gateway, or pay $15 for static IPs).
I fortunately moved (for another reason) and have Google's Webpass. Webpass may not give me a full Gigabit, but it's usually 400-800 Mbps all the time and not 10-20 Mbps 95% of the time with an occasional Gigabit. I wish CondoInternet sold to Webpass instead of Wave (I don't want a merger now, but still).
Surprisingly, I may have preferred CenturyLink Fiber if available mainly for GPON over a 60GHz PtP microwave link (less oversubscription!), well unless PPPoE+6rd kills my pfSense. But Webpass works pretty darn well, and I think I'll stay unless CenturyLink suddenly gives me 2 Gbps FTTH or something, or I move.
Wave G's support team also doesn't even realize that the CondoInternet network they acquired provides IPv6, and when asked about IPv6-related issues they just say "oh we don't have IPv6 yet" which is nonsense. I really miss the local CondoInternet support people. They were amazing.
Wave is probably one of the most breathtakingly "if it works, use it" companies I've ever seen. I'm not sure if any other ISP's truly even compare simply in the breadth of equipment they use, combined with how poorly they operate
Wave operates in parts of Washington, Oregon and California. They've mostly grown by acquiring smaller, unprofitable or mis-managed ISP's in the areas they now own.
Wave offers TV, Internet and Phone services. Unlike a typical ISP like Comcast or Frontier however they don't just offer a single or a couple methods of service delivery
For TV service, Wave offers
- Analog TV (mostly areas in California)
- Digital TV in most other areas
- TiVO and CableCARD services (they don't have the purchasing power to get boxes from companies like Motorola/Arris or Cisco/Pace)
For Telephony service. They not only offer VoIP services but in some areas even offer regular PSTN phone lines!
For internet, Wave offers its "Wave" DOCSIS 3.0 (and in many areas, still 2.0) services. They also own what was originally CondoInternet
Finding out how CondoInternet/Wave G operates was probably one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my years of telco work. I'll try to explain it from the ground up since it's very much a jenga tower of terribleness
Condo Internet in its inception had a very uphill battle. They wanted to target expensive Seattle condo buildings and sell a "premium" product. However in very Seattle fashion they were slapped with very indifferent, if not outright hostile actors to their plans. So they made do with what they could get
Condo Internet's services comprise a hodgepodge of VDSL2, Point to Point wireless, Fiber-Optic and MoCA. Effectively what ever they could wire into the building or appropriate for use, they did. This is why some apartments can get symmetric gigabit, while others can only get 100 megabit
MoCA was initially the most horrifying one I encountered while working there. MoCA is effectively Ethernet running over Coaxial cables. Except since Coax is a shared medium, it's just like the ethernet hubs of the 1990's all over again.
The main reason this was done as it was considered cheaper than installing an HFC node or CMTS. They didn't know how many customers they would get to switch over, so they played their cards extremely conservatively.
Apartments with MoCA configured would have a (managed) gigabit switch or two in the basement for link back to the Condo PoP. Whichever vendor was cheapest at time of purchase (Cisco, Juniper etc)
These switches would each be connected to an individual MoCA adapter, connected to one of the cable drops going to each individual apartment/floor/whatever. The field tech would then install an accompanying MoCA adapter in the customers home (simply calling it a "cable modem") and connect it to a Wave provided router (typically a TP-Link Archer C7)
Condo/Wave would offer typically symmetric 100 megabit on these lines, though the ability for more than a few customers on each "MoCA node" (for lack of a better term) to saturate them was much more limited
Another "fun" feature was that both the MoCA devices and switches they were connected to were run without any sort of VLAN'ing at all. If a customer accidentally plugged the MoCA link into the LAN port on their router, it would happily hand out DHCP leases to the entire building!
As I found out. The reason they don't use VLAN'ing is because their NOC staff are almost entirely customer service reps that were "upskilled" to handle NOC tasks (gaining a fixed $0.50 an hour bonus, hooray!). Wave's NOC handle roughly 90% of WaveG calls (I'd guess because Wave doesn't make very much money?)
One other fun anecdote:
WaveG service has a lot of users from overseas set up VPN's for their parents to watch Netflix on. Netflix's internal algorithms for the longest time would detect this behaviour and automatically flag Wave's entire IP ranges as a "proxy or VPN provider", knocking out roughly 500,000+ internet customers from using Netflix for several hours or even days. This would cause their phone support to effectively melt down, with the robotic queue time projecting at roughly 5-6 hours or more
Scale ruins most things, unfortunately.
For me it was night and day after previous having had a municipality-run absolutely garbage ISP previously (CityCable, for anyone considering them, stay far far away). Init7 might be a tad more expensive than most, but the service is solid.
I was once having some packet loss issues and called their support line. I assume the company was really small at the time, because the guy who answered the phone was clearly a network engineer who knew the system inside and out. I read him a couple of traceroutes over the phone and we resolved the issue within minutes.
I have never experienced such perfect tech support before or after that with any other ISP.