Chat Support
To discuss a question or problem via "chat" with an Adelphia Technical Support Representative, click here.
E-Mail Support
For non-urgent technical questions, you may send an e-mail message to Adelphia technical support using our online web interface. You can expect to receive a reply to your e-mail within 24 hours.
Phone Support
To speak to an Adelphia Technical Support Representative, call 1 (888) 683-1000. Be sure to review the troubleshooting tips and eSupport Assistant before you call.
Connectivity Issues
If you experience problems connecting to the Internet, you need to determine if the problem is with your cable modem or possibly your cable service. First, if you are an Adelphia cable television customer, turn on your television and check if you have a picture. If you have no picture or a fuzzy picture, the problem is probably cable service related. Please contact Adelphia Customer Care at 1 (888) 683-1000 to report your problem.
If you cable television is working properly, the connectivity issue is probably related to your modem. Before, calling Customer Care, shut down your computer and unplug your modem for about one minute. Plug your modem in and watch for the lights on the front of your modem to begin flashing as the modem attempts to re-connect to the network. After the modem lights are on, reboot your computer. If this does not reestablish your connection to the Internet, contact Adelphia Customer Care.
If you experience difficulty connecting to a particular website, there could be several reasons for the problem including a server problem where the site is hosted or a connectivity problem to the site. If you can reach other site successfully, please be patient and try to reach the site a short while later. It is important that you understand that Adelphia Power Link has no control over the availability of websites other than its own. Adelphia maintains the network from you cable modem to the point where Internet traffic is moved from our network to the Internet cloud. Once traffic hits the cloud, Adelphia has no control over speed, connectivity or other related service issues relating to specific websites you may be attempting to access. If you are unable to access a site for an extended period of time, you may want to attempt to contact the site administrator or webmaster. You may also try to use a Ping test to verify connectivity to the site. See Latency & Packet Loss for instructions on how to perform a Ping test.
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About Speed Tests
There are many factors that must be considered for speed tests including your computer, your connection to the Internet, the various connections that make up the Internet, the performance of the site you are trying to reach, and the size of the file you are trying to download.
First, be sure your computer meets or exceeds the minimum system requirements for Power Link service. Your RAM, processor speed and free hard drive disk space must all meet the minimum requirements for your Power Link service to work at optimal speeds. It is also a good idea to perform defrags and scandisk on your system every month.
These simple steps will help ensure your computer and your Power Link service are performing at optimal levels. To understand how the network is performing, please refer to Latency and Packet Loss.
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Check Your IP Address
Sometimes during troubleshooting our technical support representatives will ask you for you IP address. Your computer may not always have the same IP address. Therefore, it is important to check it each time you are troubleshooting a problem.
To determine your IP Address for Windows 2000 and NT:
- Select Run from the Start menu
- Type: command
- Click the OK button
- At the prompt, type: ipconfig/all
- Your network information will be displayed
To determine your IP Address for Windows 95 and 98:
- Select Run from the Start menu
- Type: winipcfg
- Click the OK button
- A window will display your network information
To determine your IP Address for MacIntosh:
- Select the Control Panel from the Apple Menu
- Select TCP/IP Control Panel
- The IP Address Field will display your IP
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Latency And Packet Loss
In networking, latency is the amount of time it takes for a packet of data to travel from its source to its destination. For example, the source may be your computer and the destination may be the Internet site you select. During periods of high usage (usually afternoons or evenings) the amount of latency on the Internet can increase. This is similar to our streets and highways during rush hour. During these high usage times, it may take a bit longer for files or pages to download because both servers and circuits may be experiencing "traffic jams".
As an example, during the hours and days following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, many popular news sites were overwhelmed with page hits from people looking for information. Many Internet circuits and servers related to these sites were experiencing traffic jams and Internet users saw what amounted to slow speeds.
As you can see, due to the shared nature of the Internet, no internet service provider can absolutely guarantee service speeds. There are factors beyond the ISP's control that can influence the actual speed an Internet user will experience.
Packet loss refers to packets of data that are dropped or lost as packets are moved across the Internet. As the Internet becomes busy, it is common to see increases in both latency and packet loss. One way to test packet loss and latency is through applications called Ping and Traceroute.
Ping is useful for connectivity verification. To perform a Ping test:
- Open a DOS window
- Type: ping www.yahoo.com (or another well-known site).
A successful test would produce something like the following:
Pinging www.yahoo.akdns.net with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from xx.xx.xx.xxx: Bytes=32 Time=40ms TTL=44
Reply from xx.xx.xx.xxx: Bytes=32 Time=30ms TTL=44
Reply from xx.xx.xx.xxx: Bytes=32 Time=35ms TTL=44
Reply from xx.xx.xx.xxx: Bytes=32 Time=50ms TTL=44
If the test is not successful, you will see a notation of "Timed out" in the results.
Traceroute shows a more accurate picture of where latency may be occurring. You will need to trace to sites that actually allow tracerouting. Yahoo is one example. To perform a traceroute:
- Open a DOS window
- For Windows NT, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 type: tracert www.yahoo.com (please refer to your owners manual if you have a different operating system).
- The traceroute will show you the different hops to your destination and the time between each hop in milliseconds. You should see results anywhere from 10 to 100+ milliseconds. Generally speaking, any hop over 100 milliseconds may be a latency problem and may be a result of a particular site being congested.
Another common cause of latency and packet loss is programs that are started when the computer is started. File sharing programs such as KaZaa or WinMX will load automatically when the computer starts, and when loaded connects to it's main server to begin sending files. This is all done invisibly, and "competes" for the bandwidth available to your other applications. Other programs that are loaded in the background can also cause delays by using large quantities of PC system resources, making your Internet downloads seem slow.
On Windows 95, 98 and ME systems, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to open the Close Program dialog box. On Windows NT, 2000 and XP systems, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and select Task Manager (Windows XP will go directly to the Task Manager). Review the programs that are running, and close all unnecessary programs.
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