Random disconnects
Your problem is on the Cable companies side, there is nothing you can do besides making them come out to fix it. Be warned that some ISPs are known to play the blame game and pin it all on you...I used to work for Comcast and seen this happen regularly.
In short, you are looking for a connection problem in the lines around/in your house.
The long version:
The cable wires that run around the neighborhood are the main lines. Every few houses there is what is called a "tap". The tap is a little box with a few ports to connect a regular sized cable to it(the same cable you see inside your house). Fromt he tap the cable goes to your house and "should" be connected to what is called a "ground block". A ground block should have a wire going from it to some type of ground. This is to prevent an electrical shock traveling through the lines into your house and frying anything connected to it. From the ground block it should then go into a "splitter". The splitter has 1 input port for a cable line to connect to and has anywhere from 2-10 output ports. If there are unused output ports, they should be capped off to reduce signal bleeding/loss/interference.
Okay, now the fun part. From the ground block, the next step in your line should be a 2 port splitter. So it should have a cable going into it and 2 coming out. One of the 2 coming out of it should be going "directly" to your modem. If the setup is any different than I just described, your house was wired wrong and could be the culprit to your internet problem.
There is also a possibility that your "tap" is bad, I have seen it more than a few times. A low level tech can fix this.
Also, there are boxes every so often on the main lines that run on the telephone lines. They can be misconfigured and also create internet problems. These will require a higher level technician to fix.
Next possibility is that your modem itself is bad, when you schedual a trouble shooting call with your ISP, ask them to bring an extra modem with them.
Almost forgot an important one, where the cable "screws" into any port on the tap, ground block, splitter or modem...it is not snug tight and you are not getting a full signal. This is a very very very common problem. The endings that screw into things, they are called "F-Connectors" and do periodically require to be replaced.
The tech that comes out to fix your problem, if they do not have a wave length meter on them...they do not have the proper tools to diagnose your problem. An official tech of your ISP will almost always have one on him, it is the contractors that usually do not. Ask for a real tech and not a contractor to show up.
Keep calling when you experience problems. Each time you call, ask for money to be taken off your bill for your troubles. If the person on the phone says they can not do that, ask for a supervisor.
Hope this helps.
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