Generating usage logs that prove my Internet connection is flaky

I need a way to generate reports or logs that prove that my Internet connection is flaky. My Comcast connection is very flaky but if I ask their support to send someone over it will probably work fine while the guy is here.

I found and tried "Connection Monitor" from CSGWare Corp but it does not create the kind of reports or graphs I'd need to be able to convince my ISP that their link is intermittent.

What I need to be able to do is have the software monitor my connection and produce a record of when the connection dies or when, for example, ping time climbs dramatically.

Can I get Connection Monitor to do this or is there another program that does?

Solution 1:

Bash script, with timestamp, so when you show it to Comcast, you can point to exact times when it was down or flaky.

ping comcast.net | while read pong; do echo "$(date): $pong"; done > ~/log.txt

...produces output like this:

Thu Jun  5 00:23:54 CDT 2014: 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=235 ttl=55 time=61.848 ms
Thu Jun  5 00:23:55 CDT 2014: Request timeout for icmp_seq 236
Thu Jun  5 00:23:56 CDT 2014: 64 bytes from 0.0.0.0: icmp_seq=236 ttl=55 time=1317.795 

Then, you can monitor it in a different window with tail

tail -f ~/log.txt

Clear and concise. Works for Mac and Linux. Not sure about Windows.

Solution 2:

ping -t comcast.net > log.txt

Show him the log.txt file.

Solution 3:

Try running this web-app: http://isp-monitor.appspot.com/

It tests your internet connection every 10 seconds. If you login, it can aggregate results and you can generate a report with connectivity % for the last days or month.

No install. Free to use.

Solution 4:

There is a simple tool which checks if it can access an internet site and logs results with time stamps. It is written in Java and will work on any platform.
http://code.google.com/p/internetconnectivitymonitor/