The Saga of a High Speed Connection |
Marietta, Georgia Last update: 07/19/2011 05:40:05 AM |
| During the fall of
1999, MediaOne had crews in
our area tearing up front yards and putting in new cables. They moved slowly from
block to block. After they dug up my yard, I waited until they would finally close
the cable box in the yard which, I assumed, would mean that the work in this area was
done. One day, shortly before Thanksgiving, I noticed the box had finally been
closed. That evening, I called MediaOne. The Customer Service Rep (CSR) told
me that this street would be turned on for MediaOne Road Runner (M1RR) the 3rd week of
December. I was pleased that MediaOne was actually going to meet their commitment of
having cable modem service in my area by the end of 1999 - something that had been promised for
the past 18 months. The CSR suggested that I call back during the day since the day shift CSR's had better discounts available than evening CSR's. I agreed, and did so. The CSR the next day confirmed the availability for the 3rd week of December and scheduled installation on December 24, 1999. I specifically asked him if MediaOne was doing installations on Christmas Eve. "Absolutely" was the answer. About 3 weeks later, and about 3 weeks prior to the scheduled installation, a MediaOne supervisor calls to advise that they are not doing any installations on Christmas Eve and they need to reschedule installation for the 27th or wait until after the 1st of January. I accepted an appointment for "between 8AM and 11AM" on Monday, December 27th for installation of M1RR. During the days preceding December 27th, I did a lot of preparatory work. I read the MediaOne web site to determine what was needed. I moved my DHCP server from my NT system to a LINUX system, since MediaOne requires a DHCP client on the system connected to MediaOne and Microsoft is too brain-dead to allow one Network Interface Card (NIC) to serve as a DHCP server and another to be a DHCP client on a different network in the same computer. I installed the second NIC. I configured one NIC for DHCP. I printed out all the information the installer would need when he arrived, just so he could get his work done and be on his way. The anticipated day finally arrives. The installer arrives at 9:45AM, well within the appointment "window". As I approach the door, I hear my wife, who was outside when the MediaOne truck arrived, say "he'll be disappointed". I think "Oh, ***t, what went wrong?" The installer tells me that this street isn't ready for two-way cable service. Two way cable service requires "750 plant" and we've still got the "450 plant". He's very polite and sincere in his apology but there's nothing he can do. He says that they've been having a lot of trouble with installers being dispatched to locations that aren't ready yet. I call the MediaOne office. I ask the CSR why I was scheduled when it isn't possible to install the system yet. He checks the records, determines that, indeed, the installer is correct (how could he be wrong, when he opened the box and checked the equipment!!) Installation should not have been scheduled. When I express my displeasure over wasting so much of my time, he turns me over to a supervisor. The supervisor at first doesn't believe that I had an appointment scheduled. I tell her I have the Service Order Number. She checks and, lo and behold, she finally believes me. She says there's nothing she can do. Only when I DEMAND an apology for all the time I wasted does she apologize and offer to give me a month free Cable TV service for my trouble. I'll believe that when I see it. (Update: I did receive a credit for one month's CableTV service. That's one At-A-Boy for Media One.) By the way: when will this street be equipped for M1RR? "Sometime in the second quarter of 2000. We can't be more exact than that." Consider this: MediaOne paid for the new cable, they paid to install the cable, yet it's going to take them up to 6 more months to begin to make any return on that investment. No wonder AT&T wants to buy this operation! It makes them look GOOD! Updates: February, 2000: MediaNone advised that the installation has been moved back to the 3rd quarter of 2000. In March, that was changed to "we don't know when, but it will be a few months". There were vague hints about the AT&T deal being finalized and that would help get the service installed faster. I have xDSL companies knocking at my door, offering service. I'd rather have a cable modem (it's $10/month cheaper and potentially much faster) but MediaNone is rapidly convincing me otherwise. Back to Top April, 2000: MediaNone said it would be "late 3rd quarter". Mid-May: MediaNone said "late July, early August". Late May, 2000: MediaNone now says "end of the year. This project has taken a lot longer than originally planned. Lots of things have gone wrong. We can't give you a date because we don't have one." I can't get the name of the project manager, I can only talk to sales dweebs. Back to Top Late June: Today, a MediaOne contractor called - was this the contractor installing the equipment? NO! It was a contractor conducting a survey of people who have cancelled their MediaOne HighSpeed Internet service to find out why it was cancelled. I enlightened the survey taker as to the situation, and that, indeed, I didn't cancel the installation, MediaOne did. I called MediaOne again, just to check: the service will not be available until December, 2000. Back to Top BellSouth now says that they will have aDSL installed on July 22, 2000 (it was originally supposed to be ready on 6/13). The price is the same (well, $40 vs. $39.95) since we have "Complete Choice" on our primary line. Once aDSL is installed, I'll discontinue my 2nd phone line (which costs approximately $24/month) and the $40 includes the BellSouth.NET account ($12.95/month). That makes it about $36.95/month so aDSL will cost me about $3/month more than I'm currently paying. Back to Top August, 2000: The July 22 completion date changed to 8/4, then 8/11. and now 9/7. BellSouth did offer to give me free service until the DSL is installed. The longer it takes, the more I save. September 11, 2000: Still no DSL. New due date is September, 25, 2000. Back to Top September 12-22, 2000: BellSouth has "escalated" to a DSL "expediter" trying to find out why 5 due dates have not been met. So far, the only thing the "expediter" has done is left a voice message on my answering machine and not returned any of my phone calls. Oh, and my last bill did NOT have any reduction in the charge for BellSouth internet service. In the voice message from the "expediter", I was told that she was trying to get the due date moved from the 25th to the 18th. After getting no cooperation from the installation and engineering goons, the "expediter" turned the package over to her supervisor and assured me (via voice mail again) that the supervisor would call me before the end of the day. That day ended, so did the next and the one after that. By the end of the week, I called and left a voice message with the "expediter" advising that the supervisor hadn't called yet. A few minutes later, the supervisor DOES call. It is now Sept. 22, 3 days before the next due date. And guess what the "expediter" supervisor says? The new due date is being pushed back to the 29th. At least I was told BEFORE the date arrived. But this now makes 6 due dates (not counting the Sept 18th date because I didn't believe the "expediter" for a minute) that have been missed. When I asked the supervisor if BellSouth was a bunch of liars or just plain incompetent, she say that I didn't have to get "ugly". Well, if 6 missed due dates isn't UGLY, I don't know what is. Back to Top September 26, 2000: A BellSouth DSL installer arrived here this evening, after dark, and we had a nice chat while he worked. He told me some of the problems that they had encountered on getting my aDSL working. At the network interface, he tested the line and aDSL is now functional. The final step will be to receive the aDSL computer interface that will allow my computer to access the network via aDSL. I hope this will be the final episode of this saga! Back to Top September 29, 2000: A call to BellSouth reveals that they won't be finished with the OTHER end of the connection until October 4. The DSL interface will ship that day. Back to Top October 6, 2000: The Alcatel SpeedTouch USB interface arrived today. It took some work to get it to function with Windows 2000 RRAS, but it is up and running. When the UPS driver dropped off the box today, he said he's been delivering a lot of them the past few days. Back to Top October 8, 2000: After working to try to get the Alcatel USB interface working on my system, I gave up on the USB interface. I borrowed a friend's Ethernet interface and it has worked fine. DSL has gone down several times - usually just for a minute or two - but once for about 4 hours because a "DLSAM was on red alert - whatever that means". Normally, it's great. I have an appointment with BellSouth to do a "professional install" of an Alcatel Ethernet interface so I can return the borrowed device: BellSouth will only provide internal or USB devices for "self install" customers. I'm looking forward to meeting the "professional installer". Back to Top November 2, 2000: The "professional install" was done a few weeks ago. Outages seem to occur about everyday for durations ranging from a few minutes to several hours. The Ethernet bridge is working well and speed is great. A few days ago I downloaded a file at almost 1.1Mbits/second, which is the maximum stated speed of the DSL. The EnterNet software isn't the most robust but it works OK. Back to Top May 28, 2001: I've been using BellSouth aDSL for over 7 months now. The service is fast but not the most reliable - outages seem to occur almost every day, ranging from a few seconds to a few hours. I've replaced the EnterNet software with a Cayman router - which is a big improvement. BellSouth should wake up and eliminate the "software" solution to Ethernet to aDSL. Earthlink offers an external ZyXel bridge on the "self-install" option, BellSouth continues to offer only an internal card or a USB bridge. If you want anything more sophisticated from BellSouth, you have to pay a $150 installation fee. That's a rip-off. Also BellSouth continues to deny residential customers fixed IP addressing and DNS services, something that Telocity includes in their basic service. I've written to BellSouth marketing department but I don't know if they ever received the message - I've not received a reply from the Marketing department although I did receive a form e-mail response from BellSouth technical support when I posted the message. Now that BellSouth has raised the rate by $5/month, the difference between BellSouth and Telocity is only $4.95 - which I'd gladly pay for a fixed IP and DNS. Is there an ISP switch in my future? Stay tuned! Back to Top December 28, 2001: The last straws were on December 2 and 3, 2001. We experienced 9 IP address changes on 12/2 and the BellSouth email system was down for over 16 hours (12/2 - 12/3). The order was placed that night with DirecTV DSL who bought Telocity in June of this year. The switchover was not without pain: BellSouth pulled the plug on the DSL on 12/8 and we weren't connected to DirectTV until 12/20. Ouch. I used the DirecTV gateway for a week but just switched over to the Cayman Router (wireless!) and it works fine on the DirecTV network with one significant change: the IP address that DirecTV assigns to the "local PC" is unused. The Cayman directs the what DirecTV calls the "DSL address" to the LAN without using the DirecTV PC IP address at all. So far, all has been good. DirecTV still has some problems with their service but overall it has been good. I think they'd be better off switching to a Cayman router (or at least making it a customer option: a parital function gateway or a full-function router.) Back to Top March 11, 2002: Two and a half months with DirecTVDSL (or DirecTVInternet, their other name) and I'm still satisfied with the service. Some of the routes used are questionable: to go from our house to my office - about 9 miles as the crow flies - routes through San Jose, California, with the corresponding hit in speed. This is something that DirecTVDSL needs to work on. We've had one significant outage, about 3 hours. DirecTVDSL (1) admitted the problem, (2) posted a voice notice on their customer support line advising of the problem and giving an expected up time and (3) had the system back on-line 15 minutes before the expected up time. Outages are unavoidable but how you handle it is important. DirecTVDSL did it right. On a side note, MediaOne (now known as AT&T Broadband) still hasn't completed their network to allow cable modems in this area. That puts them roughly 2 1/4 years late so far. Back to Top December 18, 2002, 9AM: After almost a year of excellent service from DirecTVDSL, Hughes (the parent company of DirecTV) announced on December 13, 2002, that they are shutting down DirecTVDSL due to financial considerations. So, the search for a new high-speed internet provider resumes! I have placed an order with Comcast (who took over for AT&T recently) for a Cable Modem. Cable modems have the POTENTIAL to be faster than DSL but (1) Comcast only quotes about 1.2MB/sec download and 128KB/sec upload and (2) they don't offer a static IP address. I'll see how well it works and what the speed is like. December 18, 2002, 6PM: Flash! Change of plans. Thanks to members of DSLReports, I found a local DSL provider, SpeedFactory, that offers 1.5M/256K with a static IP address. For DirecTVDSL customers, the static IP is free for the 1st year, then it goes to an extra $15/month. I signed up today. They say they can switch service with only a few hours of down time. We'll see! Back to Top December 23, 2002: AT&T/Comcast showed up bright and early this morning to install the Cable Modem. I added a Hawking Technologies PN9249 Cable/DSL Router to add the network to the Cable Modem. At the moment, we have DirecTVDSL and the Cable Modem. Because of the circuitous route used by DTV, the Cable Modem is much faster for access to most sites in Atlanta; to the west coast, the seem about equal although the first brief tests gave the Cable Modem a slight edge. If they only offered static IP addresses! Back to Top December 27,2002: When I went to bed last night DirectDSL was working. This morning it wasn't. I called SpeedFactory, was given my new IP address and netmask. I programmed those into the router (along with one other change) and I was back in service . Wham! Way to go SpeedFactory! That's the way it's SUPPOSED to happen in a computerized world. Some brief tests show that the Cable Modem is faster than the DSL - but not twice as fast as Comcast advertises. More tests will be done soon. Back to Top March 26, 2003: SpeedFactory has provided excellent service. My only complaints are that their tech support is not 24/7 and their web site could use some additional features. The tech staff knows their business. Back to Top November 2, 2004: In September, I discovered that SpeedFactory was offering 3Mb/384Kb service for the same price I have been paying for 1.5Mb/256Kb: a static IP is $10 with the 1.5Mb service but is included with the 3Mb service, making the price the same. The upgrade was completed in late September, again with minimal down time to reprogram my router. Initial tests indicate 2.44Mb/sec throughput from a west coast test site. Back to Top April 25, 2007: After many months of working with SpeedFactory to improve the reliability of the 3Mb connection, we both gave up. SpeedFactory waived the 30 day notification period to cancel service and I ordered High Speed Internet service from Comcast. It took about 5 days to get the cable modem. I wanted to use a gateway rather than a modem and a router but that proved a mistake: I tried two different LinkSys cable gateways and both failed within 24 hours. I put the cable modem from Comcast into use along with a LinkSys Broadband Router and it has been exceptionally reliable. And fast. Unlike previous incarnations of cable Internet services, Comcast is apparently not blocking any ports: I can run my web server on port 80, my mail server on port 25, etc. I signed up with DynDNS ($9.95/year) for dynamic DNS service in case the IP address changes. It hasn't changed in 3 weeks but it is possible that it could. August 30, 2007: There have been 2 noticeable outages on the Comcast High Speed Internet service since April: one was an equipment problem here in Atlanta, one was a router problem elsewhere. In both cases, Comcast acknowledged the problem and was working on it before I called. The local equipment problem lasted longer than I would like (12 hours!) but such things do happen, even in a well managed network. The other outage was relatively short (less than an hour). I'm still using a separate cable modem and broadband router. I upgraded the software in the Linksys router to a freeware version that added considerable functionality and, supposedly, reliability and security. I still have the same IP address that was issued in April. The biggest problem is that reverse lookups on email delivery has forced me to route my email through the Comcast SMTP server rather than do direct delivery, so I switched from the MercuryE SMTP client to the MercuryC SMTP Relay client. |
| Return to Antonoff Family Home Page |