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AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

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Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#71

Post by ladberg »

ribosometronome wrote: post #24
Bud wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sonic's fiber service uses AT&T fiber in Alameda as well. Just another data point. I have that service. It's been working just fine, though. I haven't noticed any symptoms of flipped bits or anything similar to what others are reporting here.

Oh man, I didn't even realize they were available outside of SF with fiber.

+1 for Sonic with their own fiber in Berkeley, which was way better than Comcast (previously the only other option) for the same price with no data cap.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#72

Post by rconti »

cameldrv wrote: post #43

If you have AT&T fiber, run the script in the linked gist: https://twitter.com/bmastenbrook/status/1335400747794530304 It loads http://example.com and https://example.com and compares the result (should be equal) in a loop, and then reports if it finds a difference. I'm seeing multiple bit flips in the unencrypted version, and having a lot of issues loading web pages, presumably because a corrupted packet in a TLS ha…

Why is it always the same positions that differ?

The files differ after anywhere from 1sec to 5sec for me, and it's always the same character positions, and it always seems to be the same lines, and the same number of lines.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#74

Post by toast0 »

simcop2387 wrote: post #64
cpach wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”I would use traceroute to find a common bad point for everyone“ How do you mean? I use traceroute from time to time but I’m not sure how it would apply in a case like this. Feel free to elaborate :)

Take a traceroute from everyone experiencing the problem, look for the common hops among them all. Then compare that list against people not experiancing the problem to find the differences. The finsl set there are good places to start looking. Sweitches and routers along that way could be the cause

It might be better (although harder!) to take the traceroute from example.org, instead of from the clients. Forward and reverse paths often diverge, so it's important to find the path with the error.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#75

Post by proverbialbunny »

greensoap wrote: post #7

Can anyone tell me what the symptoms of this would be?

Default timeout time on firefox is 30 seconds before retrying and a ctrl+shift+r refresh does not refresh the load, so random websites pause while opening and you have no choice but to wait 30 seconds before the page starts loading. (Psst, the default can be changed.)

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#77

Post by mcpherrinm »

rconti wrote: post #72
cameldrv wrote: post #43

If you have AT&T fiber, run the script in the linked gist: https://twitter.com/bmastenbrook/status/1335400747794530304 It loads http://example.com and https://example.com and compares the result (should be equal) in a loop, and then reports if it finds a difference. I'm seeing multiple bit flips in the unencrypted version, and having a lot of issues loading web pages, presumably because a corrupted packet in a TLS ha…

Why is it always the same positions that differ? The files differ after anywhere from 1sec to 5sec for me, and it's always the same character positions, and it always seems to be the same lines, and the same number of lines.

Most likely it’s the same position in packets; and there’s some bad RAM in a device along the route.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#78

Post by e40 »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #47

I had AT&T via Sonic's FTTN in an effort to avoid Comcast/AT&T directly, especially since Sonic does not have data caps despite running on AT&T's network and actually respects their customer's privacy. Unfortunately my experience was so terrible and unreliable that I decided to give up and finally sign up with Comcast, and just have to mind that 1.2TB data cap. The Bay Area of all places should not have such terrible…

I was seriously considering signing up for Sonic service, and I have Comcast now. Guess I won't do that. I hesitated because I really really hate AT&T. Guess I should have trusted that feeling.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#79

Post by tjohns »

I've been getting intermittent slow connections (30+ seconds to load Wikipedia) and SSL handshake failures for a couple weeks now.

I thought it was just my old router. I had no idea it was more widespread. I was just about to start upgrading network equipment.

Re: AT&T Fiber in the SF Bay Area is flipping bits

#80

Post by avarun »

jedberg wrote: post #10
greensoap wrote: post #7

Can anyone tell me what the symptoms of this would be?

Computer hanging when connecting to random websites some of the time. Apps on your phone just randomly hanging. Streaming services randomly not working. If you use Twitch you'll randomly have the video break with a connection failure in the middle of stream.

Interesting, I've been having a lot of the same symptoms for months now with my Comcast service on the other end of the country. Comcast refuses to acknowledge there's any problem on their end, but I'm reasonably confident that my home infrastructure is rock solid after double checking every aspect of my network setup.
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