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A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

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Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#281

Post by debtta »

globie wrote: post #175
Twirrim wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to the accuracy of the diagnosis, but the claims about NTP are bizarre, and to the best of my knowledge, wrong. There's nothing specific about the times the incidents cluster around that would have anything to do with NTP. It doesn't work like that.

We're talking about this line, right? >The precision of outages (at :29 and :44) matches a network-synchronized clock (NTP). I think this just correctly points out that if the trigger was something unsynchronized like animals chewing on wires or someone digging underground, you wouldn't have 61% of events occurring at these two second markers. Even if the trigger was something digital but on a machine that isn't NTP…

Those are minutes not seconds.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#282

Post by PaulHoule »

craftkiller wrote: post #274
anon7000 wrote: post #248

This story is so relatable it hurts. The amount of my time ISP executives have wasted by their malicious decision to absolutely gut “technical” support… It should be illegal to run a “support” department where most agents don’t understand the bare minimum of basics about how the internet works. I’ve had issues like this with all 3 of my past 3 ISPs, which included Comcast, Astound (WaveG), and CenturyLink. The last t…

> It should be illegal to run a “support” department where most agents don’t understand the bare minimum of basics about how the internet works. Recently when Optimum in NYC broke their IPv6, only 1 out of the 5 tech support people I talked to knew what IPv6 is. None of them fixed the problem. The problem resolved after a couple of days, so I assume someone finally noticed their infrastructure was broken. Incredibly…

My ISP (Frontier) struggles enough with the basics that the last thing I want to do is bring up IPv6.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#283

Post by op00to »

PaulHoule wrote: post #279
thallium205 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FedEx

Which is particularly effective in this day and age when many businesses don’t handle a lot of incoming physics mail —- send a FedEx to a particular individual at a particular location and it is not like they have a ‘mailroom’ that handles this routinely, it is a non-routine event that somebody shows up at the front desk to deliver something and inherently memorable.

Important legal documents are shipped via FedEx every day. Can’t just ignore it like you ignore regular mail.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#284

Post by pixl97 »

linsomniac wrote: post #262

I found this one weird trick that'll get a Xfinity manager to personally come to your residence and leave a card with their cell phone number for you to call if you have any problems with your service. All it takes is for your city to start a build out of a fiber ISP. I really had no complaints about Xfinity service other than the limited outbound bandwidth. But when our city deployed their own fiber ISP and our neig…

>All it takes is for your city to start a build out of a fiber ISP.

So, I worked for Cox in the late 90s - early 2000s where in many Louisiana cities we had dial up return cable modems. Yea, these things sucked as bad as you would expect. The city pleaded with Cox to upgrade to a 2 way cable system offering incentives and low interest bonds, etc. Anything to get better internet. We wouldn't budge.

So, the city started a municipal fiber push. In 24 hours the company released 2 million dollars in funds to.... no, not upgrade and work on infrastructure. For advertising against 'city socialism' and political donations.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#285

Post by [deleted] »

HumanOstrich wrote: post #128
altairprime wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value here is “triage experiment: try an older modem”. If it reveals something, now they’re not stuck. If it fails in the same way, no knowledge is gained.

According to the article (again), he was using his own Xfinity-approved modem. I doubt his neighbor was also using the same model. There's no point in performing random experiments if you've already ruled out those causes in some way. It would also require either renting a modem temporarily or buying one.

[deleted]

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#286

Post by PaulHoule »

AngryData wrote: post #19
1over137 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only gigabit provider". Like those grow on trees. Lots of people would love to have a fraction of that speed.

Its not like it is some monumental task. Fiber is cheaper than copper, and we managed to lay copper telephone lines and power lines to everybody. Where I live right now didn't even have DSL available at any point in time, the local telecomm didn't want to spend money on replacing some of the poorly functioning 60 year old copper lines despite everyone clamoring for any kind of wired connection. And yet a startup ISP…

It reminds of this book

https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Sum-Society-Distribution-Possibi...

which has a case study of US Steel used lobbying as a weapon against the rest of us by getting protectionism against steel imports because they felt entitled to keep making steel with pre-WWII open health furnaces that had been paid for long ago but produced more expensive and lower quality steel than international competitors who were using basic oxygen, electric arc and other modern processes. In a market economy they would have been forced to go out of business or invest in new equipment —- that is, make a disinvestment that they didn’t want to make (that’s why they call it “capital(ism)”), it’s like the capital makes decisions on its own.

Circa 1980 almost all futuristic thinkers thought the copper network was going to be ripped out to replace it with fiber because fiber was clearly better in the long term, but what we did get was much more complex and path dependent because in favorable locations cable TV was a great business that built out infrastructure which could be repurposed, DSL was a good solution for crowded little countries like South Korea and the UK, etc. Like those open hearth furnaces, bad infrastructure that exists drives out good infrastructure that hasn’t been built yet.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#287

Post by ce4 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #245
terminalshort wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that we now live in a world where AI can instantly an accurately diagnose a network infrastructure problem, but you are still forced to talk to CS drones who tell you again and again "have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?"

Going off on a tangent now, but man, I wish when you called support you could go through a quick technical competency test, and your results dictated who you got support from. Nailing dense questions about network infrastructure? You get to the engineering team. Failing to know what the "G" in 2.4GHz means? You probably just need someone to tell you to restart your router.

Relevant xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/806/

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#289

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

runjake wrote: post #242
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea about NJ, but here in NM, the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) says that they have authority over telephone service only and can do nothing about internet service (even if it is the same company and same wire bundle).

The key is to look up your local city or county franchise agreements for ISP right-of-ways and then contact those people and that agency. They should be Google-able because they’re public record. In the US, anyway.

That doesn't actually work here in my part of NM. The company is the phone company, the wiring was installed on the same easements that they used to provide phone service. The problem is that the PUC, which controls phone service, has no jurisdictional authority under state law over internet service (and neither does any other state agency). At least this is what the PUC told us during a multiway zoom meeting between residents, the phone company/ISP, the PUC and two county commissioners.

Re: A monopoly ISP refuses to fix upstream infrastructure

#290

Post by hinkley »

jliptzin wrote: post #257

Yep, I knew this was Comcast/Xfinity just seeing the title. I had the exact same problem, for years. Intermittent disconnects for a few minutes at a time, multiple times a day. I must have had upwards of 50 technicians come to my house, all insisting there was some problem with the wiring in my house (there wasn’t) or the router or whatever (hardware all replaced multiple times including the wiring). Eventually after…

The cost of disgruntled customers is that they might work for a competitor or a company you have to work with, like a bank.
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