Topic: Backup your backup

[harriet]

From a 2014 cable internet woe -attached below.

"Trying to choose between A and B for wireless alternative device to add to my collection. Must be reliable."

I think I favored Option B at the time ...

H

[Stuart]

I am old enough that I have sent telegrams 

Me too. The taxi office where I used to drive was also the Western Union office, so the drivers would deliver the telegrams. The machine was a big freestanding job, about three feet tall--maybe taller--with a typewriter style keyboard and a typewriter style "printer" that printed out the 'grams on a roll of yellow paper. And was it ever noisy when a 'gram would come in. If I was dispatching or talking on the phone, I could hear nothing but the teletype. Fortunately, it didn't take long to print out the 'grams.

It was still in use the last year I drove, 1978. If I ever get back there and can remember, I'll ask what happened to it.

It's probably a good topic for a Blues song, but also something any sane person would steer clear of. 

[Rivers]

Thanks for the congratulations folks. Keep us in your "thoughts and prayers" that it actually happens

Stuart, you hit the bullseye. From what we can determine talking to techs and managers, yes the culprit is the DSLAM, located in a village a few miles away. It seems it has one bad port. We theorize that new customers do not get assigned the bad port, an existing group of subscribers gets moved to it until the complaints start. It's like DSL roulette. When the line drops or slows down, and the logs start filling up with reconnects, you know you landed on port 'n', again.

I guess they got tired of spinning the wheel. Our account is a business one so we supposedly have an SLA. While they don't always meet the terms of it, we get a bit more leverage when calling in faults.

[harriet]

I remember when I worked as a commercial illustrator and had to make deadlines, deliver files through the internet and things would go wrong, so am glad to hear alot of that uncertainty may be resolved.

[Rivers]

Update on our rural fibre optic (FIOS) install. Frontier scheduled it initially for September 2018, but there was no way they were going to be ready to do it, as I surmised at the time. We finally got connected two days ago.

I understand it was made possible under the rural internet initiative introduced under Obama, God I miss that man.

I was expecting they would use the existing DSL copper pair from the road to the house, about 400 feet, converting the FIOS signal to DSL (and vice versa) at the street. But no... I was very pleasantly surprised when the tech ran a new fiber cable all the way to the house, poked it through the wall into a little protocol converter box that converts it to hi-speed ethernet, which just plugs into the new router.

So we went from less than 3 Mbps DSL to 50 Mbps download, 60 Mbps upload on FIOS. We can go faster if we pay for more speed; we elected to start with the basic plan. Frontier did a great job on the install. Now we're trying to figure out what to do with all this bandwidth.

[Johnm]

Congrats on getting a more functional internet hook-up, Rivers!  Knowing your tech interests and expertise, you must really have felt hamstrung the past couple of years by your system's limitations.
All best,
Johnm

[Stuart]

Yep, congrats on having Frontier cable you up to a higher level of connectivity.

Now we're trying to figure out what to do with all this bandwidth.

Well, as the old saying goes, "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

As I've mentioned previously, we're all pretty much limited by the slowest link in the existing infrastructure until it is replaced. It sounds like you are wired all the way through.

I have Frontier just north of Seattle and we're limited to 6 Mbps even though there's a fiber optic line running down the middle of Aurora Ave/Highway 99 about 100 feet or so from our dump. A friend in West Lafayette, IN has Frontier at home and is limited to 1 Mbps--a real example of the slow link in the chain putting a damper on things.

So enjoy enjoy the luxury of not having to watch a spinning circle while you wait for the next part of the video to download to your box. I'm envious.

[lindy]

Personal curiosity question for you Frontiers(wo)men from a city boy ...

Do you still have to deal with duopolies--that is, are you still limited to choosing between only two service providers? Or did they get rid of that idiotic rule?

L

[Rivers]

Where we're sitting, smack dab in the middle of Nowheresville, upstate NY, just happens to be close to a major fiber optic backbone that runs loosely between Boston and Chicago. Complete fluke, we had no idea until Cheryl dug up some network maps for a contracting gig and started asking questions.

Among a few things I don't understand yet are the fast upload speeds. With every internet connection I've ever tested the download speed was much faster than the upload. That's reversed with this FIOS setup. Which is curious, and intriguing.

Lindy, I'm not aware of that daft rule, I suspect it's long gone. Being rural we're not exactly overcome with choices. I love Frontier's service, the techs out here are great people.

[Stuart]

Why way up here in Shoreline RFD Cousin Lindy, we have to choose between Frontier and Comcast. I chose Frontier because it comes over the landline, and like the phone, when the power goes out, it doesn't--just plug a 12 volt battery pack into the modem (made mine from parts sourced at Radio Shack--Remember that outfit?), crank up the ol' laptop and I'm ready to log on to Weenie Campbell! And if the battery pack starts to rundown, I can always run a line from the battery in one of the vehicles. With Comcast, when the power or cable goes out, everything can go out, so it's best not to put all of your cookies in one jar.

Like Rivers, I give the Frontier field techs nothing but high marks. One of them gave me his cell number and told me just to call him--and don't bother calling Frontier tech support. If he can't correct the problem within his domain, he'll call the tech people upstream. That way I eliminate any unnecessary intermediate steps--and don't have to wait on hold.

[Rivers]

Like Rivers, I give the Frontier field techs nothing but high marks. One of them gave me his cell number and told me just to call him--and don't bother calling Frontier tech support. If he can't correct the problem within his domain, he'll call the tech people upstream. That way I eliminate any unnecessary intermediate steps--and don't have to wait on hold.

Same here, we're on a first name basis with many of them. They always do their darndest to get things going despite limitations in the DSL infrastructure (no more!) and have constantly exceeded expectations. They're our neighbors after all, everyone knows everyone out in the country, eventually.

Just drove home from the store, saw a big plume of smoke and diverted to see what was happening. Massive house fire a mile from us, burning to the ground, worst I've ever seen. Road was thick with fire trucks and other responders. I hope nobody was inside.