Re: Help needed with intermittent internet


"Warren H" <wholzem@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:r_KdnSlLmv9yxarbnZ2dnUVZ_jCdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
$Bill wrote:
JM wrote:

I asked about this a few days ago, and they told me they do not allow
customer-owned cable modems. I pressed the issue with another csr, who
insisted they cannot do this, since there is no way for them to
provision the service on equipment other than theirs. She asked me,
"How in the world would we configure it?"

That's got to be both the funniest and stupidest thing I've heard lately.
Who trains these people ?

You should have told her the same way every other ISP does it. :)


I don't think she meant that it wasn't possible in the global sense, but
rather it isn't something that they're allowed to do, and there aren't any
work-arounds, either.

I don't know why Comcast requires that those business-class customers use
only the modem that they provide, or why they chose that particular modem.
I suspect it has to do with an SLA, and their need to minimize the
variables out of their control.

But it's not a training issue. The company could provision a
customer-owned modem, but they've chosen not to allow the agents that
ability. So they, the agents, don't have any way "in the world" to
provision it, but that's probably not the best way she could have gotten
that point across.

BTW, this brings up another point. Is there an SLA in the contract? The
cost of business-class service has gone down considerably in most markets,
and that may be because they only include priority support, and not an SLA
these days But I suspect that if there is an SLA, it would have something
to do with the modem being up, but not necessarily anything beyond. If
there's an SLA, they would probably keep records to protect their
liability, and those records might also be available to the agent. I'd ask
what they show. And if there is no SLA, and they don't keep those kinds of
records, there ought to still be a way to escalate the issue to the NOC,
and have them do such monitoring.

It would be hard for a customer to do the monitoring themselves. A DOCSIS
cable modem has an IP address on it's WAN side. Normally it's a class A
private range IP address, so monitoring the modem would require being on
their network. And it would also require knowing what the modem's IP
address is, and that's not something that there is any way for the
customer to discover. Perhaps the CRS is able to see what that IP address
is, but it's also possible the tools they have hide that address as well.

I'm also curious about what the modem's indicator lights are indicating
during the problems. And I also wonder what the modem logs show.
Confirming that it's a TCP/IP problem, and not an RF problem (or vice
versa) is an important step that should have already been taken. (And
probably was, but, hey, if we're brainstorming...)


The activities of the front panel lights don't tell me anything, although
I'm not sure I would know what I'm looking at anyway. The power light is
on, of course, as the "network" light (as the csr called it), indicating
sync with the ISP. Then there two opposing "lightening bolt" lights
(upstream/downstream) that flicker contstantly. They seem to flicker 3
times in unison, and then several times alternating. Then there are
numbered lights for the lan ports connected.

As for network monitoring, I asked about that, and, you're correct, it's not
something they can do from their local help desk. They simply don't have
the tools. I had another support group on the phone on Saturday, and she
actually referred to the "real" IP address, not our static (I wrote it down
if that would do any good). They could not monitor the network traffic,
either. Interestingly, she said her group could not even log in to the
Netgears. Comcast has recently purchased Time Warner - our old ISP - and
Adelphia. There seems to still be a lot of fragmentation.

The question remains: Why is the Netgear locking up? Some Comcast reps
still deny their equipment is ever going off line. But while I was at the
customer site today I proved it again, at least to my satisfaction. The
internet went down, I reset the Netgear, the internet came up.

While Comcast's basic stance is that the problem is on our side (after all,
they've tried 3 Netgears), one event seems to stop them all in their tracks
when I bring it up: Last Thursday during an outage, I called Comcast - as
has been my habit every day for 3 weeks - and the rep was in the process of
logging into the Netgear when the Netgear did a full power reset. For some
reason, this didn't flip my lid. I simply asked the Comcast rep, "What did
you just do?" He answered, "What do you mean?" When I told him the Netgear
powered off and back on, he didn't hesitate: He said, "That's never
supposed to happen. I'll have a tech out shortly." Thus, our 3rd Netgear.

With that in mind, what in the world are my options?

thanks to EVERYONE who has given of their experience and time in helping
brainstorm this issue.


jm


















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