[ale] OT: tech support hell at Mindspring

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2004-03-16 at 23:04, Robert Heaven wrote:

> It only took me a couple of phone calls (and some looking at my
> firewall) to figure out how to resolve the problem consistently. What
> I'm seeing on my firewall is, the pppd daemon is crashing for no
> reason. (that I can see) The resolution is to: unplug the DSL modem
> for 30 seconds, plug it back in and let it go through it's startup
> then, when it's finished I just start up the pppd daemon and it works
> well for another few weeks.
> 
> I also talked with my son, who works for Earthlink in the Atlanta NOC,
> and he explained the problem as being something to do with "reaching a
> connection limit because of stale connections caused by tunnel drop
> outs". So, it appears that power cycling the DSL modem and restarting
> the pppoe regularly is a good idea. (it helps clean up the stale
> connections) This is probably why the Indian on the phone always says
> to "reboot everything and call back".

I just switched a client from Earthlink to Speakeasy due to the
following:

Account had been good for years with no difficulties. Over the span of a
month, the connection uptime went from constant to less than 5 seconds
in a near steady decline. 

Called tech support and was handled by a non-english accent who was
friendly but had a long script to go through. Rebooting and letting the
modem sit off for a few minutes would improve the situation (1-2 minutes
of connection)(time on call - 1.5 hours). Got transfered to an American
accent. The person could see the connection being "dropped by peer"
which is the same error I was seeing on my end. Suggested the modem was
dying. Reasonable suggestion as it was an original Alcatel ADSL 1000
that had been in service since 1999. Rush shipped a new modem. (time on
phone 15 minutes)

Modem arrives. No sync. Call tech support. On hold for 30 minutes than
very thick accent tells me to reboot. We did the reboot song and dance
for 30 minutes and I was finally transfered to an American accent. A new
modem was shipped but rush was not checked. (time on phone 15 minutes)

Modem arrives 8 days later. No sync. Client is flipping out at this
point as there has been no email access for over 2 weeks now. The old
modem will sync but can't keep a connection going. Call support. Round
and round over rebooting everything. At this point modem was connected
to a windows machine with identical results. This matched the script
screen so the result was "call the phone company". (time on phone 45
minutes)

Called phone company. was informed it was "not their problem as they
didn't service the DSL account for Earthlink". (time 45 minutes)

Called Earthlink and pitched a total hissy fit with the first human to
answer the phone. Informed them that the account would be dropped if the
line problem was not resolved (called speakeasy on the other line and
started the new account process (10 minutes)). Earthlink called
Bellsouth. Bellsouth arrives (next day) and discovers that the DSL
signal on on the line 2 pair not the line 1 pair of wires. Old Alcatel
used old connection method. 

Got sync. Connection still drops every 5-20 seconds. Client has begun
mentioning their prowess with handguns.

Speakeasy account setup hits a snag.  Order data doesn't match Bellsouth
data. Bellsouth data shows service address wrong. Client has been in
same location for 25 years. Resubmitted Speakeasy/Covad connection
order. Bellsouth refuses again. Name doesn't match. Call Bellsouth for a
CSR (Customer Service Record) to be faxed to client. Bellsouth refused
claiming it was "proprietary and confidential". Hung up and called back
and got different person who faxed it over in about an hour. 16 pages of
gibberish. Faxed that to Speakeasy. Covad submitted new order.
Connection occured. Modem arrived. Hooked up new modem.

No sync. Client goes bananas. I check all 6 lines for DSL service. Found
the old Earthlink, can't-keep-it-up-needs-viagra service on one line and
nothing else. Called support. Speakeasy support patches into phone
switch and can't see the modem at all. From their end it is a dead line.
They call Covad who goes out the the switch and verifies the DSL service
has been connected to the phone line on the connection order.

Client call Bellsouth. Got a great person who who started digging and
promised to call back. They called back and said that there was some
discrepancies between different databases. Bellsouth tech came out and
put a fox on the line and the tech in the switch room found the other
end and put the DSL on the correct pair. 

Sync achieved. Email flood for the next 12 hours.

Bellsouth Vice-Pres called client and apologized for the problem and
credited client with 3 months of phone service.

The original Alcatel ADSL 1000 Modem works just fine. The 2 modems from
Earthlink were returned. Earthlink was dropped. The Speakeasy service
has been solid and fast.

Lesson learned: the last mile of wire will ALWAYS be the worst problem.

-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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