Dear ISP it's you not me

[Too Tall]

My ISP, who shall remain nameless rhymes with outcast, drops my connection many times during the day. The outtage is brief and it's a PITA.

They dutifully arrive, monitor the connection, declare victory and walk away. I've suggested that the physical connection from their pole to my house is suspect to no avail. Yeah yeah poor me ;)

If anyone with a working propeller cap has a simple method for logging drops, nothing else, to a log hit me up.

I've used scripts in the shell for this and hate having to tease out the data...besides showing this to the ISP causes them to reboot my router "cause that's probably the problem". ack ack.

Hep

[monadnocky]

My ISP, who shall remain nameless rhymes with outcast, drops my connection many times during the day. The outtage is brief and it's a PITA.

They dutifully arrive, monitor the connection, declare victory and walk away. I've suggested that the physical connection from their pole to my house is suspect to no avail. Yeah yeah poor me ;)

If anyone with a working propeller cap has a simple method for logging drops, nothing else, to a log hit me up.

I've used scripts in the shell for this and hate having to tease out the data...besides showing this to the ISP causes them to reboot my router "cause that's probably the problem". ack ack.

Hep

In my neck of the woods you have a choice. It's outcast or paper cups tied to a tight string.
Connection drops are frequent. I've been forced to do my virtual meetings from my office - it's DSL, but at least it's stable.

At least Outcast is really, really expensive.

[Mark Kelly]

Can't help with the log but we had a similar problem in Willy, fortunately we were with Internerd and they found it after they sent someone out who used time domain reflectometry to locate the fault. It was in the local connection pit, turned out to be simply water in the pit.

[caleb]

Then I clicked on this thread I expected to see pictures of TT cutting off a seat mast.

Carry on.

[guido]

Then I clicked on this thread I expected to see pictures of TT cutting off a seat mast.

Carry on.

That's like me expecting the router thread to debate full plunge vs trim models, collet sizes and if a table is practical in the real world...

[guido]

My ISP, who shall remain nameless rhymes with outcast, drops my connection many times during the day. The outtage is brief and it's a PITA.

They dutifully arrive, monitor the connection, declare victory and walk away. I've suggested that the physical connection from their pole to my house is suspect to no avail. Yeah yeah poor me ;)

If anyone with a working propeller cap has a simple method for logging drops, nothing else, to a log hit me up.

I've used scripts in the shell for this and hate having to tease out the data...besides showing this to the ISP causes them to reboot my router "cause that's probably the problem". ack ack.

Hep

My outcast network is fine, rarely hiccuping, but the TV bit over the same copper was hugely unstable for over a month. They finally replaced the co-ax connection hardware between the line from the street and the house lines. But that finally fixed it. It only took 7 calls to tech, 3 different cable boxes and two tech visits to replace the hardware between every segment of the co-ax...

[j44ke]

It is almost always the connections between house and pole and water is almost always the base cause.

Find a big limb recently off a tree in the neighborhood. Yank the cable off the telephone pole but good with a pole saw or something. Put the limb on the cable and give any detached screw-on connector a knock with a hammer so that it is nicely ovalized. Call outcast. While you are waiting, cut up the wood for firewood and accidentally chainsaw the cable.

[sk_tle]

This is a conspiracy to forces you to get covid by subscribing to a 5G internet connection and then ask for vaccine so they can innoculate you some other tracking chips.

It is all Bill Gates's fault.

[Tom]

One local tech is a guy that got laid off from a data center job. No matter what the problem, he rewires the house and the outside connection. He does a really neat job. Apparently he knows how to test lines for noise and strength and does it. He won't last, he spends too much time at every call.

[Too Tall]

One local tech is a guy that got laid off from a data center job. No matter what the problem, he rewires the house and the outside connection. He does a really neat job. Apparently he knows how to test lines for noise and strength and does it. He won't last, he spends too much time at every call.

Send him here please.

Frigging Bill Gates. I knew it.

[NYCfixie]

It is almost always the connections between house and pole and water is almost always the base cause.

Find a big limb recently off a tree in the neighborhood. Yank the cable off the telephone pole but good with a pole saw or something. Put the limb on the cable and give any detached screw-on connector a knock with a hammer so that it is nicely ovalized. Call outcast. While you are waiting, cut up the wood for firewood and accidentally chainsaw the cable.

This is the best advice so far (and I am a technologist).

[j44ke]

This is the best advice so far (and I am a technologist).

The ISP's will say it hardware won't corrode because they use stuff graded for outdoor use, but they have no idea what's on each pole or at the house. Plus condensation, humidity, etc.

Here's basically what gets done at either end of the wire house-to-pole.

Bad TV Reception? Here's One Fix

And not infrequently, the cable itself should be replaced.

If you read the cable tech websites, they talk about corrosion all the time. And they also talk about the use of highly flexible and elastic casings on cables as a problem too.

Out in Amagansett, we had endless problems until I got a guy who wasn't burned out and still got a charge out of figuring out problems. He laced up everything snug, explained everything thoroughly and it was was pretty revelatory.

[gt6267a]

A slight inverse method. Find a POS computer in your house. Install Linux and Apache. Create a website that says "hello world, I am too tall". Then monitor the website with something like this ... Disclaimer I have not actually used this one. At work I have only used expensive enterprise versions . You'll get a pretty graph or graphs and have plenty of data to show band-champion how much their service sucks. Only as good as what outkast will do for you, but the data could be good.

As an aside, a customer is doing this to a company I know. The customer company wrote a java program to monitor the end points they consume from the company I know. Service provider has a blip, customer company calls asap. Its a little nasty.

[Too Tall]

A slight inverse method. Find a POS computer in your house. Install Linux and Apache. Create a website that says "hello world, I am too tall". Then monitor the website with something like this ... Disclaimer I have not actually used this one. At work I have only used expensive enterprise versions . You'll get a pretty graph or graphs and have plenty of data to show band-champion how much their service sucks. Only as good as what outkast will do for you, but the data could be good.

As an aside, a customer is doing this to a company I know. The customer company wrote a java program to monitor the end points they consume from the company I know. Service provider has a blip, customer company calls asap. Its a little nasty.

That is a great method.

Well....miracles do happen. Outcast arrived ontime. I talked to the nice man and he decided the best thing to do was replace the coax end to end. His comment was "OMG this is corroded beyond belief and the cable shield is visible.

All better now.

[NYCfixie]

When I owned a home in NJ, I would nicely ask the provider's tech when they started to hem and haw about the needed fix:
"I know it is going to take some time to replace that cable and I am about to order (breakfast or) lunch, so what can I order for you? it's on me."

It also helps to get them to work faster because they are always on the clock (most raises for this type of work are based on customer feedback and performance/time metrics) so often they get the job done quickly and have time to eat the food I purchased for them: Win-Win.


In corporate roles, when I was working with union labor from Local 3 (in NYC), CWA, Verizon, or other similar vendors I would treat them as kindly as possible (because people rarely do) and ask what I could do to make the job-site more pleasant and have for them at lunchtime or after the job was done. A few hundred dollars for food over the lifespan of projects that could be 100,000 to a several million was money well spent. Treat pepole with respect, and they will respect the job they need to do for you.

Out in Amagansett, we had endless problems until I got a guy who wasn't burned out and still got a charge out of figuring out problems. He laced up everything snug, explained everything thoroughly and it was was pretty revelatory.

That is a great method.

Well....miracles do happen. Outcast arrived ontime. I talked to the nice man and he decided the best thing to do was replace the coax end to end. His comment was "OMG this is corroded beyond belief and the cable shield is visible.

All better now.

[Too Tall]

Well said NYC. Just because folks are providing service at will is no reason to dump on them. We are all in sales. That duck could be somebody's mother.

Happy trails

[zachateseverything]

FWIW. On my dad's side of the family I have one cousin who is pretty high up in Comcast's service department. On my mom's side of the family she has a cousin that's married to the CEO. Guess how aggravated my parents got when they were having issues with their Comcast broadband?

answer: still very.

I'm fortunate. My municipality built out a fiber-optic network. Since the connection was installed 3 years ago I've had zero outages, pay a measly $30 a month, and get lightning fast speeds. The service is so good that I don't even get the mailers from competitors anymore. They've given up on my neighborhood. Lobby your local politicians.

[Too Tall]

FWIW. On my dad's side of the family I have one cousin who is pretty high up in Comcast's service department. On my mom's side of the family she has a cousin that's married to the CEO. Guess how aggravated my parents got when they were having issues with their Comcast broadband?

answer: still very.

I'm fortunate. My municipality built out a fiber-optic network. Since the connection was installed 3 years ago I've had zero outages, pay a measly $30 a month, and get lightning fast speeds. The service is so good that I don't even get the mailers from competitors anymore. They've given up on my neighborhood. Lobby your local politicians.

you can stop talking now ;)

[Ras72]

Then I clicked on this thread I expected to see pictures of TT cutting off a seat mast.

Carry on.

Thought the same thing but inverse... I clicked wondering how TT was going to add to the seat mast.

Back to the regular scheduled program.

[Too Tall]

Thought the same thing but inverse... I clicked wondering how TT was going to add to the seat mast.

Back to the regular scheduled program.

Next time we'll speak in the vernacular exclusively. My fault ;)