Tag: Ashland Home Net

Minor Rant #143

We began having Internet connectivity issues in the beginning of May. It was intermittent, and service typically returned in a few minutes.

We were planning a trip, and busy with those details, so I didn’t call it in. On the day before we left, the outage was a few hours in the morning. Logging in at a coffee shop,  I sent my ISP, Ashland Home Net (AHN) an email through their support website. They said someone would get in touch with me.

They didn’t.

Returning after our vacation last week, we found our connectivity worse. Calling in meant waiting by the phone for return calls and staying home so they can come by and check our systems. But, last Friday, I called it in.

Yes, they could see that we were online but our signal was very weak. This would need to be called into the city IT.

The City of Ashland supports several local ISPs. They do so through a community-owned entity called Ashland Fiber Network (AFN). The city’s support helps reduce the cost, right, and provides an alternative to the big commercialized entities that dominate the field, like Charter, Century Link, Comcast (which all might now be the same company). I use Ashland Home Net to buy local and help defray that cost.

Friday our connection went out in the morning and returned in the afternoon,  apparently on its own. I called AHN for an update before they closed for the day. The agent said a ticket had been opened with the city. The city would call us. They would come by.

They didn’t. 

Our connectivity came and went through the evening.

Saturday found another outage that lasted several hours. Support was called. Messages were left. Nothing was heard back.

Sunday…the same.

Monday.

Internet connectivity was good in the morning. I returned from writing and walking at about 2 PM. My wife said the connection had dropped at noon. I called it in. The same agent that I spoke with on Friday told me, yes, a ticket with the city had been opened. The city will be calling me.

The hours passed…

I called them each hour to remind them my net was still down and that I hadn’t heard from the city. We heard back from an Ashland Home Net at 5:40 PM. Yes, a ticket had been opened with the city. Unfortunately, they were closed for the day. Nothing could be done.

Our connection returned at 6:53, and then left a hour hour later.

It came back again at 8:50, but dropped at 10:20, and didn’t come back.

We had a connection the next morning, Tuesday. Since I didn’t hear from Ashland Home Net or the city, I called AHN  to see what was going on. The agent said the city was backed up. They would get hold of me, but it would probably be another twenty-four hours.

“Really?” I said. “It’s already been ninety-six hours.”

“What?”

“We opened the ticket on Friday.”

“Your records show that the ticket was opened on Monday.”

“No.” I had my notes and referred to them.

“Oh, you’re right,” the agent said. “Okay, I’ll call the city now, and I’ll call you back.”

He did. “The city is sending someone out now.”

The city did. I saw their truck out there. I saw their agent. He went to the side of our house. I waited for him to come to the door.

He didn’t.

I waited for the city to call.

They didn’t.

Our connection was up and remained up, and it has since then. We’ve never heard anything back from the city or Ashland Home Net.

I’m going to give them a call when I get home today. I want to know what the problem was, or is, if it still exists, and what’s been done, or will be done about it.

Then I think I’ll check out other ISPs.

Just in case. Because right now, I’m not too damn pleased with Ashland Home Net, Ashland Fiber Network, and the City of Ashland.

7

Internet Hiccups? I’m Not Alone.

We’ve been experiencing Internet problems. The Internet was dropping on us, or downloading EXTREEEMELY SLOOOWLLLYYY. 

You know how frustrating that can be. My wife was seeing Mac’s ball of futility every other minute, while I saw the standard No Internet Connection message on my HP. It helped us catch up on our reading, but we’re nunkies. (Don’t look it up; I just created it to mean “net junkies.”)

We use Ashland Home Net; most of our friends do not. Our friends haven’t been experiencing problems. We began wondering if it was just us. Perhaps our modem or router was going, or someone was outside, giggling by the side of the house, as they do something to disconnect us. You know, just having fun.

Then, two things happened. One, MSN sent me a notice, apologizing for their outages, problems, and interrupted service. (So, aha, see? Proof that something was going on. And people said I was crazy. I don’t have evidence of that, but it’s probably true.) Two, I called Ashland Home Net.

After two rings, the phone answered and a recording played.

“Tonights Rogue Broadband Wireless Internet Outage

“We are experiencing outages upstream from our equipment. This means, all of our equipment is operating correctly, it is the internet provider that we use that is having an issue.

“This is causing a massive slowdown of our network. Our upstream provider is aware and is working on the problem with every available resource. It is not a simple fix from what we have been told.

“I apologize for the outage and will try to keep you up to date on it as they work to restore service to an acceptable level.

“Thank you for your patience and for supporting a local company for your Rural Internet needs.”

 

I went to their website. Mostly about marketing, it shared nothing of use about outages. Over on their Facebook page, it was another story, with outages going back several months.

Still doubtful that AHN’s FB post explained everything we were enduring in our cathold, I did more searches. They yielded  a ZDNet gem, “Internet hiccups today? You’re not alone. Here’s why.” The article went on to explain, the culprit is the Border Gateway Protocol.

While an ISP maintenance activity may have played a factor, the real problem was that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing tables have grown too large for some top-level Internet routers to handle. The result was that these routers could no longer properly handle Internet traffic.

BGP is the routing protocol used to share the master routes, or map, of the Internet. On top of this the Domain Name System (DNS) is layered so that when you click on “www.zdnet.com” you’re taken to ZDNet.

When the BGP maps grow too large for their routers’ memory then, as the Internet Storm Center said, “BGP is flapping.”

“BGP is flapping.” I loved this statement later in the article:

Cisco also warned its customers in May that this BGP problem was coming and that, in particular, a number of routers and networking products would be affected. There are workarounds, and, of course the equipment could have been replaced. But, in all too many cases this was not done.

Ah, good. They knew, and didn’t take action. Technology is grand, but like everything else, it needs some love and attention. At least I verified that it wasn’t just me, and my system.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled writing.

 

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