OT: Serious ISP problems....

[Fairlight]

Only John Esak would say something like:
> ISP problems. Basically, they turn the service completely off for long
> periods of time like two hours and say it was for "maintenance". No warning,
> no schedule, just every night between 2 and 4am. (I would love to know if
> that is even legal for a large carrier, like this cable service, to do. )

Depends on your contract, their ToS, and the FCC regulations governing
cable internet service.  DSL users, for instance, only have contractual
recourse--especially since the last round of deregulation, while T1
customers have some recourse and there is a minimum QoS inherent and
enforced via penalties from the regulating agency.  I can -almost-
guarantee that the contract is written to their benefit, and that it's
deregulated enough that they don't feel they have to give a damn.  The
telecom industry has gotten that bad.  Thank the FCC and the idiots that
elected those that put them in power.

> NJ (only 120 miles away). Often, I go from NYC to WDC, down to Atlanta, out
> to Dallas, Fort Worth than back through Indiana back to NYC.  All of this
> translates to huge packet loss... usually 20% to 40% but a definite average
> over the past two weeks of 33%. I talk to the techs at the NOC and they say

Understand a few things.  Okay, John, I know you're brighter than I am,
so don't take this as talking down to you, please. :) But technically
speaking, TCP won't lose packets.  By definition, it can't.  You'd lose the
connection, but not packets and still keep the connection.  They may be
delayed, but to any application, they are -guaranteed- to arrive, and be
presented in the order sent.

Now UDP and ICMP...yeah, that you can lose packets.  However, just because
you lose ICMP packets at a particular gateway doesn't mean it's not passing
regular TCP and UDP traffic.  Routers and (and are in some places) tuned to
a lower priority, and you can actually have ICMP packetloss spikes at one
gateway because it's tuned to not respond, while points past that respond
at faster and more complete rates.

That said, the fact that the hop after maintains that delay seems to
indicate the problem is indeed hop 14.

The randomness of the ping response times is troubling.  That could be
anything from ICMP prioritising with a variable load, to bad cabling, to a
router whose CPU is just plain bogged.  No telling without getting into
their gear.  But I do find it disturbing that it's all over the place.

> Can I reach them (if so, how??) and can I tell/ask/demand that they fix this
> problem router? And, assuming I could do that, *why* wouldn't my ISP have
> the ability to do that, and why wouldn't they want to do that. I'm a
> business user (paying big $$$) who is about to leave because of it, but
> these level 2 techs keep saying "It's not our problem."  Is it time for me
> to start calling VP's?

The frustrating answer is that it both is and isn't their problem (your
ISP's).  It's not their problem in that it falls outside of their purview;
their "demarcation point" is whomever they peer with, and there are no
apparent problems inside that perimiter.  So technically, on those grounds,
they're absolutely correct.

The fact that that take the service down several times a day and force this
routing -is- their problem, and yes, I would start shaking the management
tree if it were me in your shoes.

That they won't go to bat for you to get the problem solved is no great
surprise to me.  We used to have issues with west-orange.mci.net before
they changed owners several times.  It was the UDP black hole of the
universe.  They never did do a damned thing about it until two changes of
hands later.  Inter-ISP cooperation is next to nil, to be honest.  Now
carriers...that's usually another story.  And if you're routed through this
place in NY, then they're acting as a carrier, IMHO.  And they should be
held responsible as such.

Here's some helpful info for you:

   Domain Name: METCONNECT.NET

   Administrative Contact:
      MetTel            efox at mettel.net
      44 Wall Street, 14th Floor
      New York, NY 10005
      US
      999 999 9999 fax: 999 999 9999

   Technical Contact:
      NY, NY 10004              jauerbach at METTEL.NET
      212-248-1012


And...

   Domain Name: METROCAST.NET

   Administrative Contact:
      Operations, Network               metrotech at metrocastcablevision.com
      Infrastructure Engineering
      Metrocast Cablevision
      21 Jarvis Ave
      Rochester, NH 03867
      US
      603-330-2233 fax: 603-335-4106

   Technical Contact:
      Engineering, Inftastructure metrocastipadmin at metrocastcablevision.com
      MetroCast Cablevision
      P.O. Box 1450
      Rochester, NH 03866
      US
      (603) 332-5466 fax: (603) 335-4016


Bearing in mind that it's actually metconnect's connection at issue, I
would have a talk with their tech folks and point out the issue, see what
they can do, if anything.  They may be more responsive than your ISP, who
knows?  The second one is for the hop after them.  As a peer, and one whose
upstream connection is potentially affecting them, they may give a damn
enough to actually shake the tree from that end.

> Well, that's it. I'll take any advice on what to do technically, legally,
> whatever. It is going to be VERY expensive for me to go back to a T1 or any
> high-speed DSL (about $1200/month in my area). I think this cable company
> "Metrocast" knows this... and therefore doesn't really care that my service
> has been unusable for the past going on 3 weeks now.

Try contacting metconnect.  If that fails (or in the interim), you
should review your ToS and contract with your provider and see what QoS
is guaranteed (usually business accounts have -something- better than
residential), what (if anything) they state as a guaranteed uptime, etc.
See if they're in breach.  If so, get a lawyer onto them--or at least
threaten to.  Document -everything- for at least two weeks, I should
think--possibly a full term of service.  Then let them have the full blast
of the legal process, assuming you have any recourse at all.  Of course,
whether it's actually worth doing is debatable.  What's the real reason
one sues anyone?  For money.  If it's not going to amount to sizeable
damages, it's really not worth the aggravation on principle.  They, a
telecom of some scope, presumably, can probably afford to stall and outwait
any suit even if it has merit and can be won.  They have the resources.
Figure a monthly bill of $50/mo in a single metro area.  That's $50mil a
month gross, minus whatever they pay their staff.  They already own their
infrastructure, most likely.  This is why I don't buy it when BellSouth
says they can't afford a mere $7mil switch to fix a problem.  They're
making over 5x that in just our metro area.  The concept carries over to
cable.  They own their infrastructure already.  They're making a killing
every month.  You'd think they should owe the customer what is being paid
for within some reasonable bounds.

Technically speaking, there isn't much you can do within this context.
You're at the mercy of the routing tables.  If BGP says send it on 'x'
route, it goes on 'x' route.  There's no escaping that, and it's pretty
doubtful the routing tables will be changed due to peering agreements and
contracts.

IMHO, if your business and livelihood absolutely depend on it, I'd
wholeheartedly recommend going back to a T1 leased line with a guaranteed
QoS for which the carrier is held responsible.  For business purposes, it's
the only real way to go if you need "five nines".  Don't go business DSL.
There are still no speed guarantees, and it's a "best effort" approach
(and stated as such in contracts and ToS) by most providers.  In fact, the
"guarantees" on most business DSL are that if they can't make it work, you
just don't get reamed the cancellation fees when you try to avoid the door
hitting you on the way out of the relationship.  The technology is decent
by and large for casual use, but IMHO is still too fragile.  As my ISP's
general manager put it to me when he called to bitch at me for opening
-another- ticket about the speed on my DSL line tanking for no apparent
reason recently, "It's a limitation of the technology.  It's not a T1.  I
understand it's irritating.  So is your cell phone dropping a call, but
it happens--again, a limitation of that particular technology.  DSL was
never designed for business; it was designed for families to get email
and browse the web casually."  His words, certainly not mine.  I agree
wholeheartedly that it's nowhere near as robust as a dedicated line, and
the relative prices speak to that as well.  But you do get what you pay for
in both cases.  I don't, however, agree with his philosophy (and indeed,
it's BellSouth's philosophy as well--there IS NO OPTION for speed issues on
their trouble ticket system) that it's perfectly okay for you to not get
what you pay for consistently.

In fact, they not only don't care about speeds, they don't care about
latency spikes--even if they're absolutely unruly.  The only speed
guarantee with most providers is 128K.  That's the fallback rate
rock-bottom basement speed to maintain sync on DSL.  If you can sync and
maintain sync, you have at least 128K, and therefore it "qualifies" as
broadband--and therefore they don't give a fieg if it won't perform even
as well as a v.90 modem.  Literally.  It could be all ATM/IP overhead with
no room for TCP and they won't care if they can't do it on the cheap, and
you're not paying them a bundle in extra fees to diagnose and fix it.  I've
seen it.

Now granted, that's the headache of DSL, but Cable is about as unregulated.
Different technology, same attitudes.  Which is why I advise no business
ever give up their expensive T1 and go for Cable or DSL.  Yes, it's a huge
savings--until you spend a mint in downtimes and on Rolaids.

I feel for you.  I know what a bitch this kind of thing is to deal with.
I'd shake the trees pretty hard while at the same time making plans to
switch, personally.  I know what this side of the industry is like, and
I can pretty much guarantee that their attitudes, collectively, will be,
"Put up or shut up."  I've run up against it often enough to know that's
realism. :(  Don't shoot the messenger.  :)

Let us (or at least me) know how it goes, eh?

mark->
-- 
Try our new SPF-0 lotion, SunScream[tm].  Get it while it's hot!