Lee, This is a great report, thanks for sharing. Most of the folks working for the man don't have a clue. I also agree that you can't get much worse than AT&T.
For backup reasons I have Insight cable on a 50 meg plan (which most nights is not doing much more than 17 to 20). I am frustrated with the speeds while paying them for their best. I am watching and keeping records then going to see what they intend to do. They have too many people on our node. I also have an AT&T DSL line, a paltry 5 meg down and less than 1 up. This thing goes out at least once a week often several times a week. I put off calling for I always get someone in India that hasn't a clue. Finally I had a Hughes satellite, it was unbelievably slow, less than 1 meg down and nothing up (for all practical purposes). I finally gave up and called to cancel, BUT their new system was coming out and I would be guaranteed 10 down and 1 up. O.K., let's see. By golly it stays about 10 down all the time, and they do have quite a delay when going to a new site, but when it pops the entire screen fills. Now the satellite is my second choice after Insight. I went with the Satellite backup as both the cable and phone lines are on the same poles all over the area so if one was lost it well could be that they both would be out. Sure enough a few months ago we lost both for close to a day. At that time I didn't have the faster satellite service but now I would be fine with this backup. Dealing with Hughes is also not nearly as good as Insight but tons better than AT&T however if you don't include maintenance on your bill a service call is around $150.00 while Insight charges nothing. Pros and cons to each of them. John On Jan 17, 2013, at 4:14 PM, Lee Larson wrote: > This is a long message telling of my Internet adventures over the last few > days. > > It all started early last week when one of the droids from Insight called to > say they planned to install a new cable modem in our house to support the > changes being made to our telephone service. We buy the Insight triple > play—cable, broadband and telephone—and the new modem would support the > latter two, giving our phone service more features. > > The conversation went something like this: > > > Me: I have a pretty good modem already that works well with my home network. > > Droid: The modem we plan to install is also a fine modem. > > Me: Is it possible for me to continue using my modem for the broadband and > use yours for the telephone. > > Droid: I'll be sure to send a installer a note telling him you want to do > that. > > Me: You're sure? The last modem I got from you guys was a piece of shit. > > Droid: Of course! We do this all the time. He'll be there between 1:00 and > 3:00 on Tuesday. > > > My house network is a little more complicated than usual. A corner of the > basement is my version of a wiring closet. Over the years, a dozen or so > Ethernet wires have been pulled to just about every room of the house and > they all start at a patch panel in the wiring corner. The corner has a > fifteen port switch, Linux server, NAS drive, UPS and the cable modem. > > The topology is a little more complicated because my Airport Extreme router > sits on the first floor, in a more central location to give strong WiFi. So, > the Insight cable comes into the basement modem and the Ethernet side of the > modem runs up to the Airport one floor above. Then the Ethernet output of the > Airport runs back down the basement to the switch. The Airport serves WiFi as > well as being the firewall and the DHCP server. > > As you can see, the modem is nothing more than a bridge between Insight's > network and my LAN. I want it to do nothing but pass TCP packets back and > forth. > > Tuesday rolled around and I came home early so I'd be there when the > installer arrived. He pulled into the driveway at 1:00 sharp, and I ushered > him down to the wiring corner. The first thing he said was "WiFi won't work > very good from down here." I told him about the Airport upstairs and how the > system was set up. > > "They told me I could keep using my original modem," I said. > "Who told you that?" he asked. > "The guy on the phone who set up the appointment," I replied. > "The guy was wrong," he said. "We never do that." > > He said "This modem has WiFi and a router built in, you know." I told him > that nobody had told me, but I'd just as soon turn both of them off. > > "Don't know if you can," he said. I asked "Why not?" He said "Well, the modem > doesn't have a manual or anything with it. I've never tried, but I've heard > you can get the manual off the Internet." > > He unplugged my modem, plugged his in, made sure the phone was working, got > the right lights to start blinking and tested the modem's output by plugging > my laptop into it. > > "You're good to go here. The modem's working fine," he said. > > Full of hubris, I said that I could probably get it to work with my system. I > signed the papers and let him go on to his next victim. > > The modem is an impressive looking box with lots of lights and a four-port > Ethernet switch on the back. It's an Arris TM826G set up especially for > Time/Warner. It has a router, a firewall and WiFi built in. > > The LAN wasn't working, but my laptop was still plugged into the modem and I > used it to find the manuals. Sure enough, the Arris Web site had two manuals. > One was the consumer manual for the Complete Idiot® and the second had the > instructions to configure the router and WiFi via the Web interface. It > looked pretty easy because the router has a setting called "Bridge > Mode"—exactly what I wanted. > > I set it to bridge mode, made up a long and twisty password and plugged it > into my LAN. Everything worked! Amazing! > > Now I wanted to rearrange the boxes in the wiring corner because the new > modem is quite a bit larger than the old one. I unplugged the new modem, > shifted the boxes and plugged it back in. The modem came up just fine, but > none of the devices on the LAN could see the Internet. > > I logged back into the modem and had a look around. Bridge mode was turned > off. I turned it back on and everything worked, On a hunch, I restarted the > modem. Bridge mode was turned off. It seems that every time the modem is > restarted, it resets a few features back to their defaults. > > Time/Warner has "tweaked" the modem's firmware to have the following > "features" that now work differently than the documentation says they should. > Here are the ones I've noticed so far. > > • Bridge mode resets itself on a power cycle. > > • The built-in router won't let you set static IP numbers in its DHCP server > using the MAC numbers. If you try, it just returns an error. > > • It seems to insist on using a 192.168.0.x address space instead of the > 192.168.100.x that I've been using. > > • It won't remember non-Insight DNS settings after a power cycle. > > • It won't handshake properly with DynDNS. > > • The built in firewall will (sometimes??) forget custom configurations on a > power cycle. > > I talked to an Insight rep on the phone last evening and asked him if there > was a list of Time/Warner "features" for the modem. He doesn't know of one. > > There is an Insight administrative interface for the modem, but it has a > secret password that changes every day. (I kid you not.) Insight can get into > the modem through this "secret" back door to change some of the settings. The > person I talked to on the phone offered to have this done to permanently > lobotomize it, so it will run in nothing but bridge mode. I think I'll take > him up on the offer. > > Is this the opening salvo of what can be expected from the Time/Warner > takeover of Insight? > > > PS/ The modem does move data just as fast as the previous one. I’m getting > 24.3 Mb/s down and 1.44 Mb/s up when connected to the machine in my office. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
