WARNING: This may be too geeky and “inside baseball” about connectivity for some. If so, move along. These are not the ‘droids you are seeking. The geeky voices in my head are just all jabbering too loudly for me to ignore them completely.
Well, late this afternoon, my internet connection went south on me. Again.
Did all the troubleshooting I could do from this end. Everything good here, but no joy with connectivity.
So, called the first level flappers (Jonathan Swift aficionados will recognize the term and its apt use *heh*). Well, surprise! Surprise! A first level, “I can do notheeng” person… could. Do something, that is. Notalot, as it turns out, but something. He ran across a notation that an “update” had been “pushed” to the modems in my area… right about when my service cut out. Great. “This update will kill your service. have a nice day!”
Well, he reset my modem from his end (a different process to me cycling it on my end) and… I had internet connectivity. Of a sort. Below, see two typical Speedtest.net/Pingtest.net results:
And,
Wow. really “fixed” my connectivity issues.
Not.
Did a little more digging. Hmmm, part of the “push” seems to have screwed around with my DNS settings in my router! How’s that?!? Pretty good password, there. Oh, well. Reset DNS servers. Test ’em. Hmm, ALL of ’em are slow responding (used ns_bench, not just ping)
Sooo, off to look for some faster, more responsive DNSs (Domain Name Servers–and yes, I know I uttered an unnecessary redundancy earlier. Opps, repeated it again. *heh*)
Now, I still have crappy Speedtest and Pingtest scores (that’s something my ISP needs to work on–besides its DNS stuff), but at least pages are loading more quickly. Now, one more step: enabling Opera Turbo. It’s only for use on “slow networks” but what the heck is this if not SLOW?
Of course, faster DNS simply helps out on FIRST loading (well, really getting) an address. After that, it’s stored locally, anyway… until I clear caches, etc. That’s why the humongous ping times I’m getting from Speedtest and Pingtest are so troubling (latest: 2300ms or more!!! That’s “speeds” like bumper-to-bumper traffic with strays from a wrecked cattle car strewn across six lanes of highway at rush hour *sigh*).
Sounds like they “upgraded” more than just your modem and DNS. I think they may have replaced the fiber optic cables or copper wires with twine and tin cans.
I take it Comcast treats you better, eh?
By tonight at 9:30 Central, some of the service was back to a more normal basis. That’s interesting, because evenings are usually high traffic times, when one would expect bandwidth issues (lots of movie and TV viewing, even Hulu etc.). No, what I think caused the semi-restoration of service was some “upper level tech” fell asleep at the switch and accidentally allowed things to work again.
Mind you, all these issues began back in July at the same time as an “upgrade in service” to a putative 10mbs (download, 1mbs upload) “increase” in speed. Riiiiight. Now, I do not KNOW that the “improvements” made to the service are what caused the issues; that would be post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. But absent any substantive information about WHAT was done to “improve” service, that coincidence is all I have to hang my hat on. *sigh*
Oh, well, besides “work” (such as it is this week), I have some projects to complete on electrical infrastructure here at twc central, along with some books I simply MUST get read THIS WEEK, so I may just leave the computers off for a while tomorrow. It’d at least be good for my blood pressure.
(BTW, rabbit trail: I have been having fun over on another blog tweaking the nose of an idiot who thought Sarah Palin’s remarks about the vice president actually having some real power in the senate were evidence of her mental weaknesses. Strangely, the fact that recent vice presidents–for over 100 years, or so–have ceded the Constitutional power to preside–really preside–over the senate, as early vice presidents did and have neglected their duty to do so seems evidence to this loon that the Constitution doesn’t mean what it says and that being president of the senate is absolutely nothing. Hmmm, it seems to me just from what I recall of Robert’s Rules of Order that anyone presiding over such a body has an enormous amount of power. Speakers of the House–and their delegates–seem to exercise such power in session, and the president of the senate has no less power… and certainly can have more than the weak-kneed, pusillanimous oath-breakers of the last few decades have exercised.)
Yes, Comcast treats me nicely – for a price. Downloads on the order of 15-16mbps – uploads not as fast as they advertise – tonight about .3mbps, but at times as high as 3mbps.
I remember the flap about Sara Palin’s remarks. I wonder what Joe Biden thinks about them now. He certainly thought she was a rube before the election.
Of course these days, Vice Presidents seem to assert authority they don’t have in other areas, and neglect their primary duties. Maybe they’re all secretly hoping for that skip of a heartbeat?
I’m amazed that you would wonder what Crazy Uncle Joe Biden “thinks” at all. *heh* If you want to know what he “thinks” you’re going to have to wait for him to find something to plagiarize again. Nothing else coming from his pie hole shows any thought whatsoever.
The OT “thread” in comments to this post (which I gladly admit to instigating) is much more interesting to me than the original post. *heh*
A very interesting book lending some light to the issue of the place of the vice president is,
John Adams’ Vice-Presidency, 1789-1797; Linda Dudick Guerrero, ©1982 ISBN 0-405-14083-5
It’s a dissertation, and I’ve only seen it online, but it’s fascinating to view the differences between the US’s first vice president (who came to be known in his own day as “The Father of the Constitution”) and vice presidents of recent decades.
Of course, Adams’ views on a hereditary monarchy and nobility would also be strange indeed to contemporary Americans… until one considers how entrenched political families believe they are owed political office–and how often the electorate seems to agree with them.