Been really busy since our trip to Italy. I will be posting a blog entry with what we did, pics, and all of that fun stuff along with the beautiful Jessica. Stay tuned for more updates. Jen and Bryan had their son last week! Check Jen's blog here but no posts since delivery:
http://mrsjenpeters.blogspot.com/
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Comcast Atlanta Outage...the road to nowhere
If you have never worked a support desk before, it is quite an experience during a long outage. Comcast has had a routing issue for about 9 hours now where certain routes go nowhere after a certain hop:
Tracing route to iss.net [209.134.161.35] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 117 ms 11 ms 7 ms 73.8.64.1
3 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms GE-2-2-ur01.N4 atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.107.189]
4 25 ms 9 ms 8 ms te-9-4-ur01.b3marietta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [6 8.86.106.129]
5 9 ms 8 ms 10 ms te-9-4-ur02.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.125]
6 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms te-9-4-ur01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.13]
7 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms te-9-2-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.9]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
My first thought...oh well isn't this just great. These types of problems are usually hard to find and report. I have an idea what happened but figured I would torute myself and call their little support line and see which support locale is answering the phones today. I have my money on SE Asia.
During the popt(press one press two) motions, there was a message from what sounded like another non-english speaking genius who reported the outage as this:
Download rec_+14042662278_13_Sep_2007_23_36_41.mp3
If you had a hard time understanding that,you are not alone. Here is what he said:
"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with internet access, preventing the loading of several websites; in all of the atlanta region. This is not a comcast related issue but we are closely monitoring the situation with our partners in the field."
Classic response. No responsbility, no real problems, underplay the extent of the issue, and give no ETR for getting this fixed. I love the world I left.
So if anyone from comcast happens to stumble upon this, here are a few things to consider:
- never give numbers to explain the extent of an outage. Serveral means 7-10. This outage is effecting access to 100's if not thousands of sites and services. I have counted over 15 things I can't reach right now including my office VPN. Thanks.
- Never ever say "it's not our fault". If it is effecting your customers you provide a service to, I don't care if the FBI came in and unplugged a bunch of boxes, you say the party line "We are investigating the issue and will have service restored as soon as possible. We apologize for the trouble." You don't say "not our issue" cause it is since it effects your customers. I know this is going to end up being come peering issues with Level3/GC/Sprint, someone deprovisioned a circuit, something got cut in atlanta (Do contractors in Atlanta get paid more if they cut a utility line?) I just cannot believe there is not some redundancy built into their routing somewhere.
- Provide the time of the update and ETA. One sure way to get the crazies calling in over and over is to make them think there is no progress being made or if they are hearing the same message. Give people hope. Internet access is not a novelty anymore and most folks depend on it for access to the office, travel, social stuff, and keeping in touch with the world.
In a way, I guess I miss the callcenter stuff cause I would be the person to manage this situation from customer communication, status updates, pushing and escalating with any vendors involved, and then getting kudos for taking care of it. Instead, most ISP's and ILEC's are made up of underpaid, underqualified people that either think they know more than they do since they got 10 certifications or they have managers that can't manage their way out of a car. The high level of service this industry was known for 10 years ago is gone and most of us have moved into managing the coporate IT stuff in one way or another. I just want comcast to use some com-mon sense and have REDUNDANCY plans so this kinda crap doesn't happen. This will cost them 10% of the subscribers who will be renewing or thinking about switching service over the next month...then it will all be forgotten.
Tracing route to iss.net [209.134.161.35] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 117 ms 11 ms 7 ms 73.8.64.1
3 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms GE-2-2-ur01.N4 atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.107.189]
4 25 ms 9 ms 8 ms te-9-4-ur01.b3marietta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [6 8.86.106.129]
5 9 ms 8 ms 10 ms te-9-4-ur02.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.125]
6 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms te-9-4-ur01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.13]
7 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms te-9-2-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68 .86.106.9]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
My first thought...oh well isn't this just great. These types of problems are usually hard to find and report. I have an idea what happened but figured I would torute myself and call their little support line and see which support locale is answering the phones today. I have my money on SE Asia.
During the popt(press one press two) motions, there was a message from what sounded like another non-english speaking genius who reported the outage as this:
Download rec_+14042662278_13_Sep_2007_23_36_41.mp3
If you had a hard time understanding that,you are not alone. Here is what he said:
"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with internet access, preventing the loading of several websites; in all of the atlanta region. This is not a comcast related issue but we are closely monitoring the situation with our partners in the field."
Classic response. No responsbility, no real problems, underplay the extent of the issue, and give no ETR for getting this fixed. I love the world I left.
So if anyone from comcast happens to stumble upon this, here are a few things to consider:
- never give numbers to explain the extent of an outage. Serveral means 7-10. This outage is effecting access to 100's if not thousands of sites and services. I have counted over 15 things I can't reach right now including my office VPN. Thanks.
- Never ever say "it's not our fault". If it is effecting your customers you provide a service to, I don't care if the FBI came in and unplugged a bunch of boxes, you say the party line "We are investigating the issue and will have service restored as soon as possible. We apologize for the trouble." You don't say "not our issue" cause it is since it effects your customers. I know this is going to end up being come peering issues with Level3/GC/Sprint, someone deprovisioned a circuit, something got cut in atlanta (Do contractors in Atlanta get paid more if they cut a utility line?) I just cannot believe there is not some redundancy built into their routing somewhere.
- Provide the time of the update and ETA. One sure way to get the crazies calling in over and over is to make them think there is no progress being made or if they are hearing the same message. Give people hope. Internet access is not a novelty anymore and most folks depend on it for access to the office, travel, social stuff, and keeping in touch with the world.
In a way, I guess I miss the callcenter stuff cause I would be the person to manage this situation from customer communication, status updates, pushing and escalating with any vendors involved, and then getting kudos for taking care of it. Instead, most ISP's and ILEC's are made up of underpaid, underqualified people that either think they know more than they do since they got 10 certifications or they have managers that can't manage their way out of a car. The high level of service this industry was known for 10 years ago is gone and most of us have moved into managing the coporate IT stuff in one way or another. I just want comcast to use some com-mon sense and have REDUNDANCY plans so this kinda crap doesn't happen. This will cost them 10% of the subscribers who will be renewing or thinking about switching service over the next month...then it will all be forgotten.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Just show the damn game!!!
It is now 8:35 pm EDT, and so far, we have had 3 crappy singers with even crappier songs, 14 commercials, endless hype and praise of previous year's champs, even more commercials with some of the same (John Cougar) crappy singers, and finally....WE HAVE KICKOFF at 8:40pm.
Sports in this country has become entriely too commercialized and there is waaay too much hype. Just show the damn game! I would pay more just to be able to avoid the crap and be given a TV schedule that only shows the actual event start times minus all the fluff.
With that said, let's now watch the Colts and Saints in Game 1 of the 2007 Football Season! Marques Colston is one of my fantasy picks so I am pulling for him tonight at least.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Finding the family roots
Me and Jessica had dinner with my Dad and my step-mom on Saturday night in Acworth. It was good and we talked lots about the soon to be baby and how Jessica is coming along with all of the changes. We went back to their house for dessert and my dad pulled out some family history stuff he wanted us to have. I now have 2 priceless documents of my family history on his side which take my roots back to mid 18th century France (Pierre Jean LeBon) and Wilkes County Georgia (William Hightower) along the same time.
It is really interesting to see how everything is connected and to know some of the stories about where my family came from. I am hoping to get some more info from my mom's side to complete the picture. It is almost complete but there is lots I can do on the research side to find more details. There are also tons of these geneology sites out there as I think this is why lots of the older folks end up on the internet. I am more intested in building my own DB and front end so that is yet another project to add to the list. don't think it would be that hard but I need to scan these original docs so we can have soft copies incase anything ever happens to these books.
I am originally form Atlanta and it looks like most of my Dad's family has been Georgia based for the last 200 or so years. Generation after generation of people who lived on farms outside of Atlanta in the years prior to and throughout the War between States. One of the most interesting entries goes like this:
"Green Berry Hightower
Born - 10-25-1825
did not marry so far as known. Disappeared as young man while on a trip to Darien with slaves, teams, and lumber. Was never heard from again. His father's will in 1862 shows family then did not know whether he was alive or dead."
How wild is that? This is the reason why I hate modern day entertainment and media outlets. This is real drama from the past and is really interesting and mysterious. I am sure I will dig up all kinds of wild stuff while researching. I am just trying to find a good month where I can maximize a $20 memebership to one of these sites.
On an unrelated note, we have been going through boxes and noxes of old crap we have...mainly my stuff I have carried around forever. I found TONS of old pictures, docs, and all kinds of memories of the past. More on this later but there were many things throw away and shredded in some cases. :)
It is really interesting to see how everything is connected and to know some of the stories about where my family came from. I am hoping to get some more info from my mom's side to complete the picture. It is almost complete but there is lots I can do on the research side to find more details. There are also tons of these geneology sites out there as I think this is why lots of the older folks end up on the internet. I am more intested in building my own DB and front end so that is yet another project to add to the list. don't think it would be that hard but I need to scan these original docs so we can have soft copies incase anything ever happens to these books.
I am originally form Atlanta and it looks like most of my Dad's family has been Georgia based for the last 200 or so years. Generation after generation of people who lived on farms outside of Atlanta in the years prior to and throughout the War between States. One of the most interesting entries goes like this:
"Green Berry Hightower
Born - 10-25-1825
did not marry so far as known. Disappeared as young man while on a trip to Darien with slaves, teams, and lumber. Was never heard from again. His father's will in 1862 shows family then did not know whether he was alive or dead."
How wild is that? This is the reason why I hate modern day entertainment and media outlets. This is real drama from the past and is really interesting and mysterious. I am sure I will dig up all kinds of wild stuff while researching. I am just trying to find a good month where I can maximize a $20 memebership to one of these sites.
On an unrelated note, we have been going through boxes and noxes of old crap we have...mainly my stuff I have carried around forever. I found TONS of old pictures, docs, and all kinds of memories of the past. More on this later but there were many things throw away and shredded in some cases. :)
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The downfall of an Atlanta Company
Earthlink Layoffs - Act 3
Once again, Earthlink is attempting to cut its way to proifitability instead of being innovative and trying to build on their greatest strength...good employees. I left in early 2004 along with other friends I work with now at ISS. We were bought by the big blue machine but are glad not to be a part of this mess of a company on 17th and Peachtree in Atlanta. I feel bad for those that stayed but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Once again, Earthlink is attempting to cut its way to proifitability instead of being innovative and trying to build on their greatest strength...good employees. I left in early 2004 along with other friends I work with now at ISS. We were bought by the big blue machine but are glad not to be a part of this mess of a company on 17th and Peachtree in Atlanta. I feel bad for those that stayed but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.
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