DSL providers, support, and IPv6 (was Re: [6bone] The future)

[Douglas Wade Needham]

Tell me about it Greg.  I get my service directly from Covad, and have
asked a number of times about IPv6.  And yes, they are clueless when
it comes to anything other than Windoze, and mostly clueless even
then.  Over the past two years, I have had problems where my DSL
router stops talking on the WAN side (problems with SBC at the CO
about 70% of the time), and where other times occasionally I will go
through a period where the LAN side stops talking.  Their response was
"well, we want you to unplug the DSL router...", without any attempt
to collect proper diagnostics.  And one time, some moron tech claimed
that I was too close to the DSLAM (I am under 1700'), and wanted to
set my speed down.

If they had paid any attention to me and the years of IP experience I
gained getting places like Ohio State and CompuServe on the net, they
would have headed off a couple of problems in their backbone network
(I detected a failing router interface 3 weeks before it failed and
they suffered an outage of nearly 20 hours).  But instead, most of
their tier 1 techs are clueless and follow a script.  They have no
idea how to handle the fact that I connect via a NetBSD firewall, and
have a number of times wanted me to connect a Windoze PC directly to
the router.  Fortunately, I have hammered them and the tier 1 support
management enough times with enough volume of diagnostics (like pings,
packet traces, etc.) that I can get routed to tier 2 about 50% of the
time.  And I was also lucky enough to finally get someone at Zyxel to
put me in touch with one of their techs, from whom I got a FW update
which seems to have lessened the the LAN side locking up.  But Covad
was still thinking of replacing my current router with some different
brand which has nowhere near the capabilities (no SNMP, no serial
console), and does seem to require Windoze to manage, so I said "No
Thanks".

Would I switch?  Not unless there was one who was proven to know about
UN*X, had static IPs and high speeds (I plan on upgrading to 3000/768
when I get a new job), and was actively talking IPv6 as well.  My
friends who use SBC or the other providers we seem to have here in
central Ohio seem to have the same problems, so I will stick with
stupidity I know and can sometimes manipulate rather than having to go
through the learning curve with some other provider.  Besides, word
seems to have spread a bit through the tier 2 techs that I know what I
am talking about, and generally have some good diagnostics by the time
I call them.  Shoot, last time I called, the tech knew that there was
a diagram of my network in my support records. 8)

- Doug

Quoting Gregg C Levine (hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net):
> Hello from Gregg C Levine
> I am inclined to agree with all of you.
> I have AT&T Worldnet's DSL service, which is supplied by Covad. As I
> understand that, it turns out that the commercial side of AT&T's
> activities are also jointly supplied by Covad. They are in the exact
> same position that the clueless ISP is, that the fellow complained
> about in an earlier message. I run here, yes Windows, and Linux. They
> completely support Windows, barely support Macs, and do not support
> Linux. They do not even know what that is. They have a user supplied,
> and sometimes maintained website. It does not cover Linux or FreeBSD,
> or any of the BSD operating systems properly. It does not even cover
> the BSD operating systems.
> 
> However, I suspect its because they haven't a clew as to what their
> own servers are running that they chose Windows to be the default OS,
> never realizing that it does not cover the monopoly that it was as
> much as five years earlier.
> 
> Oh and their tech support is exactly like the fellow who started this
> discussion suggested.
> 
> It is going to take an industrial strength miracle to straiten out
> these companies. And I am fresh out of them.
> -------------------
> Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> "The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> "Use the Force, Luke."? Obi-Wan Kenobi
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: 6bone-bounces at mailman.isi.edu
> [mailto:6bone-bounces at mailman.isi.edu]
> > On Behalf Of Sander Steffann
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 5:02 AM
> > To: 6bone at mailman.isi.edu
> > Subject: RE: [6bone] The future
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Gert Doering wrote:
> > > <rant>
> > > I *really* can't understand that.   People like myself invest
> heavily
> > > to get clueful and well-trained people to run the shop, and all we
> > > get to hear from our customers is "you are too expensive, we will
> > > choose the no-support-no-clue ISP round the corner".
> > >
> > > And then they complain that the ISP has no clue...
> > > </rant>
> > 
> > Same here :(  The realy difficult part is to make them
> understand/appreciate
> > the extra value they get for their money...
> > 
> > There will always be people that only look at the price and not at
> the
> > service, but we decided long ago that we don't even want those
> people as our
> > customers.
> > 
> > Sander.
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > 6bone mailing list
> > 6bone at mailman.isi.edu
> > http://mailman.isi.edu/mailman/listinfo/6bone
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 6bone mailing list
> 6bone at mailman.isi.edu
> http://mailman.isi.edu/mailman/listinfo/6bone

-- 
Douglas Wade Needham - KA8ZRT        UN*X Consultant & UW/BSD kernel programmer
Email:  cinnion @ ka8zrt . com       http://cinnion.ka8zrt.com
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own.  Since I don't want them, why
            should my employer, or anybody else for that matter!