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Forum Name: General
Topic ID: 1677
#0, winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-06-20 at 03:49 PM
A couple weeks ago, I ordered a new CPAP machine. While I was about it, I noticed that they make battery packs for them now, so that they keep running if the power goes out. I nearly added one to the order, but then though, no, let's drop some hints to the appropriate folks that I'd like one for Christmas, or at least let the last of the unemployment* come in before buying that. We're not going to have a major storm this early.

... So yeah, last night we got a foot of snow, the kind of snow that you get when it's not actually below freezing out. The kind that causes 13-hour blackouts.

I've ordered one of those sonsofbitches now, I'll tell you that for free.

But wait, there's more! Last night around 11:30, while I was sitting in my slowly cooling, pitch-black living room, I noticed police lights outside. I went and looked out my side window, and there in the cross street beyond my side yard was a town plow truck and a cop car, stopped in the street, their operators having a little conference. Presently they laughed about something, got back in their vehicles, and drove off.

I wondered what the hell that was about, but paid it little mind until a bit ago, when I emerged from a long nap taken once the power came back on and found that the Internet was down. Well, no big deal, the modem gets confused sometimes when there's a power outage, I'll just kick it and everything will be--what do you mean, "no line"?

So I went and looked out that window again, and sure enough there is a line...

... it's just that it's not attached to the house any more, instead just sort of trailing flaccidly across the yard and the street to the pole.

This has happened before. That line hangs too low across a busy street, and an overheight truck has pulled it down once already since I've lived here. At the time, I told the owners of the line (who are not my service providers, but still own the copper, because that's how this shit works in ruralia) that it was too low and they shouldn't just stick it back up where it had been before. "Nah," their guy said, "it's within minimums," and back it went to exactly where it was before.

And now, the evidence suggests, one of the town public works trucks (which have a plow rig that involves this weird mast thing that sticks up higher than the actual truck) has torn it down again, in the middle of the night, and they and the cops had a good laugh about it and then just fucked off and left it where it lay. Perhaps it was weighted down a little more by the snow and ice, although we've had storms like that before and that hasn't happened. Regardless, it was hanging too low anyway, and now it's been ripped down a second time.

So I called my provider, but all they can do is put in a ticket with the local telco that owns the copper, and they'll get around to fixing it when they get around to fixing it. Last time that took a week, and that was in the summer, when they weren't presumably up to their eyeballs in storm damage on top of random overheight trucks pulling down poorly laid lines.

Sure, I can use my smartphone as a hotspot (that's how I'm posting this now), but I have a pretty slim data plan. I rarely need to use that much data, because I'm home most of the time and can just have the wifi on. So that's nice, in this wretched future where all media is fucking streamed.

I am not happy.

--G.
* assuming Congress doesn't extend the program before December 26, which, of course, it won't
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Terminus Est on Dec-06-20 at 07:32 PM
In response to message #0
...Jebus fuggin Crisp. And I thought our local provider was bad. What the actual fuck.

Here's hoping they get their shit together sooner rather than later. In the meantime, is there anything we as a community can do to help?


#2, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-06-20 at 08:06 PM
In response to message #1
>...Jebus fuggin Crisp. And I thought our local provider was bad.
>What the actual fuck.

This is, alas, the kind of service one can expect around here. Verizon wasn't amazing? But they were at least an RBOC. The outfit they sold their New England landline operations to a few years ago, not so much, and the company that bought them last year, evidently even less so.

In a way, I get it. Because of the "common carrier" rule, they have to provide and maintain the physical plant here in their service area, but other signal providers (like the one I get my phone service and DSL through) can use it. This means that when someone like me has a problem with the physical line, when they send someone to repair it, they're helping their competitor. They're required by law to do so, but on an intellectual level, I can understand why there is something less than a fanatical level of motivation to get it done in a timely fashion.

OTOH, the whole reason they (or I guess technically their predecessors, now) lost me as a customer in the first place was because the services they were providing on this copper were bad and overpriced, so...

I've probably told this story before, and it's been so long that I may be misremembering some of the file details now, but basically: Back when Verizon still provided the land services around here, this house's original POTS and DSL service was through them. I actually had the EPU web server here in the house and operated it myself. To do that I had to be a "business" customer, because it was the only way to get a static IP address.

When Verizon sold their New England operations to FairPoint (hereinafter "FailPoint"), they didn't include their IP address blocks. Evidently no one at FailPoint noticed this or realized why it was important. (I am assuming Verizon's people knew full well, and did it on purpose to fuck their successors. They didn't spin off the ghost of NYNEX willingly, IIRC, it was part of a judicial quid pro to get approval for some other merger they wanted more.) Which meant that on the day of the handover, I, and presumably every other former Verizon DSL customer with a static IP, suddenly found myself without a working route to... well... anywhere, because I was using an IP address that belonged to a different provider.

OK, fine, stupid shit happens when you're messing around with backbone routing, I remember that from when I worked in network ops for Big ISPs. All FailPoint needs to do is assign me an address that they do own, and then I have to do a few things on my end, and job's a good'un. Pain in the ass, but no big deal.

They didn't have any.

They hadn't realized they would need them.

Their NOC strung me along for weeks with this shit. Oh, hang in there, we're getting some, don't worry. Normal service will be resumed shortly. Annnny day now. We've just hit a couple of teeny tiny little snags. Nothing major. ICANN is a harsh mistress!

(In fairness, ICANN is a harsh mistress, and often a moronic one. And in fairness to them, after their predecessor organizations handed out massive blocks of IPs like candy in the early days, they did have a pretty awkward bed to sleep in when the Web really took off and IPv4 addresses suddenly became an Obviously Finite Resource. But I digress.)

I put up with it for as long as I could stand, then eventually concluded that not only was I sick of their excuses, but also, they weren't going to be any better to deal with even if they eventually got it working; so I bailed to a competing regional provider, which I'm still with today, and presumably will be until and unless someone gets fiber working in this helltown.

BUT they, or now their successor company, still own the copper. And so.

>Here's hoping they get their shit together sooner rather than later.
>In the meantime, is there anything we as a community can do to help?

I can't think of anything offhand. There probably isn't anything anyone can do until and unless Consolidated pulls its finger out. Even if I switched providers again (and this is not my current provider's fault), the physical link is down and won't be coming back until they fix it. The only alternative would be to change to a different medium, and the only one I can think of that works around here is that jaw-droppingly expensive satellite service that used to come bundled with DirecTV, so that's not happening.

(Well, and theoretically switching to a more expensive data plan on my cellphone, but using that as my household Internet link is a clunky field-expedient thing in the first place.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#3, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Terminus Est on Dec-06-20 at 08:35 PM
In response to message #2
My local just recently got fiber out to us (ironically just before I went back to the nursing home, where I'm currently posting from). Before that, we had really shitty DSL running on copper that had been in the ground since before my parents got married. ...I should mention that my 'local' has its office about 50 miles away from my home. Rural phone service sucks.

And with the unemployment thing coming to an end soon, a more expensive plan really isn't viable in the first place. Dammit. I hate logic sometimes.

Short of us all chipping in to get you a dedicated hotspot and a heap of data for use with same (which would pose the same problems, I'm thinking, as the current arrangement), there's not much else I can think of...


#4, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Zemyla on Dec-06-20 at 09:30 PM
In response to message #2
And this is why the Internet needs to be a public utility. Also why the current crop of ISPs need to be nationalized and the boardroom parasites laughing at your misery and lighting cigars with $100 bills jeed to be thrown out onto their asses.

#5, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Astynax on Dec-06-20 at 09:48 PM
In response to message #4
If this thread of conversation continues, I feel like Gritty memes will start proliferating here like they often do on Facebook.


-={(Astynax)}=-
"Liberté, Egalité, Gritté."


#6, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-06-20 at 10:31 PM
In response to message #5
>If this thread of conversation continues, I feel like
>Gritty memes will start proliferating here
>like they often do on Facebook.

No... no they won't.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#7, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by The Traitor on Dec-06-20 at 11:24 PM
In response to message #6
Don't make me break out the Grittney. You know I'll do it. I'm a woman on the edge.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

"Philly is never gonna vote Trump. The fuck do we want another grotesque swivel-eyed giant orange hateblob for?"


#9, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Astynax on Dec-06-20 at 11:28 PM
In response to message #7
>Don't make me break out the Grittney. You know I'll do it. I'm a woman
>on the edge.
>

Hasn't the man suffered enough recently without being subjected to that?

>"Philly is never gonna vote Trump. The fuck do we want
>another grotesque swivel-eyed giant orange hateblob
>for?"

>

Gritty's really more of a rage-blob than a hate-blob, but this is clearly not the place to explore that further.


-={(Astynax)}=-
"This Space For Rent."


#8, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by trboturtle2 on Dec-06-20 at 11:25 PM
In response to message #5
Bad things do happen in Philly -- See the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, 76ers, and Union for examples.......

Craig


#15, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Peter Eng on Dec-07-20 at 12:54 PM
In response to message #8
>Bad things do happen in Philly -- See the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers,
>76ers, and Union for examples.......
>

All things considered, I'd trade the win record for all but one team in my area for a cancellation of misery in things that count.

Peter Eng
--
The Storm, in case you're wondering. Huskies, Seahawks, Mariners...not my biggest concerns.


#22, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Mephron on Dec-10-20 at 03:09 PM
In response to message #8
>Bad things do happen in Philly -- See the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers,
>76ers, and Union for examples.......

My freshman college starting weekend, a bunch of us went to a Phillies game, sitting out in the bleachers.

We got mentioned in the paper because, as the game got dumber and dumber, we started chanting "Let's Go Flyers!", and people around us picked it up until the entire area behind center field was chanting it.

This was many years ago, but still, that's a sign as to how it can get there.

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"


#23, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by trboturtle2 on Dec-15-20 at 04:15 PM
In response to message #22
That is a typical Philly fan reaction -- you give 110% every time and win or lose, the fans will back you to the hilt. But is they think you're slacking off, they will be all over you and they will be looking for blood....

Craig
(I know this because I'm a fan of the Philly teams...)


#10, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Pasha on Dec-07-20 at 00:40 AM
In response to message #5

"Liberté, Egalité, Gritté."

I love you.
--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


#11, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Astynax on Dec-07-20 at 01:17 AM
In response to message #10
>I love you.
>

Full disclosure, I didn't coin that, I just swiped it from the Internet zeitgeist swirling around Philadelphia's incarnate id.


-={(Astynax)}=-
"Adjust affections accordingly."


#12, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by SneakyPete on Dec-07-20 at 03:52 AM
In response to message #2
If you need to consider a new wireless provider, I can heartily recommend Mint Mobile. I just switched over to them, and for $240 a year, I get unlimited talk & text, and 8GB of wireless data a month (for $360/year, that becomes *unlimited* data, with a speed reduction after 35GB of data.)

Since I work from home, I could conceivably work for about two weeks before running into that 8GB limit, should I be forced to use the hotspot wi-fi. (I'd want a dedicated hotspot for that, to free up my phone, but that's neither here nor there.)

The only hitch is that they don't offer month-to-month plans; the shortest period you can sign up for is three months at a time, and the rates go up after the first three months - presumably to "help" you to decide to pay for the year-in-advance plan.


#17, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by MoonEyes on Dec-07-20 at 04:40 PM
In response to message #12
Since this is not available to you, it might seem like bragging, but I really just putting this here to show the comparison.

5Gb per month data, with everything not used saved up, free calls and texts, 50 SEK per month, which is 6 bucks about,and I can change whenever.
The only issue I have is, they don't do e-bills.

That plan didn't seem all that bad, honestly,compared to many I've heard of, US and other countries.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#21, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Vorticity on Dec-10-20 at 06:31 AM
In response to message #2
> They didn't spin off the ghost of NYNEX willingly

Did somebody say Ghost of NYNEX?


#13, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by MoonEyes on Dec-07-20 at 04:37 AM
In response to message #0
These are the times where living in a country with cheap, efficient, high-speed, competitive internet makes me a happy happy(if slightly shamefilled) Mooneyes....

Or, well, it would. Except that the brand new, all-singing all-dancing computer I got not 2 months ago? Shat itself about two weeks ago, is still not back from the send-in, and I'm entirely and ONLY on my phone.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#14, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Terminus Est on Dec-07-20 at 11:16 AM
In response to message #13
...what is the name of this magical country? Asking for a friend looking into moving away from a hellhole in the deep southern US...

#16, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by MoonEyes on Dec-07-20 at 04:13 PM
In response to message #14
LAST EDITED ON Dec-07-20 AT 04:15 PM (EST)
 
>...what is the name of this magical country? Asking for a friend
>looking into moving away from a hellhole in the deep southern US...

It is indeed quite magical and lovely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Sweden

And while the accent is ATROCIOUS, the technical proficiency in English is high. All welcome, more or less.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#18, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-08-20 at 03:44 PM
In response to message #0
There is a telco tech here now, only an hour or two after my ISP told me they'd be here, which is not too bad for around here. I'm not sure she'll be able to finish the job before dark, given that sunset is in 11 minutes, but she's having a go. It sounds like she's replacing the stuff on the side of the house, which was presumably wrecked when the wire was ripped out, first. Not sure what her plan is for the cable itself, which I would guess is too heavy for one person to wrangle given how far we are from the pole. Plus, the existing one has been lying across the street with traffic (including snowplows!) running over it for two days, so I'd be amazed if it was as simple as just picking it up and sticking it back on the house terminal. But hey! She's the lineswoman, not me. I shan't be That Guy.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes, and just showing up today was more than I expected.

I should stress that insofar as I have a beef with the telco, it's with the company, not the actual techs, who are doing the best they can under shitty conditions. It's not their fault this happened because of a major snowstorm in the first place (nor are they the ones who originally installed this ridiculous wire path and hung it too low.... twice).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#19, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-08-20 at 04:29 PM
In response to message #18
I should never have doubted. It's back up and working, and a bit higher up the pole than before, so who knows, this might not happen again.

Big ups to the tech who, I believe, wrangled the whole thing solo. It can't be easy being a phone tech in this frozen hell in winter.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#20, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by The Traitor on Dec-08-20 at 07:55 PM
In response to message #19
Damn, that's some service there. Kudos to Nameless Wire Tech. She has the honour that telcos do not.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.


#24, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by DaemeonX on Dec-29-20 at 08:30 PM
In response to message #19
Having worked on the North Slope of Alaska I can tell you that it is, INDEED, not fun to be outside wrangling wire. If you are lucky the wire stays together and you move on in an hour. If you're not lucky, the wire snaps (either completely or internally), and you spend the next 4 hours putting wire in your armpits so you can bend it properly without breaking the new stuff.

The department lines between wire guys and I.T folks was non-existant so if camera needed to be put up at -30; oh boy, I get to drive the bucket truck and hope my hands don't freeze if I have to take them out of my gloves.

Coldest weather I was in was around -70 to -80 with windchill. Forgot my gloves to start my rig, and from the time it took me to walk to the exploder, start it, and walk back, I couldn't feel my hands.

DaemeonX


#25, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Aahz1970 on Jan-08-21 at 01:27 AM
In response to message #0
RE: Internet in Jotunheim

That all sounds rather bad... Might I suggest, that when your funds recover, signing up for Starlink? Magic Space Internet should be available at your latitude.


#26, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Gryphon on Jan-08-21 at 01:55 AM
In response to message #25
>That all sounds rather bad... Might I suggest, that when your funds
>recover, signing up for Starlink?

I don't think I really want to reward Elon for ruining astronomy.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#27, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by Rabe on Jan-10-21 at 03:02 PM
In response to message #26
don't think of it as ruining astronomy, think of it as encouraging innovation in the field of image processing

#28, RE: winter wonderland
Posted by The Traitor on Jan-10-21 at 05:33 PM
In response to message #27
Presumably in the sense that the Cuyahoga River encouraged innovation in the industrial sector in 1969...

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

It is my firm belief that billionaires should be stripped of all assets and made to work on the lowest rung of their wealth source. In Elon's case, this means being shoved in his parents' emerald mine and told to start digging.