[Discuss] Dealing with RCN

[jim at gasek.net (Jim Gasek)]

1:  DOCSIS.  Only 1 MAC will work. 
2.  Assume nothing
3.  Assume nothing.

Only one MAC address is "activated" at a time.   This 
is the how they know they'll get paid.   If the old one
works again, somebody screwed up.

The standard is DOCSIS (not sure on the spelling).  
When you change a cable modem, you need to give them
the new MAC address and only the new one will work.

Great test:

Ping the default route one hop away (at the other side
of your cable device).

Big packets, and thousands of them.

# ping -s 40000 x.x.x.x

And it will give you a "% loss" rating when you hit
<CNTRL>C.

Be advised, cable modems can be very problematic.
The radio sections go.  

Before you blame the provider, go buy a really new
one off the shelf at best buy, and hook it up, call
and have them change the MAC.

If this one runs clean, and your old one doesn't, you
get the picture.

They have handheld test devices that they will
hook up and do the equivalent.    You need to pester
them to get the "data techs", the real guys out there.

First they'll send a stream of regular techs who will
need to exhaust the assumption that you're the
dolt.  You need to show them all the troubleshooting
steps you did, or else they'll follow their 
steps from the beginning.  

192.169.100.1 is the typical cable modem or DSL modem
IP, and they have a web page there as well which 
will show speeds, and statistics.  

Sometimes you get  -change- access to the devices, 
sometimes it is better if you don't or they'll 
blame you.   

I can't follow all the upgrades and speed issues you
mention, but just get the real data tech, they'll know
what to do.

Thanks,
Jim Gasek

--- j.natowitz at rcn.com wrote:

From: Jerry Natowitz <j.natowitz at rcn.com>
To: Discuss at blu.org
Subject: [Discuss] Dealing with RCN
Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:52:39 -0400

Hi,

You can either read my long tale of woe, or skip to <SHORT>:


We've had RCN phone/TV/internet service for a number of years.  Starting 
about 3 years ago, the internet service started to have periodic bouts 
of intermittent outages.  90+% of the outages were short enough that by 
the time I got through to a technician, the problem went away.

Somewhere along the way I found the address 10.16.48.1 being used to 
check for network status.  A single ping wasn't enough to establish 
network problems, but ping -c 8 -s 1472 10.16.48.1 would let me know if 
I was completely offline, or if their network was dropping packets.

After a few months, the problems stopped, only to restart a year or so 
later when RCN discontinued the 7 Mbps service we had, and quietly 
"upgraded" us to 10 Mbps, adding $10 a month to our bill.

Again, after a few months, the problems stopped.  And then about 6 
months ago they started again.  This time they told me that the Motorola 
Surfboard SB5120 I was using was an obsolete piece of feces, and that I 
should replace it.  So I went and bought a Toshiba PCX2600.  But I 
didn't switch it in, I decided to wait until the next bout of problems.

The next bout of problems was a few weeks ago.  I called, they took the 
MAC address of the Toshiba, I hooked it up, and 5 minutes later I was 
online.  They were also supposed to upgrade me to 20 Mbps.

I never saw my throughput increase, and last Friday the Toshiba stops 
working.  I call up, go through the usual power-cycle, power-cycle with 
RF59 disconnected.  They tell me that they can see the MAC address, so 
the problem is on my side.  They make an appointment for Thursday for a 
field tech to come look at things.

<SHORT>
In the mean time, the (new) Toshiba doesn't start working, so I decide 
to try the (old) Motorola.  It comes right up.

So my questions are:
1) Exactly what is done at the NOC to provision a new MAC address?
2) Should the two technicians (two separate calls)  have realized that 
the MAC address of the Toshiba that they saw was not the address that 
was provisioned for my service?
3) I assume when they provision a new MAC address, they remove the old, 
but somehow that change went away which is why my new modem doesn't 
work, but the old one does.  Is this a correct assumption?

I am really looking for the correct terminology to use when I attempt to 
deal with a supervisory level at RCN.

-- 
	Jerry Natowitz
	j.natowitz (at) rcn.com
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