RE: [Nolug] Cox 2nd level technician says...

Here’s a sample of the packet loss when it is bad.

cid:image001.png@01CF7360.71997210

Notice that it’s generally single packets lost, not groups of packets. Most physical problems result in a group of packets being lost, and lost for all destinations at the same time. This is part of why I suspect it isn’t a physical problem, but a software issue (buffering?) instead.

John

    John Souvestre - New Orleans LA

From: John Souvestre [mailto:johns@sstar.com]
Sent: Mon, May 19, 2014 1:20 pm
To: 'nolug@nolug.org'
Subject: RE: [Nolug] Cox 2nd level technician says...

Yes. And the Network Engineer has logged into that router and seen loss to my modem from it. So it’s definitely the pedestal, the link to the router, or the router.

John

    John Souvestre - New Orleans LA

From: owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org [mailto:owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Wilborn
Sent: Mon, May 19, 2014 1:18 pm
To: nolug@nolug.org
Subject: Re: [Nolug] Cox 2nd level technician says...

Is the loss you're seeing to the first (external) hop when doing a traceroute?

Jerry Wilborn
jerrywilborn@gmail.com

On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 1:15 PM, John Souvestre <johns@sstar.com> wrote:

Hello Jerry.

I have a Cisco DPC3010, straight from Cox (twice). It allows access to the status page (192.168.100.1) which includes the signal level info. My signals are always good, even when the packet loss is taking place. Others in my area have the problem also. So it’s not a problem on just my feed.

Sometimes problem seems to correlate with high-usage times (late afternoon, evening), but not well enough to say there is a casual link. For example, I saw loss of over 1% yesterday during these periods:

    00:50 to 01:00

    03:00 to 05:00 (up to 10%)

    15:40 to 17:00 (up to 12%)

    19:52 to 19:59 (up to 25%)

The techs have totally replaced every bit of the line (and splitter, and port) from my modem to the pedestal port. Besides checking signal levels dozens of times, they have also checked it with a spectrum analyzer and a TDR.

The problem is very intermittent, even when it is bad. The field techs are working blind, because they never show up when it is happening. In spite of this, they often tell me that they have found something wrong and fixed it. Doesn’t help, however. They found a few issues this last week, for example.

On two of the previous occasions it turned out to be the Cox gateway router. I suspect it again this time. I’m nudging the Network Engineer to take a closer look at it.

Besides the packet loss issues, I’ve had multiple problems with the Motorola DVR which Cox provides. The software in it is buggy. I reported two of the bugs to them and they told me that nobody else was having these problems, so it had to be something physical on my line or DVR. Swapping the DVR didn’t help.

I considered both issues to be almost certainly software bugs. But they wasted months before even considering the possibility. When they finally did, the supervisor working the first issue asked the guys in his own office if they had ever heard of the problem. A few of them had the problems on their own DVR’s! I guess that the more you know about Cox’s inability to address unusual problems, the less inclined you are to report them! And guess what? The next software release fixed the problem.

Almost the same story with the second issue. Cox spent 11 months, including 4 different DVRs, before they officially gave up and declared the problem unsolvable. The DVR software vendors claimed there was no such problem. Guess what? The next software release reduced the problem by 75%.

It’s pretty sad.

John

    John Souvestre - New Orleans LA

From: owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org [mailto:owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Wilborn
Sent: Mon, May 19, 2014 10:40 am

To: nolug@nolug.org
Subject: Re: [Nolug] Cox 2nd level technician says...

If you have a Motorola SurfBoard, then you can check your signal levels here: http://192.168.100.1/RgSignal.asp

There are a million things that can affect your specific drop (customers being added, weather, etc, etc). When you see your signals go south, you can bet on your connection getting worse. It gives you something quantifiable to say "my power level is now X dB, someone needs to come check it"; I've had good luck getting them to schedule an appointment when I'm able to quantify the problem for them (shouldn't have to, but -- oh well).

Jerry Wilborn
jerrywilborn@gmail.com

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 5:29 PM, John Souvestre <johns@sstar.com> wrote:

Interesting. I saw a lot of packet loss between 3:45 and 4:45 this afternoon.
Makes me wonder if some network changes were being made.

The packet loss I see is generally very intermittent. I hope that yours is
gone for good. :)

John

    John Souvestre - New Orleans LA

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org [mailto:owner-nolug@stoney.kellynet.org]
On Behalf Of Ron Johnson

Sent: Sun, May 18, 2014 4:58 pm
To: nolug@nolug.org
Subject: Re: [Nolug] Cox 2nd level technician says...

The problem disappeared some time this afternoon.

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