Problems reaching TBN

[beenthere]

For the last 24 hours, I have been having a difficult time getting into TBN, and if I get in, a looooong time getting posts <font color=red> read.
<font color=black>By the looks of the activity, others are not having this problem. Normal time for a post to come up would be about 3-4 seconds, and this has been about 2 minutes these last 24 hours. However, in the last 10 minutes, the normal time of 3-4 seconds has come back.
I erased cache, re-booted several times, tried switching to Internet Explorer (usually timed out there with no connect), and nothing seemed to help.
Any clue? or am I alone on this one?

 

[rancar]

beenthere,

Did you check with your ISP? Are they doing server maintenance, etc?

 

[TerryinMD]

Beenthere,

I agree with Rancar. There were some possible maintenance or network issues going on. The best thing is to check with your ISP to report the problem. Sometimes, they don't know that a problem exists (believe it or not!! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif). Do you have a dialup, DSL, or cable modem connection?

A good many ISPs lease their dialup services from other companies. These things are called POPs (point of presence) and contain all of the dialup modems and edge networking equipment to connect to that wonderful place we call the Internet. Another issue might be that you ISP is using a hosting service that may have been dealing with an outage or other issue.

Here is a trick to try to overcome the slow connection. If you encounter a slow modem speed or are having slow response times, disconnect the current session and redial to get a new connection. There is a good chance that you will get a different connection and correct the problem. If the problem does not go away, there is another issue within the network and it is probably better to go read a book or watch some TV for awhile. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Terry

 

[ewoss3]

Actually looks like several telecom companies had a really busy weekend. I know our center recieved notification of 78 maintenance periods and 11 fiber cuts that affected nationwide service. Of the 78 maintenace periods 72 were different isp's. Also I promise it was not my backhoe that cut the fiber optic cable that runs down my street, it was a local plumbing contractor that has never heard of a shovel. He was using an old case backhoe and forgot to call for a dig order. He cut a local Tulsa oc-12 cable that was down for 3.5 hours, would hate to see what he is gonna get billed for the restoration and outage time. They had 11 techs, 6 trucks and 2 fiber splicing vans all on overtime gonna be one verrrrrrrrry big bill.

 

[MikePA]

When we built our barn, both our plumber and electrician required that I call <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.digsafe.com>Dig Safe</A> even though they knew we were out in the boonies and the trench was going across my field.

 

[looch]

This Old House told of a guy who planted a steel mailbox post at the end of his driveway. First it went through the buried power line and then through the telco line - sending utility power to telephones in four nearby houses. 2 of the 4 houses burnt - minor fire damage in the other 2. He didn't call first so he was liable.

 

[HalseyGreen]

Don't assume that because its your field that there might not be a cable buried. My father was with telephone company in No. VA. He told me that there was a farmer that wanted to put in an airstrip on his farm for his airplane, called a local contractor and had him bring out a dozer, dozer was moving dirt around and all of a sudden he had a helicopter landing and men in swat uniforms were all over him. It appeared that he cut one of the defense communication cables that criss-cross No. VA. Don't know if they made him pay, but you better call to be safe.

 

[beenthere]

Thanks for the help. I did try the disconnect and reconnect trick, along with re-booting the machine and deleting cache. After 24 hours, all the delays cleared up (yesterday, mid-afternoon). I will keep the ISP in mind, and call the next time I have problems. Previous times when things were slow, I was told to delete cache, re-boot, re-connect, etc. but this time those things didn't work and TBN seemed to be the hardest to get into. Apparently you guys were not affected, which is good.
Keep on keepin' on.

 

[TerryinMD]

In addition to those outages mentioned by ewoss3, there was a major fiber optic cable (FOC) cut in Ohio. This was caused by a train wreck. This cut was in the magnitude of 20,000 T1 circuits being disabled. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif That's a heck of a lot of phone and Internet traffic. OBTW, there is a lot of buried FOC along the countries railroads.

The reason it takes so long to fix these fiber cable cuts is that the technicians mus cut, polish, and splice each strand of fiber optic cable. I cannot imagine how many strands are involved. A highly skilled job which requires time to complete.

Terry

 

[ewoss3]

Most of the time we use quick lock fiber conectors which greatly reduce the amount of time required for polishing(on average it's down to 13 minutes per splice). Once we get the tempoary restoral complete we go back at a later date and schedule the cable for fusion splicing. The most a customer should notice is a 50 milisecond switch hit(usually requires dialing back in if you use AOL). Permanent restoration is a process were we role sytems to a back-up(or protect) fiber before re-splicing the main fiber. Once the main fiber is restored and we have verified a good light signal, we will role the system back to the work side with another switch hit. Generally the worst fiber cuts happen along railroad lines due to chemical spills and just the shear weight of thousands of tons of metal. Most of the time the telecom companies will just have to sit back and wait for other groups to clear the site before we are allowed in.