What to do when your ISP off-shores tech support

Wed Dec 24 16:04:43 UTC 2008

Matthew Black wrote:
> I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
> at my DSL provider Verizon California.
> 
> I can reliably ping the first hop from my home to
> the CO with a 25ms delay. But if I ping any other
> location, packets get dropped or significantly
> delayed. To me, this sounds like Verizon has an
> internal routing problem rather than a problem
> with my phone line. Note that it rained recently
> in our area and the cable vault in front of my
> is usually covered with stagnant water because
> the gutters don't drain it away.
> 
> I have tried to explain this to tech support but
> they refuse to go off script, even the supervisors.
> They keep insisting on sending a tech to my home
> when I suggest this should be escalated to their
> network operations team.
> 
> Anyhow, if I can reliably ping the first hop
> from my home, would that eliminate my telephone
> connection as part of the problem? Just a sanity
> check on my part. Thanks.

Is your DSL modem of the type that you can log into and check the line
stats?

Even if there are phone line problems, you still have sync, and
regardless what the sync rate, line noise etc are, if you can ping
across the link and get a reply, replies should come back from distant
gear as well.

Perhaps an op from another relatively local provider could supply you
with a temporary DSL auth account to see if that will route you around
the problem.

I could supply you one, but I'm in southern Ontario, Canada, so I don't
know if the realm would properly route all the way back here or not.

Steve