YouTube Video

Is it just me, or does it seem like Facebook is trying to keep up with MySpace? There have been so many changes that have impaired useability, and they've added all these stupid and pointless features without giving the users the option to enable or disable them.

Apparently I unplugged Peru entirely.

Link

I replied and told them to get bent:

Christian,

Thank you for your "canned response". I can assure you that this is not an issue with my local computer, as I am running with the following specifications:

* AMD Athlon 64 x2 @ 2.21GHz
* 2GB PC800 DDR2
* 464GB total disk space with 28GB free on the main OS disk

Additionally, the ABC.com streaming web server is likely no slouch; I suspect they use a large cluster of servers, utilizing load balancing techniques. As I stated, this drop in performance only started after the Insight to Comcast switchover.

Before I provide you with the results of a trace to the site with which I was having issues, I would like to provide you with the result of tracing to the www.comcastsupport.com host at the time these issues were occurring:

> C:Documents and SettingsTim>tracert www.comcastsupport.com
>
> Tracing route to www.comcastsupport.com [66.179.151.44]
> over a maximum of 30 hops:
>
> 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1]
> 2 * * * Request timed out.
> 3 8 ms 14 ms 13 ms 68.85.178.193
> 4 11 ms 8 ms 7 ms 68.85.176.237
> 5 21 ms 21 ms 20 ms po-10-ar01.area4.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.87.229.110]
> 6 36 ms 24 ms 26 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58]
> 7 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57]
> 8 26 ms 4294967167 ms 23 ms xe-9-0-0.edge1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.71.248.33]
> 9 25 ms 33 ms 25 ms ae-2-56.bbr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.161]
> 10 101 ms 52 ms 53 ms so-3-0-0.mp2.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [64.159.0.142]
> 11 55 ms 57 ms 58 ms so-11-0.hsa1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [64.159.0.154]
> 12 52 ms 52 ms 53 ms SUNGARD-NET.hsa1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [63.209.178.190]
> 13 115 ms 148 ms 125 ms phlpr10-ge-0-1-0-0.sgns.net [216.83.181.49]
> 14 54 ms 61 ms 59 ms 64.238.199.194
> 15 53 ms 54 ms 53 ms phlir3-vl-1.sgns.net [216.183.102.11]
> 16 71 ms 52 ms 57 ms 69.48.228.4
> 17 54 ms 54 ms 66 ms 66.179.151.44
>
> Trace complete.

More recent traces to this domain are showing much lower ping times, though they are still quite erratic.

Next, please see the result of tracing to another host which I was experiencng issues with, ns-vip3.hitbox.com. This is a marketing analysis service, which I presume to have been in use by the Comcast website, as I was not browsing any other sites when this host showed in my established connections via the netstat command:

> C:Documents and SettingsTim>tracert ns-vip3.hitbox.com
>
> Tracing route to ns-vip3.hitbox.com [64.154.81.197]
> over a maximum of 30 hops:
>
> 1 <1 ms 149 ms 149 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1]
> 2 * * * Request timed out.
> 3 7 ms 16 ms 158 ms 68.85.178.193
> 4 165 ms 158 ms 161 ms 68.85.176.237
> 5 235 ms * 175 ms ge-1-3-ar01.mishawaka.in.sbend.comcast.net [68.87.230.234]
> 6 173 ms 190 ms 172 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58]
> 7 173 ms 177 ms 177 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57]
> 8 241 ms 26 ms 23 ms xe-10-1-0.edge1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.71.248.17]
> 9 174 ms 42 ms 27 ms ae-1-51.bbr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.1]
> 10 258 ms 241 ms 243 ms as-0-0.mp2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.128.149]
> 11 249 ms 253 ms 241 ms so-8-0.hsa2.SanDiego1.Level3.net [4.68.112.138]
> 12 241 ms 240 ms 243 ms unknown.Level3.net [209.247.68.210]
> 13 109 ms 241 ms 241 ms ns-vip3.hitbox.com [64.154.81.197]
>
> Trace complete.

Next I will provide you with the results of a trace to the host which ABC provides their content from. This result was gathered directly after the video had "skipped" playing:

> C:Documents and SettingsTim>tracert ll.static.abc.go.com
>
> Tracing route to wdig.vo.llnwd.net [208.111.168.50]
> over a maximum of 30 hops:
>
> 1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms gandm.gandm [192.168.1.1]
> 2 * * * Request timed out.
> 3 7 ms 4294967156 ms 8 ms 68.85.178.193
> 4 7 ms 9 ms 6 ms 68.85.176.237
> 5 22 ms 24 ms 4294967160 ms po-10-ar01.area4.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.87.229.110]
> 6 29 ms 26 ms 49 ms te-3-1-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.86.90.58]
> 7 46 ms 4294967165 ms 4294967163 ms te-0-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.57]
> 8 27 ms 30 ms 25 ms TenGigabitEthernet2-2.ar5.CHI1.gblx.net [64.213.79.245]
> 9 32 ms 34 ms 23 ms te4-2-10G.ar2.CHI2.gblx.net [67.17.106.134]
> 10 33 ms 190 ms 25 ms 64.215.29.250
> 11 38 ms 37 ms 4294967165 ms cds439.ord.llnw.net [208.111.168.50]
>
> Trace complete.

Given the traceroute results above, I don't see much sense in a ping, but I will allow you the result of pinging for 41 tries:

> C:Documents and SettingsTim>ping -t ll.static.abc.go.com
>
> Pinging wdig.vo.llnwd.net [208.111.157.7] with 32 bytes of data:
>
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-130ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=185ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=105ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=84ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=85ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=235ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-57ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=-117ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=184ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=184ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=71ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=183ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=189ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=195ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=187ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55
> Reply from 208.111.157.7: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=55
>
> Ping statistics for 208.111.157.7:
> Packets: Sent = 41, Received = 41, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
> Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
> Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = -57ms, Average = 62ms
> Control-C
> ^C

Obviously there is some oddity here, as there are negative ping times. My only guess is that the Comcast hosts that reported the abnormally high pings in the traceroute are causing these same results.

Please spend some more time looking into this issue, rather than sending me the standard "we are 95% sure this isn't our problem, so we'll have you check everything else" canned responses. The diagnostic results above clearly indicate there is a much different issue at play. If you need to escalate this to a higher level technician, then please do so.

Thank you,
-Tim Garrison

*sigh*

I got a reply, but it's the usual "no our problem" BS.

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your message concerning the Comcast High-Speed Internet
service.

I understand that it can be frustrating when your Comcast High-Speed
Internet service does not seem to be operating to standard. There are a
number of possible causes for the sudden drop in download times and Web
page access rates, including*:

1. Lack of memory, such as insufficient RAM, or low available hard
drive (disk) space
2. Size of the host server
3. Full tracking files on the hard drive

LACK OF MEMORY
One cause of perceived slow speeds is lack of memory, such as
insufficient RAM, or low available hard drive (disk) space. If you are
running other programs in the background when connected to Comcast and
the Internet, they may be taking up additional resources needed for
sufficient speeds. If you have more than one browser installed, or are
running more than one browser, this can also take up additional memory.
Our suggestion is to close some of these programs and then proceed.

SIZE OF THE HOST SERVER

The capacity of individual host servers across the Internet will impact
your ability to transfer data. Larger servers with higher processing
speeds will provide faster downloads. Once you leave the Comcast
network, you will be limited by the capacity of the server that manages
the information you are requesting.

CHECKING THE TRACKING FILES (Cache and History)

While browsing the Internet, your computer uses cache and history files
to store specific information about a Web page on your hard drive. These
files enable the browser to find the same pages more quickly when you
access them later.

The cache file stores page information for quick retrieval; a cached
page is accessed more easily than the original page; frequent updates by
the browser ensure you are getting the most recent version.

The history file stores a running list of the sites you have visited in
a given time period. Please remember each time you access a new page,
new information is added to your hard drive that uses valuable space.
Therefore, the cache and history files should be cleared on a regular
basis--daily, if you visit a number of pages. Allowing information to
accumulate in these files will slow your download speed.

If you are not sure how to clear your cache, history, and cookies, I
have included the link to our help site that contains the instructions
with helpful, easy-to-understand illustrations.

Please click on this link to view the detailed instructions clearing
your cache and cookies with graphical illustrations:

http://faq.comcast.net/faq/answer.jsp?name=17896&cat=Browser&subcategory=Internet%20Explorer&CM.src=esupm

To improve the overall performance of your computer, I would suggest you
follow the link I provided below. There are a few different things you
can check, and test on your computer.

http://faq.comcast.net/faq/answer.jsp?name=18159&cat=Computer%20Setup&subcategory=1&CM.src=esupm

If after your Internet Explorer has been reset, cache, history, and
cookies cleared, and you have checked all the items located on the
previous page, please send us an e-mail or chat message to a customer
care specialist for further troubleshooting. To make this session as
quick as possible for you, I suggest you have the answers to as many of
the questions listed below as possible:

1. Have the slow speeds occurred before?
2. Have you been to these sites before?
3. What other services, if any, have you attempted to access, such as
FTP, E-mail, Chat, or other?
4. Does this problem affect your mail or newsgroups?
5. Do the slow speeds occur on a daily basis? If so, have you noticed a
pattern to this, such as, does it happen at the same time of day, and if
so, at what time?
6. What days and times has this problem occurred otherwise?
7. What are the transfer rates you have seen in general?
8. Has this affected only one site, or multiple sites? If it is
multiple sites, what are the names or URL's of these sites?
9. Do you have any ping results or trace routes to the sites that are
slow on a regular basis?

To eliminate any additional hardware, it will also be best if you
disconnect any networking equipment you have, and ensure your computer
is connected directly to your cable modem. After you have completed
that, you will want to End Task on all programs you have open. In
Windows that would include what is in the system tray next to the clock
on the Start Bar. In the Macintosh Operating System, you would want to
close all open windows under the Windows selection on the file bar.
After you only have the Operating System running then you'll want to run
a few tests.

If you are having issues accessing one site, please ping and trace to
that site. Also run a ping to your default gateway. This will give us an
indication of where the problem is occurring. You can reply with the
results of these tests or you can chat with one of our Online Customer
Support Specialists 24 hour a day, 7 days a week at

http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat

If you need instruction on how to run any of these tests, please let us
know and we will send those instructions to you.

*Please note: In addition to the above mentioned items, the connection
you choose (Ethernet/NIC vs. USB) can also have an effect on your
Internet connection speeds. Ethernet is the preferred connection for
prime Comcast High-Speed Internet connection speeds. Connecting via a
USB cable may limit your broadband connection speeds.

To assure the proper tracking of this issue, we have created the
following customer service ticket: 119193982

Please refer to this number should you contact us regarding this same
issue.

Thank you for choosing Comcast. We value your business.

Sincerely,

Christian
Comcast Customer Care Specialist

********************************
The response contained in this message is intended for the addressee
only and may vary from other responses depending on geography,
promotional campaigns or other factors. If you are not the intended
recipient of this response, please delete this message. Any unauthorized
use or dissemination of the information contained in this message is
prohibited.



Original Message Follows:
-------------------------

The following information was submitted from the Comcast Web site:
Name: Tim Garrison
Problem: Connection/Speed
Address: **********************
City: Lafayette
State: IN
Zip: 47904
Home Phone: **********
Email: ********@skudd.com
Re: Web Form Submission: Connection/Speed
Browser: Default
OS: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4)
Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4
-
Comments:
I have been trying to watch an episode of "Lost" on the ABC.com website,
a legitimate video stream, and I can''t seem to maintain a solid video
stream. I have traced this back to what appears to be a "cap" on my
per-HTTP connections.
The stream has a throughput report, which is showing approximately
260Kbps. This was never an issue before the Insight to Comcast
migration, as I could easily maintain a 1.5Mbps stream and watch the
video in HD with no latency issues.
I have run several traceroutes, which indicate the issue to be within
the first 5 "hops" of my connection, which implies a Comcast issue to
me. I have reset my modem and router, and rebooted my computer, but the
issue persists.
If you would like to see the traceroute results, I would be more than
happy to provide them. I''m just rather upset that I cannot make use of
the 10Mbps connection I am paying for.
IPAddress: ***.***.***.***

I am writing this entry with the hope that one of Comcast's lawyers will find it.

I just got home from work, with the intention of watching last night's episode of "Lost" on the ABC website. They offer an HD stream of the show, and it has worked perfectly for me in the past. This all changed when Comcast took over the Insight network in this area.

Last week, when I attempted to watch the show, I found that I could not view it in the full HD stream. Rather, my connection was being limited to 256Kbps, so I watched the show in very poor quality. I didn't think much of it, as I figured it was just going to be a single instance of issue: I was wrong.

Tonight, I am barely breaking the 256Kbps mark with the streaming player and the connection keeps getting reset, resulting in very choppy video. I ran a traceroute on a couple different domains, and found that about 4 hops outside of my local connection, the trace times out or has a very high ping. I attempted to visit Comcast's support site to submit my traceroute results, but I couldn't even get to their support site! When I tried to traceroute to their support domain, it timed out several places along the connection.

Frustrated, I eliminated my router from my network configuration, and attempted to resume my video watching: Still a 256Kbps limit. More traceroutes showed the same result, and showed that it was an issue with Comcast.

I still can't reach the Comcast support portal, and I'm rather pissed. I really wish they would get their act together and return the local service to the quality it formerly was. I really think the Insight/Comcast merger was a bad idea, and it has left so many people - including myself - disgruntled with their internet provider.

Update I:
I was finally able to submit a ticket. Now let's see how long it takes them to respond.

After another wasted night fighting with the "quality" internet connection that Comcast has given me, I have sent the following message the sales associate I have dealt with over the last year.

Jeff,

I have been pretty happy with the Insight service over the last year. It has been reliable and I haven't had to place a call ever about the quality of service. However, this last week has been absolutely miserable.

I'm not sure how much of the technical end you are involved in, or how much you know about it, but please allow me to explain my frustration.

My setup here at home hasn't really changed any. I have the Motorola Surfboard modem that I purchased from Insight when I first signed up. Also, I am still using the same Linksys WRT-54GL router that I was using when I first signed up.

Over the last week, my internet connection has been dropping randomly for no reason, even though my router has maintained 100% uptime. Sunday night sometime, my IP address changed from a 74.0.0.0 IP to a 98.0.0.0 IP. With this IP address change, I have noticed increasingly more drops in service, as well as poor transfer speeds.

I called the support line tonight, and after waiting for nearly 20 minutes to speak with someone, I was told that I really should have been assigned the 98.0.0.0 IP, and that with that aside, everything was fine. The technician issued a hard reboot for my modem and told me to try resetting my router as well. I did, and the unstable service has remained.

This is a problem for me, as I rely on a stable internet connection. I have told you about this before; My day job is technical support for web hosting, but I also do server administration and systems development. With this industry, I often work from home in the off hours. When the service drops if I'm shelled into a remote server making configuration changes, I lose a lot of work and can find the server really messed up afterward.

For my job, we have a private IRC server on our office network (not Comcast/Insight related). I will connect to this server from home so I can monitor the happenings at the office, as do several of the other staff members. When my service drops, I notice that their service also drops, suggesting to me that it is an issue with the "node" of the Comcast network we are on.

As I said, I have been pretty satisfied with the Insight service over the past year. I do understand that with changes to such a massive system as a the WAN that composes the Lafayette Comcast network, comes some headache. However, this sort of thing is getting really tiring.

Along with this, the Comcast customer services have been absolutely depressing. When I was finished talking with the technician on the phone, he transferred my call to billing so I could ask about an issue with my invoices for February. After waiting for another 15 minutes on hold, I received a message saying "we can't take your call right now, please try another time." I decided to seek out a contact form on the Comcast website, but to my dismay, the form wouldn't work at all. With that and the technician telling me I shouldn't have the IP address I've been assigned by DHCP, I'm not very impressed.

I have to admit, Jeff, I am actively seeking out alternatives to the Comcast service. I am nearly ready to contact Verizon about their 3Mbps DSL service, as other co-workers have reported nothing but absolute stability with it, even though it is 7Mbps slower than the Comcast offering.

Is there anything you can give me to get through this? I'm not talking about financial compensation necessarily, but something has to give. I can't afford to be without internet service, but I also can't afford to cripple a server or system I'm working on. Even if you can talk with someone about getting me assigned to a different network node somehow (it's a long shot, I know), it would be some sort of progress.

I look forward to your reply.
-Tim

Last night at midnight, Comcast decided to switch the netblock for this area. After having a 74.*.*.* IP address for over a year, they decided it would be neat to switch to a 98.*.*.* IP address. What's more, this new IP range is new to everyone around the world. A lot of servers aren't configured to handle it properly, which can cause some nasty problems. Luckily, I haven't found this to be true yet, but I'm not the least bit skeptical.

Oh yeah, I keep getting my connection dropped, too. I have no idea why they're doing it, but I'll just randomly get kicked off everything for a split second. This is going to make watching streaming media a massive pain.

Oh well, they've been giving me all the channels in the basic non-digital cable package as a mistake of their own. I've e-mailed them about it and they said it would be fixed, but it's not. At least I'm not getting billed for it.

So I saw this ad on Facebook for a free Macbook Air. I am always skeptical about such offers, but I figured I'd see what kind of scams this one was working from. It's really kinda funny:

In order to receive your gift you must: (1) Meet the eligibility requirements, (2) register with us including providing accurate and current contact information, (3) agree to our Privacy Policy governing our use of your information, (4) complete and continue through our survey, (5) agree to register, participate in and satisfy the requirements for 16 sponsor offers as described in the "Gift Rules" that require sampling and purchasing products of interest, and (6) follow redemption instructions as described in the "Gift Rules." Available offers will vary. Completion of sponsor offers may require applying for and/or receiving offers of credit and/or loans or similar services.

Again, I think it's really funny that they would make such an offer with such blatant terms of spamming.