[TriLUG] troubleshooting spotty internet connectivity with TWCBC

[John Broome]

I'll all for a circle-jerk about how much TWC sucks, but when I was having
problems and they wanted me to hook directly into the cable modem, I did.
 I cranked up the firewall on my MBP, disabled all open ports and ran my
ping / mtr tests and gave them the data.

This is a linux list, you *do* have a linux machine to use for this test,
right?  Or a computer and a linux live CD?

I also have/had smokeping running against the work VPN endpoint, the first
TWC hop outside my router, the router and the cable modem so I can show
them the graphs of everything fine on my side of the connection and how
crap it is to their gateway.


On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Scott G. Hall <scott at hallcomm-inc.com>
wrote:

> On 07/22/2014 10:18 PM, Dewey Hylton wrote:
> > i have a customer paying for TWC Business Class service. they run a
> small shop (~20 computers) behind a *nix firewall,[...]
> >
> > friday, they called and said they had issues getting to several external
> websites that they use daily. [...]
> >
> > i called TWCBC support. the first tech tried "accessing those 2 sites
> via the cable modem" and failed. so, believing the problem was on their
> end, he escalated the ticket. but the second level tech refuses to work
> with me until i've connected a computer directly to the cable modem.
> >
> > does this make sense to anyone? the firewall _is_ a computer, and is
> much more capable of network testing and such than any of their windows
> desktops or servers. and it is directly connected to the cable modem
> already.
>
> I've had the same issues with both TWC customer support, and at another
> location
> Comcast's Xfinity customer support.
>
> What you are running into is "customer no-support" help-desk types that
> are only
> trained to use a troubleshooting script. They have no knowledge or
> expertise on
> network configuration, network troubleshooting tools, or even concepts of
> how
> the network works in the first place.
>
> To even get somebody remotely knowledgeable who can even listen and
> understand
> the basics, you'll have to force the issue and escalate to at least
> Tier-3. If
> they won't escalate that high, make noise with one of the consumer
> advocates
> (5-on-your-side, etc) and get a message to a VP or high-level manager.
> Otherwise
> you are just wasting your time.
>
> --
> Scott G. Hall
> Owner & Chief Engineer
> Hall Communications
> Raleigh, NC, USA
> Scott at HallComm-Inc.Com
>
> --
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