Umm. Non-happy camper. ISP things have changed here, without me being
informed. Recently (2 days ago) my modem started rebooting every little
while. Zillions of T3 & T4 timouts in the modem log, Signal lavels were
perfect when it was online. I own this thing, a Motorola SB6120 purchased
late June 2010. It has not been abused.
I am in Woosta & we all know the ISP available here. 2 techs showed up
mid-morning, to diagnose and fix this issue. One guy stood there watching;
the other guy "did stuff." They checked the signal levels on incoming line
from the box connected to the pole our back, and declared my moden Dying.
They talked to each other (not me) & seemed to think I was Granny-in-a-Box,
until they let me say more than one sentence.
These guys also confessed that since July 202, Ch4rter does not "allow"
customers to own/run their own modems. Their consolation prize is that they
don't charge modem rental fees any more. (it's not on the bill, anyway,
FWIW). They mumbled some other mumbo jumbo and fled 5 seconds after they
learned I have my own router too, & didn't care if the modem and router
were yet in communication. They just said "better reboot" and they "no
longer" service "wireless" --which I am not running except when certain
visitors appear. I think they meant they don't diagnose routers, which has
always been the policy, and which is fine. Internal LAN issues aren't their
problem.
So now I have a modem which may or may not be sick, but no way to test it
to make sure. Is there anyone here who can take a look at this thing & test
to see if it's Really Dying, or if Ch4rter deaded it with their latest
firmware revision of their firmware & policy change in July 2012?
An interesting meeting theme sometime might be how to get the Verizon FIOS
in Worcester. Several years ago I watched Verizon trucks & Verizon moles
installing their fiber optics in manholes all over town. Ch4rter is running
on Verizon's infrastructure. Ch4rter internet has been working better since
then, but we're still locked out of the option to use verizon. Is this a
topic of interest to anyone? If so, I'll lead the discussion and even buy
the Pizz4. To me, this is a Large Pizza problem.
Another interesting but probably futile discussion might center around why
we have suddenly been deprived of the ability to watch the behavior and
effectiveness of our modems, which serve internet coming from our ISP.. I
was not informed of this -- was anyone who is just a 'regular' customer?
Meanwhile, if anyone has a test lab or whatever, where they can test my
declared-dead modem, please let me know. Otherwise it's probably a
giveaway, or another piece of Landfill Fodder. I can bring to a meeting &
can wait for results.
Thanks & happy pizzaz,
Liz J
