[nycbug-talk] Verizon Woes got you down?

[Isaac Levy]

Hi All,

A TowerStream update:

Well, after about a month of service, and learning some fine new tips  
and tricks for testing a network connection, a few people have asked  
me for info about the TowerStream service- so here goes:


On Jan 23, 2006, at 4:18 PM, Aron Roberts wrote:

> Hey there,
>
> I've been following your towerstream thread and I was curious how  
> you like it after a month of service.
>
> I am considering using their service and I am curious about your  
> impression of it.



So far, the service has been OK, with a few painful hiccups.  As with  
any new line, wireless or wired, there's bound to be problems in the  
beginning of use- as the packets and routes settle.  With that, the  
TowerStream service has been just as expected- rocky for the first  
month.

WHAT WE GOT:
--
We started out with a '5 for 5' deal, (meaning 5mbit for $495), it's  
meant to compete with T1 price points.
Now, after being sold that deal, the fine print is that the service  
is a guaranteed 1.5mbps synchronous, with bursts to 5mbit as the  
network allows.  With that, it's at least supposed to be like a T1.


INSTALL:
--
The on-site install was extremely painless.  Their installer ran  
wires to our roof, down the elevator shaft, and into our space- a  
weird ethernet/coax dual cable.  It runs into a small metal box that  
looks like a cable-modem, but it has to stand upright- (fans/heat).

OK, nothing exiting or special there.

INITIAL PING:
--
The reality of the situation is that right off the bat, once we had  
ping, we got a fairly consistent 2.6mbit, spiking to 2.8mbit.  Very  
pleased.  The bosses in the office were dissappointed not to have  
5mbit proper, so be sure to set your expectations right with the 5- 
for-5 deal.  (I don't feel like they're being scummy with how they  
market the service, but it creates problems....)

THEN THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW:
--
Wammo.  One day, I show up at the office, and blam- we can't get more  
than 300k on the line.  I check everything, firewall rulesets, the  
internal network, and spent the next 2 days casually power-cycling  
and double-checking everything on my end, while continuing my other  
work.

I finally just hooked up my laptop directly to their router/modem/ 
thingie, and found the line was indeed capped on their side, called  
support, put in a trouble ticket.

During the next 2 weeks, we had a battery of service botches-  
including random (and sometimes long) outages while they fixed  
things, with no lead-time for us to prepare.  I asked them repeatedly  
to PLEASE call me if they were going to take the line down for more  
than a few seconds, and after yelling up the chain a few times, their  
engineers did start calling me- but this was fairly traumatic and  
disruptive for the office.
I finally yelled, they listened, and all is good.  Their support  
people were really trying to do the right thing, and were very cool  
to work with- their service seems like a very small company having  
growing pains as they become a big national company...  So with all  
the pain their service practices unleashed in my world, they seemed  
to change how they do things on the fly- and even had their high-tier  
engineers call me to ask what they did wrong, and then resolve things.

After their backhaul engineers have changed things around repeatedly,  
and having a tech out to check the positioning of our antannae, we're  
back up over 2mbit, peaking at that 2.8mbit mark.


PING AS IT STANDS NOW:
--
Ping is ok now.  We're averaging about .90% packet loss over the  
month, but about .07% for last week- so I feel the line has improved  
to an acceptable level.  (see attached smoke-ping graph of a close  
router ping, if it came through the list OK).  Now, as it stands, I  
think the next TowerStream test is to see how well the line holds up  
over the next year...  Especially as they scale as a business, and  
fill the NYC airwaves with 802.16 traffic...


CONCLUSION:
--
That stated, overall, I'm pleased with TowerStream- it's far better  
than our Verizon problems.
I'd love to have internet service from one of the smaller reliable  
ISP's in the area, (with people on this list for goodness sake), but  
Verizon is in the way of that.

That stated, TowerStream eliminates Verizon from our last mile, so  
it's a success for us.

Best,
.ike





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