Internet connectivity
Comcast frequent, intermittent internet outages + long outage in Santa Clara, CA with no auto-recovery!
For over one year now, many U.S. Comcast customers have experienced frequent, but short Xfinity internet and pay TV outages several times per week.
Here is what two customers wrote on the Xfinity Community Forum:
- Outages being reported CONSTANTLY: “I have intermittent outages several times a day for over a month. I work from home and this is inconvenient as I have been kicked out of important meetings and even streaming movies at night is a challenge with these frequent outages.”
For the last month, my Xfinity internet service has REPEATEDLY been dropping, and outages of over 100 people have been getting reported on Xfinity’s website.
It was every day for 10-14 days, then stopped for about a week, and now it’s back to every other day. I contact tech support, and they do the “reset your modem” dance, but inevitably reach the end of their binder of answers. I’ve had two techs out, one told me I needed a new modem, didn’t fix the problem.
But inevitably, a little while after I notice problems, I check Status Center and see there is an outage in my area due to “Network Damage”, affecting 100-500 people. It gets fixed…then in a day or two, it’s dropping me again,and another “Network Damage” outage affecting 100s of people.
Is there a local or regional rep I can speak to who can explain to me why this service I pay for is suddenly the victim of repeated outages every day/every other day due to “network damage”?? I haven’t had issues in years with service, and now I don’t know if this is a coordinated terrorist attacking on the network, the squirrels have declared war on the wires, or what is causing repeated failures. I had more than one person at Xfinity tell me that their techs are just unplugging people in the middle of the day to do network upgrades. My wife and I both use the Internet for work, we are losing money when this happens.
Can anyone recommend next steps for obtaining more information on why Comcast can’t go more than 48 hours without an area outage for the last month?
2. From a Seattle, WA Xfinity internet customer posted on Reddit:
“Looks like there’s a widespread Comcast internet outage. In the image below, Each of the dots represents 500-2000+ reports of internet problems. I know Comcast had some scheduled overnight maintenance to “upgrade the systems,” which has now been updated to “damaged network with no ETA for fixing.”
A much longer Xfinity outage report on Reddit:
“Service out for 36 hours, Xfinity keeps blaming power outage. The only support I can receive is Bots via the chat or a prompt goodbye when I call the phone support. What gives?”
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And there are many, many more social media reports of Xfinity outages, which also takes down the company’s nearby WiFi hot spots, which could be a backup when you lose Xfinity wireline internet service.
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Personal Experience:
On Friday, June 21st, most Xfinity customers in Santa Clara, CA (including this author) experienced a severe and long service outage, which (for me) lasted 17 hours, It was due to a fiber backbone cut by vandals. Here’s one of many text messages I received:
“Hi, it’s Xfinity Assistant. We’re aware you’re experiencing an interruption due to damage to our fiber lines in your area. We’re still working to get you back up and running. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
That outage was a killer for me, as I could not participate in two webinars that morning and had to cancel a 3pm Zoom call with my Doctor (for which I had to pay for since I cancelled <24 hours before the scheduled session). Obviously, my four smart Amazon/Google speakers didn’t work, nor did either of my two Amazon internet TVs. I had to use my cell phone to make voice calls as VoIP was also down.
For three weeks, I’ve been urgently trying to get an explanation from Comcast for why the Santa Clara outage lasted so long. In particular, why wasn’t there protection switching (1:1 or 1:n), self healing rings, router restoration via a standby fiber facility available for auto-switch over of the backbone traffic?
As that did not happen, the fiber cable had to be manually repaired, which took a very long time. Despite endless voicemail tag, I never received an answer to that question.
The only written response was the following:
“As I think you know now, that outage was caused by vandalism to our network. Vandals inflicted severe, significant damage to our system that required extensive, complex and time consuming repairs to our fiber. On behalf of our entire team I want you to know how sorry we are that this caused your services to be down for a lengthy duration.”
Here is what the Fiber Optic Association recommends:
In the case of fiber optic network restoration, nothing is more important than having complete, up-to-date documentation on the network. If possible, design a network with backup options. Many users run dual links, one transmitting data and one “hot back-up” ready to switch over in milliseconds. Electronics must be installed with duplicate links and all power must be backed up with batteries, generators or fuel cells.
Critical systems should add in geographic diversity; two links available running paths that are as widely separated as possible to ensure that if one suffers a failure due to damage to the fiber optic cable plant itself, the other can be switched in immediately. Rings provide a logical way to have route diversity, but simply being able to patch fibers manually to switch over to another fiber/cable is still quicker than repair. Even with backup, a failure requires immediate restoration, as one should never depend on a single link any longer than necessary.
All cables should have spare fibers, especially since fiber is extremely inexpensive compared to installation or restoration costs. Fibers tend to get broken at the ends where terminated or inside splice closures during splicing or re-entry. Having spare fibers makes it easy to simply switch fibers to restore operation. Whenever possible, store extra cable in service loops that can be pulled together for splicing. This can save immense amounts of restoration time for cables installed indoors or pulled in conduit outdoors.
OSP underground cables should be buried sufficiently deep (~1m/3 feet) that it is protected from casual digging and marker tapes that show up on cable locators buried above them. (See OSP Underground Construction in the FOA Guide) Bright colored conduits also help visibility. Cables should be listed in the “Dial 811, Call Before You Dig” database and markers installed where possible.
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This post will be updated if and when I get an answer from Comcast as to why it took so long to restore service after the fiber cut.
References:
https://www.thefoa.org/tech/ref/restoration/rest.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-healing_ring
https://www.advsyscon.com/blog/self-healing-it-operations/
Comcast’s DOCSIS 4.0 Deployment: Multi-Gig Symmetrical Speeds to be offered across the U.S.
Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation (TTC) to provide Internet access on Mt. Kilimanjaro
The Tanzanian government has announced that state-owned mobile operator Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation (TTC) has begun connecting Mt. Kilimanjaro– Africa’s highest mountain – to the internet.
LightBox Internet Coverage Map finds 4X as many unserved in U.S. then FCC report
LightBox has released its nationwide internet connectivity map, a first of its kind, showing that nearly 60 million Americans remain unconnected to the Internet. This new map layers the location of approximately two billion Wi-Fi access points on top of LightBox’s national Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, which details the precise geospatial extent, address(es), occupancy classification, and number of business or dwelling units for structures across the United States.
LightBox said the map was created by combining the company’s granular location data with information from 2 billion different Wi-Fi access points. The result is a highly-detailed picture of broadband connectivity across the country.
LightBox Internet Connectivity Map, Census tract-level aggregate view. Red indicates very poor connectivity, orange poor connectivity, yellow ok connectivity, and green good connectivity. White areas indicate locations with no connectivity detected.
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Through its granular location fabric and geospatial expertise, LightBox says it has developed the necessary foundation for a true broadband availability map. Combined with ISP data on broadband serviceable locations, LightBox could produce a nationwide broadband connectivity map that would offer the most precise analysis of true accessibility.
“Accurate and granular maps based upon precise location data, serviceability, and analytics are required for government investment to be targeted and rapidly deployed to the communities in need,” says LightBox CEO Eric Frank. “LightBox has created this map based on our national Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric. Geospatially overlaying Wi-Fi location data has identified the gaps in connectivity. Whether the gaps are a function of lack of adoption or lack of service can now be tracked and appropriate remedies can be set in motion.”
LightBox has taken an approach which yields significantly greater precision. “We have combined two granular data assets to construct a precise view of connectivity in the US. This new map shows which structures have active internet and identifies connected structures with low adoption relative to the number of housing units. Where available, we can also layer in speed test data to understand where internet is operating below broadband speeds,” explained Zach Wade, VP of Data Science for LightBox. “What’s even more exciting is that we can update this view monthly to deliver an audit mechanism that tracks where and when new internet locations go online.”
The evolution of federal and state programs to map broadband with greater accuracy will allow government to apply rigor to complex broadband infrastructure design and investment—a process that Georgia, which produced the most granular broadband map to-date, has proven requires high-precision maps to execute accurately and equitably. “We simply couldn’t have built the master location fabric for broadband maps in Georgia without LightBox’s unparalleled data solutions,” said Bill Price, former Senior Strategist for Georgia, now VP of Government Solutions at LightBox. With LightBox support, Georgia was able to identify upwards of 400,000 additional unserved locations over traditional mapping approaches. LightBox can provide state-level mapping currently and encourages being informed of any updated locations not currently tracked.
The 60 million unconnected U.S. residents cited by LightBox is more than four times higher than the 14.5 million Americans the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said were unserved in its most recent Broadband Deployment Report. That FCC report included data through the end of 2019. In May, BroadbandNow released its own report which found 42 million Americans lack access to terrestrial broadband.
The FCC’s broadband coverage data and maps have long been a source of anger and indignation for many in the telecom industry, given both are used by the FCC and state-level officials to determine eligibility for broadband funding. The agency’s reliance on providers’ self-reported coverage statistics (known as Form 477 data) has repeatedly been highlighted as a key flaw.
An FCC official recently told Fierce Telecom it is in the process of collecting more granular data for fresh coverage maps. However, the release of new maps is likely a year or more away.
The map available on the LightBox website displays a nationwide view of internet connectivity rates across the country, aggregated at the Census tract level. Interested parties may contact LightBox for access to the complete map, which shows data down to each location. For researchers seeking additional insights, LightBox has several hundred data layers that can be readily overlayed on this map. Some of the more popular data sets leveraged by LightBox clients include demographic data, boundary data, purchasing data, internet speed test data, climate data, fiber location data and measuring tools.
Currently covering about 97 percent of the United States, LightBox is hard at work filling in the gaps, including for tribal lands and US Territories.
About LightBox:
LightBox is the world’s leading real estate information and technology platform. Through operational excellence and a passion for innovation, LightBox facilitates transparency, efficiency, insight, and prediction for real estate investment and location analytics. LightBox customers include commercial and government agencies requiring definitive real estate data and powerful workflow solutions, including brokers, developers, investors, lenders, insurers, technology providers, environmental consultants, and valuation professionals. LightBox is backed by Silver Lake and Battery Ventures.
For more information about LightBox services, contact Caroline Stoll at [email protected]
References:
https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/lightbox-beats-fcc-to-punch-fresh-broadband-map