# internet problems?



## Archangel M (Feb 10, 2010)

Anybody experiencing internet problems? Spotty results opening pages? I have Verizon and I'm wondering if the weather in the NE is causing trouble.


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## Bob Hubbard (Feb 10, 2010)

I'm on Verizon. Been having spotty connections all day, worst was a few hours ago.  Google, MSN, CNN, Fox, etc all timing out or 'not found'. leading me to think Verizon's DNS servers are barfing, again.  (Verizon has the crappiest DNS servers I've ever encountered btw.)


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## Carol (Feb 10, 2010)

The storm is an indirect cause.  I haven't heard of any major internet outages.  However, the storm has left a lot of people at home surfing the net, instead of at work surfing the net.  That creates a demand that the carriers have not planned for, which results in an overload condition.  The overload leads to page not found errors, slow loading, etc.

At the risk of sounding really geeky/boring; the error messages on the internet are not as specific as what you would receive on your phone.   The telephone network has secret codes that can be sent at the point of failure that let the end user (you, the caller) know what is going on, ie "No circuits available", "That number is no longer in use".  These same codes for the internet are less specific.  As a user, you only see "Page Not Found", you don't see _why _the page was not found.


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## K-man (Feb 10, 2010)

Carol said:


> The storm is an indirect cause.  I haven't heard of any major internet outages.  However, the storm has left a lot of people at home surfing the net, instead of at work surfing the net.


That'd be right.  A little bit of snow and the whole country has a day off.  Any excuse ... !   :rofl: :rofl:


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## Bob Hubbard (Feb 10, 2010)

Problem is Carol, the internet of today is not the robust, will survive a nuclear attack Internet it used to be.  Today, someone not calling before they dig in NYC can and has knocked out connections in Buffalo. It's supposed to reroute around dead spots, but it usually just dies.  

Also, Verizon's DNS is pure ****.  They seem to like to manually update their tables, despite it being an automated system, and seem to do so rarely.  I used to have a chart of their DNS servers, and if I hard coded to use them, I'd route differently depending on which server I was using. Their DHCP system had a bad knack of routing me based on 6 month or older data. (It kept trying to route me to our old data center so I couldn't see half my own sites unless I hardcoded to use a public DNS).  Oh I did try talking to them but it seems that Verizon techs don't know what DNS actually is. (The quote was "What's DNS?").

Sadly, my choice is switch to Time Warner and that'll never happen.


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## Carol (Feb 10, 2010)

Bob Hubbard said:


> Problem is Carol, the internet of today is not the robust, will survive a nuclear attack Internet it used to be.  Today, someone not calling before they dig in NYC can and has knocked out connections in Buffalo. It's supposed to reroute around dead spots, but it usually just dies.



It never was, to be honest.  There were just less users, which led to less problems. 



> Also, Verizon's DNS is pure ****.  They seem to like to manually update their tables, despite it being an automated system, and seem to do so rarely.  I used to have a chart of their DNS servers, and if I hard coded to use them, I'd route differently depending on which server I was using. Their DHCP system had a bad knack of routing me based on 6 month or older data. (It kept trying to route me to our old data center so I couldn't see half my own sites unless I hardcoded to use a public DNS).  Oh I did try talking to them but it seems that Verizon techs don't know what DNS actually is. (The quote was "What's DNS?").
> 
> Sadly, my choice is switch to Time Warner and that'll never happen.


Bob, I'm tellin' ya.  Move up here to NH.  Less snow than Buffalo, I don't even own a shovel.    It's a libertarian's paradise, we have no taxes, and you can get 16MB down/4MB up from Comcast for decent money.  And if the connection ever acts up, I can yell at them for you. :lfao:


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