Internet outage for two days spread thoughout Alabama

Okay guys,
My internet has been down for two days. This morning is the first time I have been able to get online, and it still comes and goes. When I called the company(on Friday) that I have my service through, they explain that they were getting hundreds of calls from our state and that it was not our computers but their problem. They could give no expected time as to when the problem would be corrected. I of course immediately thought the internet had been shut down HA HA. Too much ATS. I wanted to see if any others in other states had the same problem or was it truly just our state that had this problem??? Side note, I asked the guy on the phone if this outage had anything to do with all the "stuff" going on with Anonymous and he laughed and said maybe?????
MOD if this is in wrong area please correct my mistake.

reply to post by tinkytink1207


Why would anon hack an ISP? That seems self-defeating as the people under that ISP would not be able to view any wikileaks files if the ISP goes down.

There was probably a fiber cable cut somewhere in the distribution network that was difficult to access and repair.

There are certain locations throughout all networks where damage can be catastrophic and take this kind of time to restore.

For security reasons I will not give examples but trust me as an outside network operator every network has these type of locations and always will.

I am not trying to say that anyone hacked their severs etc I guess I just want to know what would cause such a large outage and how many others were affected by this outage? Was it really just Alabama or other states also??

Originally posted by Somehumanbeing
reply to post by tinkytink1207

 

would not be able to view any wikileaks files if the ISP goes down.

He never mentioned Wikileaks - so why did you?

Just as I was trying to view my replies to the thread it went down again??? I agree some major cables etc must have been damaged etc. To all those computer people out there how long could this go on??? It's so annoying. I do everything online and this is really a annoyance. Can't bank etc without it crashing before I am done and so nothing goes through. ANY THOUGHTS?? When you call they will give you no explanation and no time when it will completely fixed!!!! Grrrrrr????

reply to post by tinkytink1207


I just explained to you what would cause this kind of outage.

Also I doubt the entire state of Alabama was without service just your isp is more likely,the network isnt designed that way,there is no one cable that leaves Alabama and ties in with the rest of the world.

Some electronics involved with these networks are also extremely expensive and believe it or not the operators do not keep a spare on the shelf. If one of these routers goes out they buy a new one and have it overnighted.
They are not going to tell you they are too cheap to keep spares of crucial parts niether but the dont I know its my business to know and I've seen it happen before.

Of course crucial networks such as military and .gov have many layers of redundancy, private networks often do not

reply to post by TortoiseKweek


Because Anonymous has apparently been doing it due to the wikileaks crap that is going on.

I tell you what,if you tell me who your isp is I'll try and find out for you what the cause was. It might take a little time to get a reply but if the outage was big enough I can find out. You can pm me the info if you wish.

NE Alabama here. I've had internet all weekend. Maybe it was just your service provider. Maybe a squirrel got into the cables? Lol, just saying because we had that happen once with our provider.

Just as I was trying to view my replies to the thread it went down again??? I agree some major cables etc must have been damaged etc. To all those computer people out there how long could this go on??? It's so annoying. I do everything online and this is really a annoyance. Can't bank etc without it crashing before I am done and so nothing goes through. ANY THOUGHTS?? When you call they will give you no explanation and no time when it will completely fixed!!!! Grrrrrr????

Is your isp a cable provider? Poor plant maintenence and effects of cold weather drive up the upstream noise levels which will cause the modems to go offline. Without info on the isp I cannot help you but I'll do a little digging.

A quick look here shows no reports,if it was big enough it would be here,good site for testing your connection performance also.www.dslreports.com...

I'm down here in Cullman and I have had internet without any problem all weekend. My guess is its with you ISP I know of one in North Alabama that is used alot but is notorious for outages.

Vinec

reply to post by tinkytink1207


Im in the bham area, no issues. You probably have Charter...they suck like a post with no second line.

reply to post by NateNute


Charter is a-w-f-u-l. We had outages every other day with them but we had no alternative in our area of Decatur. Luckily we moved and have Knology, not the best, but def. better than Charter.

Originally posted by Somehumanbeing
reply to post by tinkytink1207

 

Why would anon hack an ISP?

If too many people are attacking anon targets using your ISP this could be the problem.

the first thing the ITs at any DoS target are going to do is block the ISPs that are targeting them.
they will also notify the IPS so they can shut down there customers that are part of the DoS attack.
depending on staff this may take awhile.
other agencies that run the tie in between ISPs and the Internet can if the problem is large limit bandwidth or block parts of the the ISP.

2 incidents come to mind in my recent
past which is similar to this.

1) About a yr ago, (roughly) I had an outage
for 4 days and found out later that a backbone
cable had been cut due to some fools digging
a trench where they did not research first.

2) About 2-3 months ago, I had a similar
problem where I had no internet for 3 days
and when I called the ISP they claimed they
were undergoing an infrastructure upgrade.
I always wondered what that upgrade included
when it lasted for 3 days. However, they
re-imbursed me for the time off-line but still,
I always wondered if that shutdown did in fact
have some nefarious purpose other than what was
stated to the public. Something else was also
fishy about that outage. There were times of
intermittent outages before and after that event.
very strange.

Just to let everyone know the net has just come back up this morning. After I posted yesterday I lost everything the rest of the day. when I called the company's help desk again just to verify that we were still down, they tried to have me connect to yahoo instead of google? Thought that was odd. But at the time I called a lot of the Southeast was out according to the help desk. This has been such a deal. Hopefully it will stay up today. I am going to go read all the postings and catch up on what I missed for 3 days.