ISP outage cost me $600
David E. Filip
About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
Unfortunately, I have an untimed connection with Bell Atlantic, but pay
a small amount per call. So, I recieved a phone bill for over $600.
I contacted my ISP, who told me that Bell Atlantic should credit me, since
there was obviously something wrong. Bell Atlantic, who I called about 6
times over a two week period before I could talk to someone wouldn't say
"Oh, ISDN, hmmm, I'll need to get someone to call you back" (which, of
course, never did), said that they were not in a position to issue a
credit for a customer's malfunctioning equipment, but that I should
contact the equipment manufacturer. Yeah, right. Even though there were
over 800 calls in 12 hours, and average call duration was something like
less than 5 seconds, they said that there was nothing that the could do.
Has anyone else encountered a similiar situation and been able to get
a credit? I could go on and on about bad NYNEX and Bell Atlantic stories
(including the time that they stole my pair, claimed that the problem was
in my apartment, made me wait in my apartment on 4 separate occasions for
a 4 hour period without ever showing up, and a week later admitted that
the problem was in the basement of the doorman building, meanwhile
my web site and e-mail server were down for over a week because they
didn't know their ass from an ISDN jack ... yeah, I'm still pissed over
that one! I won't go into my initial installation problems!).
Any similiar experiences and advice would be greatly appreciated. There
should be some common sense somewhere that acknowledges that something
was wrong, that I didn't have any successful connections, and at least
give me a partial credit.
Regards,
Dave.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= David E. Filip | Email: dfi...@colornet.com =
= ColorNet Information Systems | WWW : http://www.colornet.com =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= "Hunting sober is like ... fishing." - South Park on Comedy Central =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Xriva E. Enl
David E. Filip <dfi...@colornet.com> wrote:
: About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
: Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
: it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
: Unfortunately, I have an untimed connection with Bell Atlantic, but pay
: a small amount per call. So, I recieved a phone bill for over $600.
You're paying $.75 to simply complete a [local] call!? I heard of major
pricing differences throughout the country, but that is insane! It's
only $.03 to $.08 here depending of residential/business and time of day.
And it didn't occur to you to CHECK the connection or have someone do
so within the first hour or so and shutdown the automatic connection
being attempted every 60 seconds or so and contact the ISP (first) to
see if they were experiencing a problem (w/ ETA of fix)?
: I contacted my ISP, who told me that Bell Atlantic should credit me, since
: there was obviously something wrong. Bell Atlantic, who I called about 6
: [ ... ]
: should be some common sense somewhere that acknowledges that something
: was wrong, that I didn't have any successful connections, and at least
: give me a partial credit.
I hate to say it, but why should they credit you? It was not the phone
companies fault in any way. It was a little bit your ISP's fault for
failed equipment (happens) and definately your fault for letting your
equipment run away on it's own without supervision and/or intervention.
And you *did* have successful connections. Your computer and the ISP's
computer were unable to negotiate properly a data call -- but the
telco did place (upon your request) a call and _completed_ that call.
It was either your end or your ISP's (most likely) that terminated
said call for which your equipment re-connected about a minute later
for twelve hours... The telco did as requested and asked to do (and
billed you accordingly).
I know you probably don't see it as I do or agree, so this is just IMHO. :)
Chris Arndt
This sort of thing happens in Pac Bell California, with JPS. They have a
POP arrangement with Pac West, and, for whatever reason (not tariff) the
ISDN calls are DOV.
Well, if you call in to an ISDN number, Pac West answers it, and hands it
off to JPS. JPS looks for an open ISDN port, and if it doesn't find one,
disconnects the call.
But as far as Pac Bell is concerned, it's a connected call, and you get
charged for it.
It took a long time to figure out what was happening (including analog
calls to the ISDN number).
I have an ISDN router, so IP traffic on my network would trigger an ISDN
call. ISDN goes through fast enough, even with the Pac West/JPS hooey,
that it was redialing 4 or 5 time a minute, at 4 cents or so per try (with
tax, etc).
So I was racking up 16 to 20 cents per minute of clock time for calls that
were "busy".
I never did get a clear answer out of JPS or Pac West exactly why it
couldn't be fixed to work properly.
I fixed it by changing ISPs.
The point is, I think, if you are going to use a metered service, you
better understand everything you can about how the metering works, and
what the possible failure modes are going to be, and what will happen
during those failures.
In article <6jdspi$9io$1...@news.megsinet.net>,
David Lesher
dfi...@colornet.com (David E. Filip) writes:
>About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
>Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
>it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
While I feel badly for you, quite frankly, this is your own fault.
Dial-on-demand IS a loaded weapon in metered environments.
You need to implement sanity limits on your system to avoid shooting
yourself in the foot.
The Zyxel's have "Call Control" limits on both numbers and minutes
of calls. Lacking that, you need to do same in your system sw.
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Ronald Hall
On 14 May 1998, David E. Filip wrote:
> About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
> Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
> it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
>
> Unfortunately, I have an untimed connection with Bell Atlantic, but pay
> a small amount per call. So, I recieved a phone bill for over $600.
>
> I contacted my ISP, who told me that Bell Atlantic should credit me, since
> there was obviously something wrong. Bell Atlantic, who I called about 6
> times over a two week period before I could talk to someone wouldn't say
> "Oh, ISDN, hmmm, I'll need to get someone to call you back" (which, of
> course, never did), said that they were not in a position to issue a
> credit for a customer's malfunctioning equipment, but that I should
> contact the equipment manufacturer. Yeah, right. Even though there were
> over 800 calls in 12 hours, and average call duration was something like
> less than 5 seconds, they said that there was nothing that the could do.
>
> Has anyone else encountered a similiar situation and been able to get
> a credit? I could go on and on about bad NYNEX and Bell Atlantic stories
> (including the time that they stole my pair, claimed that the problem was
> in my apartment, made me wait in my apartment on 4 separate occasions for
> a 4 hour period without ever showing up, and a week later admitted that
> the problem was in the basement of the doorman building, meanwhile
> my web site and e-mail server were down for over a week because they
> didn't know their ass from an ISDN jack ... yeah, I'm still pissed over
> that one! I won't go into my initial installation problems!).
>
> Any similiar experiences and advice would be greatly appreciated. There
> should be some common sense somewhere that acknowledges that something
> was wrong, that I didn't have any successful connections, and at least
> give me a partial credit.
>
I have heard of similar things happen to people with ISDN, but
fortunately/unfortunately I am in Ameritech's ISDN area so I can't give you
any good answers with NYNEX. How much does NYNEX charge per call? $600 on
800 phone calls is like .75 cents per call! I couldn't believe it when I
saw that, with Ameritech I pay a $35 monthly charge then 5 cents per call
which goes down to 2 cents after a certain number of calls. So even if I
did that here, I would only be charged about $30 for making 800 calls. Even
if the ISP went "off the air" as you put it for 12 hours, I can't see how
they can be responsible. If you have it set to autoredial that fast, I'd
think you would be responsible if the connection ever went bad. If the ISP
gives you credit I would be shocked.
- Ronald Hall
- ha...@execpc.com
Gary Duve
David E. Filip wrote in message <6jdn45$4nd$1...@maceo.dti.net>...
>About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
>Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
>it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
David,
You have my sympathy, I once had a similar experience (about
that size bill, but due to another type of modem issue)... anyway
it sounds to me as though you configured it to do exactly what it
did. Autoredials when you pay per call are kinda dangerous,
it does not sound like your equipment was malfunctioning, it
also sounds like the telco provided service, the ISP probably
won't assume liability (unless they set up your ISDN for you,
including the autoreconnect, then maybe you could have a
small claims action).
Sounds to me like you should try to work out a payment schedule
with your telco (usually they are willing to do this) and turn off that
autoredial feature (or limit it, if you can't do either, then I suggest
you consider a new router). Consider it a learning experience, it
will probably make you more cautious in the future.
Regards
Gary
Pete Gebel
dfi...@colornet.com (David E. Filip) wrote:
>About a month ago, my ISP went off the air for about 12 hours.
>Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
>it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
>
>Unfortunately, I have an untimed connection with Bell Atlantic, but pay
>a small amount per call. So, I recieved a phone bill for over $600.
>
>I contacted my ISP, who told me that Bell Atlantic should credit me, since
>there was obviously something wrong. Bell Atlantic, who I called about 6
>times over a two week period before I could talk to someone wouldn't say
>"Oh, ISDN, hmmm, I'll need to get someone to call you back" (which, of
>course, never did), said that they were not in a position to issue a
>credit for a customer's malfunctioning equipment, but that I should
>contact the equipment manufacturer. Yeah, right. Even though there were
>over 800 calls in 12 hours, and average call duration was something like
>less than 5 seconds, they said that there was nothing that the could do.
>
>Has anyone else encountered a similiar situation and been able to get
>a credit? I could go on and on about bad NYNEX and Bell Atlantic stories
>(including the time that they stole my pair, claimed that the problem was
>in my apartment, made me wait in my apartment on 4 separate occasions for
>a 4 hour period without ever showing up, and a week later admitted that
>the problem was in the basement of the doorman building, meanwhile
>my web site and e-mail server were down for over a week because they
>didn't know their ass from an ISDN jack ... yeah, I'm still pissed over
>that one! I won't go into my initial installation problems!).
>
>Any similiar experiences and advice would be greatly appreciated. There
>should be some common sense somewhere that acknowledges that something
>was wrong, that I didn't have any successful connections, and at least
>give me a partial credit.
>
>Regards,
>
>Dave.
Previous responses have made the case that the telco is an innocent
party to this matter - I agree. Others have chastised you for allowing
your router to be a loose canon and create a bad hair day for you - I
also agree.
You might, however, have an issue with the ISP. You don't identify the
ISP or the exact nature of the "off the air" trouble, but perhaps their
logon server or other critical hardware element was down. You could
make the argument with them that they were negligent for allowing
incoming calls to complete for services that they knew to be not
available. They could/should have disabled the Portmaster, Max,
whatever - thus preventing unproductive call completions for the
duration of their outage. This presupposes that they own and operate
their own dedicated POP.
Things get murkier if they utilize a shared POP gateway service like
UUNET. If that be the case, you're probably SOL and will have to
dissipate your rage and frustration on your dastardly router and it's
hapless owner.
--
Have the best day possible - all things considered.
Jerome Mrozak
> >Unfortunately, my ISDN router was configured to bring up a connection if
> >it goes down ... which it did, over 800 times during the 12 hour period.
>
> Dial-on-demand IS a loaded weapon in metered environments.
> You need to implement sanity limits on your system to avoid shooting
> yourself in the foot.
>
> The Zyxel's have "Call Control" limits on both numbers and minutes
> of calls. Lacking that, you need to do same in your system sw.
> --
> A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
> & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
> Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
> is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
I'm about to get ISDN service from Ameritech for a 3Com ImpactIQ. I
intend to use the service for ordinary ISP access, replacing a modem. I
don't want my adapter to automatically redial and possibly cost me $$$
while I'm off at lunch. Is there something I must do to tell the
adapter to NOT reconnect automatically? (I'm a newbie at this).
Jerome.
--
Jerome Mrozak goose -at- mcs -dot- net
Sun Certified Java Developer & Programmer
Zeal, Inc. Sr. Technical Consultant
- "Your Technology Partner" - Northbrook, IL - (847)498-3320 -
http://www.zealinc.com jeromem -at- zealinc -dot- com
Turm
I think the answers to this are WAY off base. Go see a lawyer. The
Telco Cannot charge you for connections that didn't connect.
My guess is if you speak to the right people at the telco, they
can fix this. Blaming the victim is ignorant. It's a great way to make
sure ISDN never gets to the massess. "if you don;t run the TA right, you
will be stuck with 1000's of dollars of bills". Fuck that. You are
only responsible for that service you are able to use. Don't listen to these
people. Go see a lawyer. One letter from your attorny and your telco
will excuse the charge. I guarantee...
--
tur...@hemp.net
mu...@hemp.net mu...@seattlemusicweb.com
http://seattlemusicweb.com
Xriva E. Enl
Turm <tur...@animal.blarg.net> wrote:
: I think the answers to this are WAY off base. Go see a lawyer. The
The telco may reverse the charges but it is this plan of attack that
is WAY off base. The telco *can* charge you for these connections as
they *DID CONNECT* (what is not understood here?).
1. You requested a connection via ISDN.
2. The telco connected you to said location as requested to do.
3. Your equipment and/or the ISP's probably couldn't negotiate a IP.
4. Your equipment and/or the ISP's disconnected the ESTABLISHED CONNECTION.
5. Your equipment went right back to #1 about one minute later.
Chances are the "problem" (dumping the call) was on your ISP's end.
The only decent response (unlike seeing a lawyer to go after telco)
I've seen so far is going after the *ISP* as they knew there was a
outage and should have disconnected their equipment from the telco's
network which allowed incoming connections over such a prolonged
period of time. Consider it negligent if you will (it is).
Again, the telco *CAN* charge you for said connections as they *DID*
connect the asked for call. It is not their responsibility and/or
problem that the connected equipment couldn't talk to each other.
Going after the telco here would be like asking them for a refund for
a call I place (any type of circuit -- VOICE) to a friend and I get
the answering machine. So I hang up (or it hangs up on me) and I call
right back hoping they will answer the phone and not screen THIS call.
The "connection" to my friend was never actually made so why should I
pay the telco? Doesn't make any sense at all...
Gary Duve
Turm wrote in message <6jgu37$hti$1...@animal.blarg.net>...
>I think the answers to this are WAY off base. Go see a lawyer. The
>Telco Cannot charge you for connections that didn't connect.
Hmm, Turmoil???
Well anyway, I don't know seeing a lawyer will "save" him
anything, a couple of hours into "investigating" the case and
he'll owe a grand to his attorney, definately the rich mans way
to getting out of debt.
You also seem to assume the telco is charging for connections
which didn't connect. I bet they didn't, they probably charged
for connections which were made and dropped (over and over
all day long).
Regards
Laurence V. Marks
In <6jdn45$4nd$1...@maceo.dti.net>, dfi...@colornet.com (David E. Filip) writes:
>Has anyone else encountered a similiar situation and been able to get
>a credit? I could go on and on about bad NYNEX and Bell Atlantic stories
>(including the time that they stole my pair, claimed that the problem was
>in my apartment, made me wait in my apartment on 4 separate occasions for
>a 4 hour period without ever showing up, and a week later admitted that
>the problem was in the basement of the doorman building, meanwhile
>my web site and e-mail server were down for over a week because they
>didn't know their ass from an ISDN jack ... yeah, I'm still pissed over
>that one! I won't go into my initial installation problems!).
>
for that, that you should have limited the router, and that the ISP could have
taken his ports down.
What no one else has addresses is the foolishness of running a web site over
ISDN. ISDN was not meant as a 24/7 service. If you want a leased line, order
one (and you won't have dialing SNAFUs like this). Or get some ISP or
service to host your pages, and if your business ever grows you won't have to
worry about bottlenecked web servers when you are trying to manage the growing
business.
Did you ever run the numbers to see exactly how many users can view your site
before download times go through the ceiling? It's a very small number.
Laurence V. Marks
IBM Corp. - Research Triangle Park, NC
MegaZone
lma...@vnet.ibm.com (Laurence V. Marks) shaped the electrons to say:
>ISDN. ISDN was not meant as a 24/7 service. If you want a leased line, order
>one (and you won't have dialing SNAFUs like this). Or get some ISP or
Ahem. ISDN works just fine for a LAN feed. I, and many people I know,
use nailed up 24x7 112K DOSBS ISDN here in MA. I'm paying for a local loop
of under $40 a month. No way in hell to get a leased line for anything
approaching that price. I'm watching developments with ADSL and multi-IP
cable modem offerings. But for now the only other practical alternative
would be fracT1 and I'd pay more by more than an order of magnitude.
>Did you ever run the numbers to see exactly how many users can view your site
>before download times go through the ceiling? It's a very small number.
I know entire small town ISPs who have less bandwith than I have in my home.
I'm not at all concerned with server load or bandwith.
-MZ
--
<URL:mailto:mega...@megazone.org> Gweep, author, webmaster, human being, me
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 781-788-0130
<URL:mailto:mega...@gweep.net> <URL:http://www.megazone.org/> Hail Discordia!
newhouse at rockhead dot com
Laurence V. Marks wrote:
> ISDN was not meant as a 24/7 service.
*8^) *;^) *8^) *;^) *8^) *;^) *8^) *;^) *8^) *;^)
Thanks for clearing that up your holiness. I repent and recant
for having done the unthinkable, I evaluated my access requirements
and found a price, performance solution that fit those requirements.
It turned out to be 24/7 ISDN. I see now the error of my ways.
How many Hail Mary's must I do to still go to NetWork heaven?
Ok, ok, so the main reason it looked good was that it was flat rate,
no per minute or per call charges (and xDSL looks even better but,
they haven't fixed my CO up yet).
Aluminum wasn't meant to fly but, Boeing seems to have done alright
with it anyway.
Paul
--
ISDN is almost like actually being connected to the net.
If you thought the 33.6 to ISDN jump was addicting try xDSL!
Gary Duve
newhouse at rockhead dot com wrote in message
<355E9E12...@nospam.net>...
>Laurence V. Marks wrote:
>It turned out to be 24/7 ISDN. I see now the error of my ways.
>How many Hail Mary's must I do to still go to NetWork heaven?
>
Personally, I think accepting your son back into your home after he
finished college qualifies you for sainthood. Your sins are forgiven!
Regards
Lon Stowell
newhouse at rockhead dot com <donts...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>Thanks for clearing that up your holiness. I repent and recant
>for having done the unthinkable, I evaluated my access requirements
>and found a price, performance solution that fit those requirements.
Actually, it turns out that it DIDN'T meet one of your
requirements, namely a pretty fundamental lack of understanding
of how all the bits in the connection work, or don't work,
together. Make that two requirements, the other being that
you failed to consider what happens when your ISP has problems
and your system dials and redials and redials and redials
trying to restore a connection.
But of course you don't want to hear this, your own lack of
thought cost you a $600 phone bill, not your ISP.
However, it never hurts to try to see if your local telco may
buy your story.
newhouse at rockhead dot com
Good work!! You totally screwed up the attribution history.
newhouse at rockhead dot com
Lon Stowell wrote:
>
> newhouse at rockhead dot com <donts...@nospam.net> wrote:
> >
> >Thanks for clearing that up your holiness. I repent and recant
> >for having done the unthinkable, I evaluated my access requirements
> >and found a price, performance solution that fit those requirements.
Interesting that you cut out the smiley faces that procedeed the above
statement. Laurence V. Marks made a rather over extended dogmatic
statement about ISDN not being made for 24x7 connections. I took
exception to his "one size fits all" statement pointing out that my
24x7 ISDN connection is a great solution for my needs.
> Actually, it turns out that it DIDN'T meet one of your
> requirements, namely a pretty fundamental lack of understanding
> of how all the bits in the connection work, or don't work,
> together.
So far my 24x7 ISDN connection has proven to be fine decision and
has meet everyone of my requirements, given the price.
How did you come to the conclusion that a "fundamental lack of
understanding of how all the bits in the connection work, or don't
work together", exists?
The smiley faces should have made it clear that it was intended as
friendly chiding not as nasty flaming. Lighten up Lon.
> Make that two requirements, the other being that
> you failed to consider what happens when your ISP has problems
> and your system dials and redials and redials and redials
> trying to restore a connection.
If the ISP has problems it doesn't matter how I'm connected to them,
POTS, K56/X2, ISDN, frame, ... if they go down, so do you.
> But of course you don't want to hear this, your own lack of
> thought cost you a $600 phone bill, not your ISP.
You aren't following the thread very carefully. If you had read the
entire post you would have realized that I have a flat rate ISDN
connection. Excluding long distance charges (which is not doable on
my ISDN line) I pay $67/mo no matter how many calls I make and no
matter how long I stay on the line. Someone else was complaining
about their $600 bill because they didn't understand how things work.
I haven't even bothered to look at how long my connection has been
up for many months because, even if it goes down it bounces back
up in about 5 secs.
Paul
the wharf rat
>>Unfortunately, I have an untimed connection with Bell Atlantic, but pay
>>a small amount per call. So, I recieved a phone bill for over $600.
One time I had a customer's line go down, and in the process of
debugging I enabled call out ("both"; I had a Ascend 400) on my end so
I could see if I could bring the line up. Well, I couldn't, and I called
SWBT who eventually dispatched someone to fix the line.
But I'd forgotten to turn "both" off, and in the meantime I
was calling this guy every 5 seconds or so trying to pass him his
packets... My phone bill was several thousand dollars, 5 cents for
each local call. I got them to cancel the charges by pointing out that
they couldn't really charge me for the calls because they'd never gone
through, after all, his line was down. You shouldn't get charged for RNA.
Pete Gebel
Dear Rat: (salutations get dicey with monikers like yours)
Based on your description of your experience, it would sound like
you're mixing apple 'n oranges. David's apple was that he had an ISP
suffering an outage but had left it's line termination gear active. His
loose cannon router repetitively called the ISP, the ISP answered (call
complete) and sometime thereafter terminated the call because nothing
productive could be done. In this scenario his telco (BA) performed
flawlessly by completing his call request to the called party. David
needs to seek elsewhere for redress of his rather large bill.
Your orange, on the other hand, involves being billed for a call
attempt to a SWBT line that was 'down' (specifics not supplied).
This would actually imply a double fault in the SWBT system. One for
allowing the line to be down and the second for tagging the unsuccessful
call attempt as complete for billing purposes. In your case (orange) it
is entirely appropriate that you sought redress from the telco by having
them redact the erroneous billing. Bet that involved an interesting
conversation!
--
Jeffrey Rhodes
the wharf rat wrote:
> But I'd forgotten to turn "both" off, and in the meantime I
> was calling this guy every 5 seconds or so trying to pass him his
> packets... My phone bill was several thousand dollars, 5 cents for
> each local call. I got them to cancel the charges by pointing out that
> they couldn't really charge me for the calls because they'd never gone
> through, after all, his line was down. You shouldn't get charged for RNA.
IMHO, you shouldn't be charged for unanswered calls. What is RNA?
A problem exists in some US ISDN networks, notably CLEC routing, whereby
an ISDN 64K data call is transformed, contrary to ANSI Ballot for
Q931/ISUP Interworking standards, to change the bearer capability
request within the network. This can lead to answered but failed call
attempts. It is best when the network, AT&T's ISDN network for example,
does NOT change 64K data bearer capability requests, so that misbehaving
TAs won't be able to inadvertently repeat a call to answered but failed
locations. It would help if some of the more knowledgable standards
people who contribute here in c.d.i. were to second this opinion, so
that the US ISDN routing network can "fix" this mis-guided notion, at
least with respect to 64K data calls which require clear channels, as
opposed to every other kind of bearer capability request, which is able
to use ANY kind of digital channels effectively with 56kbps rate
adaption.
FWIW, B8ZS can be provisioned for ISDN circuits, even though the
caller's TA will receive an indication that the call "has left ISDN".
Some US TAs stupidly drop to 56kbps rate adaption to self-correct the
mis-guided network routing. Some even call this a feature, not a bug ;-)
Jeffrey Rhodes at jeffrey...@attws.com