THE STATUS PAGE

This page is updated whenever there are changes, so it might be helpful for you to bookmark it so you can verify whether a problem is community-wide and what action might be in process to correct it.

The Status page reports:

System Wide problem (problems with the cable itself).
TV and FM problems.
Broadband Internet connectivity problems.
Problems with mail and web-site servers.

System Status Information

Recent West-Side Problems Solved

Starting around the second week of November we started receiving complaints of slow Internet from users on the West side of the system, but when we followed up on those complaints each problem had disappeared. Also, our network monitor started to report high error rates on the West side during this time. On November 16, customers on Mt. Burney and the Western-most addresses on Mt. Rainier lost all service. We now realize that all of these events were connected.

A cable at the intersection of Mt. Rainier and Mt. McKinnley had somehow been damaged, perhaps by recent repairs in that area by other utilities. With the action of moisture, the cable continued to degrade until the voltage on the cable that supplies amplifiers started to arc. This created intermittent noise on the cable, resulting in the error rate and the loss of upstream packets that caused the slow Internet on the West side of the system. On Wednesday afternoon, November 16, the cable failed completely, resulting in a drop in power to the amplifier serving Mt. Burney and the end of Mt. Rainier, which went offline. Unfortunately the problem was not completely understood and diagnosed until after dark, greatly complicating the repair, but we nevertheless managed to remove the bad section of cable and splice in new cable, which solved all these problems by 11 PM.

Being Prepared for Power Outages

We will soon be entering the season for storm-related power outages. Sometimes power outages last less than a second, and at other times they persist for several hours. Unfortunately, when power is restored, not all of the equipment in your home may come up properly. This is usually due to the nature of the power surge when power is restored. Typically, Lucas Valley Cable will get dozens of calls from customers after a power outage resulting in many house calls to restart modems, routers, cable boxes, and other equipment.

Many of our customers have said that they would prefer to restart their equipment themselves, but lack the information necessary to do so properly. We have prepared a Recovering Internet/Phone/TV Service guide in response to these requests. We suggest that you download the document, print it out, and place it near your cable modem. Hopefully, the information in the guide guide will help you recover services faster than waiting for a telephone call or home visit from Lucas Valley Cable support.

TV and FM

DCT6xxx Cable Box Firmware Upgrade

New firmware is being sent to these cable boxes. The process begins with the display reding "HUNT" and then the letters "Dl," which means download. A O with rotating illuminated segments is a progress indicator for the download. Downloads generally last about 20 minutes. Do not be alarmed -- keep the cable box plugged in until the download completes. At that time the box will reboot and then continue normally.

102 and 107 Cable box, 3.xx Digital TV

The HD versions of KTVU and KGO are presently unwatchable. We have traced the problem to the upper ridge. We plan a Saturday morning visit to install a spare processor or make whatever remedies that might be required. UPDATE: This was corrected Saturday, 7/30.

Broadband Internet Service

The new CMTS router has been installed. This router provides a 28% increase in system bandwidth

The installation took place at 3 to 4 AM Saturday morning, but there were serious error rates and speed problems reported at 6:30 AM. Working with Cisco Systems, the problems were all corrected by noon on Saturday. Due to the need to reconfigure some head-end wiring, there were also some brief drop outs that affected TV service early Saturday morning.

Mail and Web Servers

LVHA.NET MAIL: Up and running normally.

The new Cable Modem Termination System router is now operational. We appologize for the inconvenience -- we did the switchover at 3AM, but started receiving complaints of slow Internet a few hours later. It took several hours to locate and correct the problems, during which there were brier TV and Internet interruptions.

Last Updated: 11/18/2011, 1:00 pm pdt.