Hopefully one of the bright ISP "insiders" can help me with an ongoing apparently unsolvable problem.
Apologies to the "guilty" parties for the "embarrassment" but they have now had a week to try and sort it out.
Last week as part of their upgrade / maintenance program Telkom did some work on the PMBG DSLAM & ESR. Right after this the problems started.
I have had a Telkom ADSL line for four or more years now with a Telkom Internet account. I have also had the WA MyBB special for nearly two years.
All of these accounts worked perfectly even with an upgrade to the new Telkom One Meg line speed.
I use a Cisco router which enables me to run multiple ISP accounts on one ADSL line ( sharing the bandwidth of course ) As mentioned everything was working fine with this setup.
The Problem:
Although the Telkom account is working OK the WA account is not
Packet loss , unable to ping , tracert not working , no browsing -- in short Internetlessness
Sometimes I cannot even get to their first hop router.
WA claim that this is a Telkom problem. Telkom -- well Telkom support being what it is , there is not much hope here ( they claim the fault has been resolved -- but cannot tell me what fault.) As my line is with Telkom the other ISP's throw their hands up and say -- not MY problem !
So I am posting some data here in the hope that some switched on dude can work out where the problem is ( WA engineers are none the wiser as to the EXACT cause )
I do not have knowledge as to how Telkom configure their DSLAM'S or ESR and it would seem that getting this tech knowledge is a state secret.
Basically when the router using PPP connects it is given an IP address from a pool that is allocated to that ESR ( after all the other negotiation )
The user has NO control over which IP is given( Dynamic IP addressing IPCP ) or the IP of the Edge Router that is going to handle the rest of the routing.
Here is the detail -- hopefully someone can explain what is happening and what is not working.
Traceroutes ;
These results are from my WA account
They should be quite instructive.
Here are the results from my Telkom Internet account
As you can see the WA next hop router is 41.185.170.1
This appears to be where the problem is -- is there some misconfiguration in the TELKOM DSLAM / ESR ?
Is there some misconfiguration in 41.185.170.1 ( WA router / device )
When Telkom made the current changes the IP for the Telkom next hop router was changed from [41.240.40.1] to what you currently see now [41.146.0.1]
What this means is anybodies guess as Telkom are not telling
Trying to find a certified network engineer is like looking for the Holy Grail !
So sorry to throw this problem open to the public -- but when the organizations / companies that you place your trust in are unable --or -- unwilling to do what they are supposed to do one has ( in desperation ) to try something else.
Maybe there is someone out there that understand this stuff at the level of a properly certified engineer that can tell me where to look and what to do.
Apologies to the "guilty" parties for the "embarrassment" but they have now had a week to try and sort it out.
Last week as part of their upgrade / maintenance program Telkom did some work on the PMBG DSLAM & ESR. Right after this the problems started.
I have had a Telkom ADSL line for four or more years now with a Telkom Internet account. I have also had the WA MyBB special for nearly two years.
All of these accounts worked perfectly even with an upgrade to the new Telkom One Meg line speed.
I use a Cisco router which enables me to run multiple ISP accounts on one ADSL line ( sharing the bandwidth of course ) As mentioned everything was working fine with this setup.
The Problem:
Although the Telkom account is working OK the WA account is not
Packet loss , unable to ping , tracert not working , no browsing -- in short Internetlessness
Sometimes I cannot even get to their first hop router.
WA claim that this is a Telkom problem. Telkom -- well Telkom support being what it is , there is not much hope here ( they claim the fault has been resolved -- but cannot tell me what fault.) As my line is with Telkom the other ISP's throw their hands up and say -- not MY problem !
So I am posting some data here in the hope that some switched on dude can work out where the problem is ( WA engineers are none the wiser as to the EXACT cause )
I do not have knowledge as to how Telkom configure their DSLAM'S or ESR and it would seem that getting this tech knowledge is a state secret.
Basically when the router using PPP connects it is given an IP address from a pool that is allocated to that ESR ( after all the other negotiation )
The user has NO control over which IP is given( Dynamic IP addressing IPCP ) or the IP of the Edge Router that is going to handle the rest of the routing.
Here is the detail -- hopefully someone can explain what is happening and what is not working.
Traceroutes ;
These results are from my WA account
They should be quite instructive.
Code:
C:\>ping www.webafrica.co.za
Pinging www.webafrica.co.za [196.220.58.66] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=122
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=122
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 196.220.58.66:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 38ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 39ms
C:\>tracert www.webafrica.co.za
Tracing route to www.webafrica.co.za [196.220.58.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 4 ms 2 ms 3 ms 192.168.30.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 ^C
C:\>ping saix.net
Pinging saix.net [196.25.1.200] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=61ms TTL=245
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=76ms TTL=245
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=49ms TTL=245
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=77ms TTL=245
Ping statistics for 196.25.1.200:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 49ms, Maximum = 77ms, Average = 65ms
C:\>tracert saix.net
Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 4 ms 3 ms 2 ms 192.168.30.1
2 14 ms 12 ms 12 ms npmb-ip-bb-1.ipnet.wa.co.za [41.185.170.1]
3 38 ms 41 ms 38 ms wnls-ipc1-vl-108.wa.co.za [196.220.59.238]
4 40 ms 39 ms 40 ms wnls-cr2-vl-801.wa.co.za [41.185.0.66]
5 38 ms 37 ms 37 ms wnls-cr1-vl-10.wa.co.za [41.185.0.42]
6 39 ms 38 ms 38 ms wbs-ip-hsll-1-vl101.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.220.59.226]
7 85 ms 36 ms 38 ms wblv-ip-essr-1-atm-2-0-0-1.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.22]
8 41 ms 66 ms 41 ms wblv-ip-www-1.saix.net [196.25.1.200]
Trace complete.
C:\>Here are the results from my Telkom Internet account
Code:
C:\>ping www.webafrica.co.za
Pinging www.webafrica.co.za [196.220.58.66] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=122
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=73ms TTL=122
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=122
Reply from 196.220.58.66: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=122
Ping statistics for 196.220.58.66:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 33ms, Maximum = 73ms, Average = 43ms
C:\>tracert www.webafrica.co.za
Tracing route to www.webafrica.co.za [196.220.58.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.20.1
2 11 ms 9 ms 10 ms dsl-146-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [41.146.0.1]
3 34 ms 34 ms 34 ms 196.43.51.26
4 97 ms 34 ms 34 ms wnls-cr1-vl-102.wa.co.za [196.220.59.229]
5 33 ms 34 ms 34 ms wnls-hr2-gi-8-13.wa.co.za [41.185.1.34]
6 34 ms 34 ms 33 ms 196.220.58.66
Trace complete.
C:\>ping saix.net
Pinging saix.net [196.25.1.200] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=248
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=248
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=248
Reply from 196.25.1.200: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=248
Ping statistics for 196.25.1.200:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 36ms, Maximum = 38ms, Average = 37ms
C:\>tracert saix.net
Tracing route to saix.net [196.25.1.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.20.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 9 ms dsl-146-0-01.telkomadsl.co.za [41.146.0.1]
3 35 ms 36 ms 35 ms wblv-ip-essr-1-atm-2-0-0-2.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43.11.30]
4 37 ms 37 ms 37 ms wblv-ip-www-1.saix.net [196.25.1.200]
Trace complete.
C:\>As you can see the WA next hop router is 41.185.170.1
This appears to be where the problem is -- is there some misconfiguration in the TELKOM DSLAM / ESR ?
Is there some misconfiguration in 41.185.170.1 ( WA router / device )
When Telkom made the current changes the IP for the Telkom next hop router was changed from [41.240.40.1] to what you currently see now [41.146.0.1]
What this means is anybodies guess as Telkom are not telling
Trying to find a certified network engineer is like looking for the Holy Grail !
So sorry to throw this problem open to the public -- but when the organizations / companies that you place your trust in are unable --or -- unwilling to do what they are supposed to do one has ( in desperation ) to try something else.
Maybe there is someone out there that understand this stuff at the level of a properly certified engineer that can tell me where to look and what to do.
