AtlGeek
@tmodns.net
| reply to staijo
Re: speed factory seems to be no more....
I'll sit tight too, at least till tomorrow. I do have to ask though ... why does an Internet provider need to spend $50k to give it's Chairman a $50k car when basic service costs are at risk? Anyone know the guys name so I can remember in case I run across him in some other business? If SF wants to keep my business for the long-term, they need to can that guy and people like it.
Also, does anyone know the name of SF's upstream carrier ... they don't have a conflict of interest with AT&T or anything do they? There are real customers out here that simply aren't going to do business with the spying & lying dirtbags at AT&T.
The chance is basically zero that I'll go to AT&T (Bellsouth) and deal with their sleazy billing practices have them running semantic packet analyzers over my traffic while lying about doing it.
Can people post some different alternatives? I prefer small companies, decent prices, decent services, and a reasonably long operating history. |
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DanRendrag
join:2007-08-27
Atlanta, GA | reply to JoeBerg
Re: Because our lines are VoIP.
Speedfactory could have at least pointed their incoming phones to a message bank stating the problem and their estimated resolution - and/or - an external website address stating the those facts. It's not rocket science people! |
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CiscoKidCCNA
join:2008-04-11
| reply to AtlGeek
Re: speed factory seems to be no more....
Not sure about the new car but while I worked there, there was a large parity in salary between normal employees and officers of the company. I don't work there now since I got an offer for a full-time job (I was working part-time) as a network engineer. To be frank, I switched to Bell after I left. I have a dedicated server for hosting and the 512 upload really helps when uploading 700MB of sermons.
As far as connections, they had a dedicated ATM L2TP connection to Bell for their pppoe DSL customers and had USLEC for their internet upstream (this is information that is publicly searchable based on BGP tables). That's about all the information I feel at liberty to disclose. |
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AtlGeek
@tmodns.net
| reply to staijo
Well - I don't do business with AT&T under any circumstances they get their money from me by way of a minimum-service phone line (and they even tried to 'slam' me for $30 more in B.S. services), so they are out.
Anyone have experiences with Atlantic Nexus (»www.atlanticnexus.com/)? I've talked with them a bunch over the last several years and low and behold they are still around and offering great deals and apparently still great service.
As to SF, been a customer long time, but if they are spending $50k on chairman cars and not covering basic line service costs, time to move on. |
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krushgroove
@charter.com
| reply to staijo
I'll give Bellsouth/AT&T a shot at it - I've not been burned by them like you guys have. Otherwise, AtNex might be the ticket.
In any case, this was a decision I've been pondering for a while, Speedfactory had some crazy outages before - but at lesat someone was answering the phone.
This time around - the office was flat CLOSED - locked up - let's not forget the OP of this thread who went to the place, during what would be normal working hours, only to find the place locked up.
Sorry, Speedfactory - but my service is terminated. As soon as you actually have working phone lines, fax numbers, or email inbound to you, you'll receive my written / formal notice of service termination.
My new DSL will be provisioned NLT Wednesday. |
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CiscoKidCCNA
join:2008-04-11 | krushgroove pm me.... I think I met you during an interview last year. |
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AtlGeek
@tmodns.net
| reply to staijo
Same - I'm switching at AtNex.
I've had a good experience talking with them over the last 2-3 years, I was just waiting for an excuse.
I couldn't believe it but they answered a sales call tonite and are willing to do a modem drop-ship near my house and think they might have me live by Monday!
If you are dropping SF, definitely check them out »www.atlanticnexus.com/.
Don't go AT&T unless you like getting late fees for 24 hour late payments, having them invent charges to put on your credit cards, and, of course, there is that whole NSA thing (and more importantly lying about it).
... and think about that, I called at 10PM tonite, and a guy who knew what he was doing answered and handled the order! That will *NEVER* happen with AT&T and others.
If we don't support the smaller businesses ... it's pretty simple that they will go away and we really won't have any options then.
SF was a great provider until they started doing these financial/buyout things. |
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speedfactory
@hatesville.com
| reply to krushgroove
There was a sign on the door explaining the outage and that we are at the Data Center working like crazy to get the service back on line. We are still here working on it.
My apologizes, remember all services go down from time to time.
We try our best not to have this happen, again our apologizes.
Speedfactory Staff |
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linxdev
@edeltacom.com
| reply to AtlGeek
Luckily I have servers in Suwannee and I'm connected via modem. I guess that is better than nothing.
I called the 405 number and a guy by the name of Mark told me that they had a "major hardware failure". I asked about backup hardware and he said "that hardware was no good". My guess is that they lost a core router here and had to have new hardware flown in. Maybe they did not backup the config of the failed unit and are having to build it up from nothing.
I'm a bit disturbed. I'm thinking about going to AtNex since one poster said he could have his switched in 3 days using the existing equipment. I have a G-Duo. I need not be down so if I can get switched in 3 days using what I have I'll be very happy.
I appreciate SF coming into the forum and saying they are working on the problem but we are not lusers here. We are techies and would like to know the DETAILS of what happened and what is happening now.
Chris |
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linxdev
@edeltacom.com
| reply to speedfactory
There was a sign on the door explaining the outage and that we are at the Data Center working like crazy to get the service back on line. We are still here working on it.
My apologizes, remember all services go down from time to time.
We try our best not to have this happen, again our apologizes.
Speedfactory Staff Please do not be so ambiguous. Details on failure, backup failure, what is left to do.
Chris |
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HSchmiller
join:2008-04-12
Atlanta, GA
| reply to staijo
Speedfactory???
So, what's the story Speedfactory Staff? I need my DSL back up so I can leave work now. Do you all have an ETR?
I've been a loyal customer since July of 2004 and would expect at least you all to change your tech support line announcement. And if you were going out of business, don't you think a warning would be warranted, as well as the class thing to do, in order that we could have retrieved our data from your servers? Some legit status please. Thank-you. |
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tootechsys
join:2004-05-11
Alpharetta, GA
| reply to staijo
Re: speed factory seems to be no more....
Anyone out there have a real contact at Speedfactory. I have to assume from this posting that they are gone and I will be getting with my various customers who I have recommended Speedfactory to over the years and suggest alternatives.
It would be nice for a real detailed post from a Speedfactory representative on this. Maybe Robert Ford? |
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staijo
join:2002-01-09
Roswell, GA
 ·Charter Pipeline
1 edit | reply to speedfactory
There was a sign on the door explaining the outage and that we are at the Data Center working like crazy to get the service back on line. We are still here working on it.
My apologizes, remember all services go down from time to time.
We try our best not to have this happen, again our apologizes.
Speedfactory Staff
Sorry, this is not true. I went to the office at 12:20 and nothing. This is the shallowford location.
The company next door had not seen you all day.
I really want you to get the service up, I have an install ready at 1 pm today. After that time I will have internet. I would prefer it be with you guys.
But the above statement makes me question that assment. |
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PC
@comcast.net
| reply to staijo
I noticed several hits on Google refering to the NextPhase balloon note due April 2008 by Speedfactory. Maybe that is the reason they are not answering phones. Too much legal crap to read maybe some lawyer type could clarify details. I am switching to BellSouth (ATT) yuck, since I work from home and attend school online.
RIP speedfactory |
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scary812
join:2008-04-12
Woodstock, GA
| reply to staijo
Well I called Nextphase yesterday since they dropped the ball at SF. They promised they would have it back up by 8:pm Friday night. That has come and gone. NO SERVICE
I said I'd wait till Saturday morning, no service. I am done. I just ordered Atnex service. They are trying to get my circuit back up asap. This sucks, I just cannot get over this. I am going to get on my bike and cruise by their offices later....Good luck guys, looks like its time to move on, I've been very paitent with SF over the 4 years I've been there but this takes the cake. I'm outta there. |
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FormerCustomer
@comcast.net
| reply to staijo
We just went by the Atlanta Speedfactory office. There is a note written with a black magic marker. The note says they have an outage and call their California Office for details: 714-765-0010
Also, there is another typewritten note from Net2Atlanta offering to buy their assets.
Speedfactory used to be the best in town. I was one of their original customers. Luckily I moved off their DSL service and currently only use them for email . . . should have changed to my own domain email. Hindsight is 20/20. |
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staijo
join:2002-01-09
Roswell, GA
·Charter Pipeline
| yep, I went by and saw the same note. What that says is at least they still have an employee in the Atlanta area
AFAIK, the merietta office is their network hub/data center.
From everything I have seen, they got into a billing dispute with their provider(usually this means they did not pay the bill) and got cut off. They use VOIP for the Marietta office so when the backbone went down, their suport phone number went down.
If you are running an ISP the first 2 things you pay are the power bill and your backbone provider.
Maybe the reason on one was at their office was they did not get paid?
To anyone paying attention, SF has a small staff, these are the same people that have been running the business for years and they have ALWAYS given good customer service. I cannot believe that the local staff has any control over this.
So any update from speed factory? |
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Orsino
join:2008-04-12
2 edits |  reply to staijo
What we're seeing may be nothing more than the blackholing that's inevitable with a single-homed provider. Speedfactory has all their eggs in one basket, with their only DNS servers residing on their own IP block. If they are having a major hardware outage, that could explain the complete lack of BGP information for their IP range. USLEC does not own the range, and so they are not originating any routing for it. Standard null-routing is killing the trace:
whois -h whois.networksolutions.com speedfactory.net
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.SPEEDFACTORY.NET 66.23.217.98
NS2.SPEEDFACTORY.NET 66.23.208.142
whois -h whois.arin.net 66.23.217.98
SpeedFactory SPEEDF (NET-66-23-192-0-1) 66.23.192.0 - 66.23.239.255
Speed Factory SPEED-FACTORY-WAN-BIRMINGHAM (NET-66-23-217-96-1) 66.23.217.96 - 66.23.217.127
telnet route-views.routeviews.org
Trying 128.223.51.103...
Connected to route-views.routeviews.org.
Username: rviews
route-views.oregon-ix.net>sh ip bgp 66.23.192.0
% Network not in table
route-views.oregon-ix.net>sh ip bgp 66.23.239.255
% Network not in table
route-views.oregon-ix.net>sh ip bgp 66.23.217.96
% Network not in table
route-views.oregon-ix.net>sh ip bgp 66.23.217.127
% Network not in table
traceroute from www.net.berkeley.edu to 66.23.217.98
1 g6-48.inr-211-srb.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.206.3) 0.346 ms 0.278 ms 0.327 ms
2 t2-2.inr-202-reccev.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.255.42) 0.304 ms 0.337 ms 1.581 ms
3 ge-1-3-0.inr-004-reccev.Berkeley.EDU (128.32.0.49) 0.559 ms 0.467 ms 0.454 ms
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
What's inexcusable and highly suspicious is the "all circuits are busy" message we're getting when we try to call. The sign on the door makes no attempt to explain this, does it? And no status page available at all? Could they not afford some cheap-@$$ hosting elsewhere, and dynamic (or sufficiently-responsive) DNS service to point us to more information? It's ludicrous that we have to drop by the office to find any acknowledgement of the problem. Someone in this thread quoted SF as claiming to have restored a small number of customers already; I just don't see how that could be so, unless they have customers outside the IP range listed above (or in some smaller range I haven't chanced upon). The large address block they own has become invisible to the Internet.
I have to take seriously the allegation of a payment dispute between SF and USLEC. Until yesterday I was very pleased with the DSL service SF provides. Today, I'm afraid we're witnessing the death throes of our favorite ISP.
edit: Tim at ATNex Sales (770-222-4455) confirms they have been flooded with calls since the SF outage began, and are offering me 3Mbps service for less than what SF charges (US$39.99/mo + $5.00 for a static IP) plus the possibility of using my existing equipment! Strike that: my wife just called to say that it's a done deal; we'll reconfigure login/password after reprovisioning Monday or Tuesday. Goodbye, Speedfactory! You were a great service right up until yesterday, but now you don't care enough about this customer to communicate with me. |
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CiscoKidCCNA
join:2008-04-11
| reply to staijo
After we/they were bought out by Next Phase Wireless two years ago, things started changing. The new management wanted to spend as little as possible (which is not always a bad thing), and was reluctant to spend money on even needed things. Sometimes they tried being a little too frugal, I have to note that not being frugal enough has also broken more than one company.
Anyway, if you are out there Drew and the problem is one of the core routers, I may be able to help do some consulting. I would need to have some type of net connection available in case I got paged for my primary job (I'm on call this week).
You know who I am and can call the home phone number or email me at (firstname)@(lastname).us |
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scary812
join:2008-04-12
Woodstock, GA | reply to staijo
Doesnt really matter this is the end of SF. I am omw to put a note somewhere to cancel my service.... |
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