STRANGE CHANGES - on alltel ?

je46290 · EVDO User Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: 48 Location: West MI

You guys seem to get a lot better results than I do. I called again today and the tech i spoke to said everyone here is wrong. Alltel has done nothing to the network. Every problem everyone and myself is having is caused by our own computers. If i am going through a proxy it is on my end. Right thats probably why sunday when i went to yahoo for half the day i would get espanoil yahoo. today for half the day was yahoo dutch. Last week for a few hours google spanish?

jfarris · EVDO Junkie Joined: 10 May 2007 Posts: 212

I had a first level tech try to pull that, then when I refused to buy it, they sent me to level 2. They right away said it was an optimization service. Finally, a level 3 tech took down some information so they could look into the proxy issue I'm having with speed and the tendency to lag occasionally. But the level 1 tech never admitted anything about a proxy and tried to play dumb.

frostedflakes · EVDO User Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 44

Yup, problem is low-level tech support doesn't know what they're talking about, it's not like they're trying to deceive you or anything. Ask (or demand, if necessary) to be bumped up and you will surely start getting better answers.

I can understand people's frustration, but Alltel is doing a lot of stuff to the network that will hopefully pay off if you can stick with them during this time. I'd assume speed problems people are experiencing are related to the rev. A rollout. Also, things have been a bit rough for me while they've been transferring over to the proxy servers, but lately everything seems to be working fine. Fortunately I haven't noticed any compression problems. If these issues are persisting for you, try clearing the browser cache; it has probably cached the compressed images, so even if the proxy servers are now using better quality images images, it will still load up the old crappy ones from your HDD.

And FWIW, speeds have been fantastic for me lately. Yesterday I hit a record for me, about 2.1Mbps, lol. I suspect Alltel's added a few additional T carriers to the towers in anticipation of higher bandwidth demands from rev. A. A few months ago, max I could do was about 1.5Mbps.

F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 196

I put in a call yesterday after just being completely frustrated with the speed drops over the past two months. A trouble ticket was put in for an engineer to check the tower I pull off of and see if the speed was "turned down" for whatever reason. The tech guy I talked to stated under optimal situations, I should be able to get 2.0mb/s steady for my area. I told him that I used to get 1600-1800 on average, and sometimes more... he assured me that it would be fixed.

I'll stick it out a little while longer. At the end of it all though, if the speeds don't return, I'll just tether my Blackberry and get the same speeds for free.

rojoyinc · EVDO User Joined: 24 Oct 2006 Posts: 45

I emailed, I said I had the problem for a week, the response was - YES we changed things...

What was my card number...

They changed things back and I'm fine now.

Here is the problem, they are trying to save bandwidth by using their sister company.

http://www.bytemobile.com/products-solutions/unison-optimization-services-node-clients.html

this is why many of the urls have 1.1.1.1/bmi

they're trying to cache sites and reduce the quality of graphics.
This option has been turned off on my account - and I'm fine again.
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rojoyinc · EVDO User Joined: 24 Oct 2006 Posts: 45

On speedtest.net

I just rested 1540 down and 120 up

MI to FL.
trying a closer server.

MI to MI
1400 down
104 up

MI to MI other server
1378 down
99 up

MI to Chicago
1391 down
122 up

I've been pleased with the speed over all, what I dislike are the down times, drop outs and hours of extreme lagginess A friend has Verizon and loves it.
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F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 196

The problem with Verizon is the 5GB monthly cap.

taxmantoo · Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject:

frostedflakes · EVDO User Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 44

F34R · EVDO Junkie Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 196

frostedflakes · EVDO User Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 44

Yeah that does suck, I can understand your frustration. Have you tried updating the PRL for your card? Don't know if it would help, but surely it couldn't hurt.

taxmantoo · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:55 am Post subject:

I am currently logged in on rev.A, with Field Test showing PCS frequency band, which makes me think I'm roaming on Sprint. At 6am, I was getting pictures normally, now the same connection is running the pics through the 1.1.1.x proxies. I disconnected and reconnected, same thing, rev.a on Sprint frequency and proxied pics. AFAIK, I do not have Alltel rev.A service here yet, just rev.0

uruiamme · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: Calling Alltel

I am calling tech support on this issue as I type this. The lady at Level 2 is taking down a lot of info to see what the deal might be. I am having fun.

She asked me:
1. What is the nature of the issue.
2. When did it begin?
3. What time of day does it occur, which websites, how often does it happen?
4. What is my current IP address?
5. What is my data card number and type of card, etc.
6. What OS and Browser.

For 1, I said that my images on my own website are being compressed.
But my main concern was that there is a middlebox and a proxy server. The middlebox rewrites URLs by prepending the "http://1.1.1.1/bmi/" in front of the web image URLs.

(By the way, I think that some relative URLs are being left alone or hosed, such as like the ones I prefer, such as IMG src=/img/test.png instead of using fully qualified URLs that include the domain name and http:// in them.) Also, it is not quite a prepending, it is actually inserting the code in the middle.

For 3, I told her that I am too busy to troubleshoot Alltel's network right now, but I have done it in the past and I may be available later. I told her to type that in like that, that "the customer is too busy..."

My problem started about a month ago, and I told her I was using Firefox, which by the way tipped me off about the 1.1.1.1 stuff a while back because it prints "Contacting 1.1.1.1" a lot. I need to block 1.1.1.x and then call in and say that these are bogus next time.

Of course who cares... I see the problem in Windows Server, XP, and Mac OS X, but I didn't confuse her with all that.

Atmega · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 124

I have been seeing this too but I think Alltel might be counting high usage sites. Most of the smaller sites I use don't have them cache'd but big sites are mostly cache'd.

Also I had a idea to avoid it. I was able to tunnel my connection via SSH through one of my servers and no proxy images. I was very sure it would work because there is no way Alltel would even know the data is images due to it being secured....So if you have this option and have SSH to a server try it.

Also I noticed that if I put the "[IMG]" tags in this forum for a Speedtest is always proxys it but if you use a direct image link it doesn't.

uruiamme · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject:

Well, it took a little while for the situation to improve, but sometime after the 4th of July I had a call from somebody with no clue about the situation. She asked me which websites I am experiencing problems?

"ALL OF THEM"

Once she typed that, I continued. I told her that someone at Alltel's network operations center knows EXACTLY what is going on and they are the only ones who can fix it.

So sometime in the last week or so it was fixed, and no more "1.1.1.1/bmi/" stuff. I am relieved, because I was heavy into some website development, and I had to see the code in its pristine state. Their stupid HTML rewriting was making a mess of things, and it was impossible to troubleshoot things. I've got my HHO website up now to make your car run water using hydrogen and electrolysis. But I am happy now! The speed seems to be a little better, but Alltel's service reminds me of the Internet experience a long time ago when evening congestion would make it difficult to surf or do business.