Murieta Cable Access, Internet
Karl,
I had the ranchomurieta.org internet for a little less than two months this summer and it never truly worked. Like you, my modem was not getting any signal from the cable folks.
We had the workers out a few times to check our connection and finally one said that it would never work well in the room that we had set it up. That sounded nuts, so, I switched to AT&T last week and have been connected and happy ever since.
Good luck
Here are a couple of links to check out your speeds.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html
http://speedcheck.ispconnect.co.uk/
Mine is running at 558.1 kbps/sec. I am using AT&T/ Verizon.
My connection goes down for no reason on occasion. Not very often but it is very frustrating. Calling the 800 number gets you a tech that just wants you to unplug everything and then plug it all back in. So far that has never worked, just wasted time. Going out on a week-end means that Internet is down until Monday. But, as I mentioned, it doesn't happen too frequently.
I had ATT DSL when first available but my downloads never hit anything more than about 512K, with uploads in the 120K range. With RM cable I get 2900+ K download and close to 500K upkoad.
My choices are limited though. ATT now says I'm too far from the central office. The only thing they offer is dial-up for me. I did call and talk to a supervisor, no DSL. I see ATT is digging a big hole nearby, with any luck they are installing a Neighborhood Broadband Gateway that would allow me to have an option.
My connection also "gets lost" every so often. I used to call the 800# but as has been mentioned they tell you to unplug everything and re plug back in after a minute or so. I got tired of this same answer and all that unplug/replug and my solution is to now have everything plugged into a power strip with an on/off switch.
Just a few minutes ago when I tried to connect to the internet I could not connect even though all the modem lights were showing a good connection, so I hit the power strip off swich...waited a minute.... turned it back on and relogged in successfully.
I don't know if its RMA or my modem but this seems to work for me when I can't get a connection and all the lights are showing good. I think this resets the modem.
Try it, its a lot easier than using the plugs especially if they are hard to access.
When I tried to get the internet just now I got the usual "can't connect". So I hit my power strip off button, waited 45 seconds, turned it back on and wa..la, am connected. Its a lot easier than unplugging everything or calling the 800 number.
I think it mightr be the heat....causing the need to reset my modem.
Frank, I think it is a problem called "thermal cycling" and it has plagued our system for a long time. It got so bad for me that I was forced to switch to DSL, against my better wishes.
Since the switch I have not had 1 minute of down time and have never had to reset my modem. If we had anyone who could truly manage our system and eliminate the problems, I would be the first to switch back.
But I'm not holding my breath.
I just switched to DSL, though I don't have the fast speeds that you all are getting from RMA. I have a speed lightening connection at work, but at home we switched to AT&T DSL for $10 a month (with a contract). I just tested my speed with one of th links posted above -- download was 420K, and up was 320K.
http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=7681
Firstly, Lisa make sure you power cycle your modem. Whenever you sign-up for ATT DSL you are placed in a queue and your speeds are exponentially slower until the provisioning of the circuit is complete. If power-cycling your modem does not increase your speeds, make sure to call ATT as this is a very quick and painless fix. Lisa, what you will enjoy is 99.999 uptime on your connection and support staff that are available 24/7. Unlike, RMA which seems to base it’s hours of availability around what is convenient for it’s staff and the 15% of those within the community who do not work traditional businesshours.
Secondly, I hear a lot about speeds of broadband in this forum.For those of you that are not technically inclined, there is another factorthat is crucial to the overall experience of the Internet and that is latency.
As a practical example, members of my family are intensive Internet users; gaming, video conferencing, VPNs, working at home, software development, video and audio streaming, web browsing, etc. My family and a few others I am in contact with are unable to use RMA broadband for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as an empirical test to validate some of the concerns of my friends within the community, we performed a test called a trace route. (OK IT guys/gals, bear with me and refrain from the giggles) A trace route, similar to a ping, will show you the amount of delay on each hop (leg) of the path from the source (your pc) to the destination (the webpage or system you are trying to connect to) and back again. On all of the tests we performed the RM Broadband had over 5X the latency of DSL. Now to be fair to the RMA system, different homes within the community can have differing results based on their location,but our tests were performed throughout the community and results were equally disappointing. This latency makes gaming, streaming video/audio, and other applications virtually impossible to run.>/p>
Now the second and most detrimental aspect of the RMA broadband is the lack of any authentication mechanism. That's right, the system is WIDE open. You see, with ATT DSL and other cable providers, these professional organizations use a authentication mechanism called PPP over Ethernet. The RMA broadband system simply uses your MAC address of your modem to provide you with an IP address from it's DHCP pool, an archaic and downright negligent authentication mechanism called CHAP (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol). Many employers will downright forbid their remote workers to use such a system. I know my work will not even consider remote access without first validating the security of the ISP and RMA fails miserably. More so, have you ever noticed that when you scan for wireless access points in RM that there are numerous unsecured systems. Well, this is because the RMA broadband system allows you to plug in an unsecured AP or wireless router and off you go—you, your neighbors, and any 12 year old with a Pringlescan is now using your Internet connection…wooo whooo, all praise socialized TV and Internet access.
All in all what we must realize is that although our CATV/Broadband system is a novel and quaint little project, it is miserably managed and horrendously underfunded. At some point Murietans will need to decide whether to keep pouring money into this white elephant or close-up shop.
Lastly, please do not be too hard on our board of directors past and present. This is a very difficult task they have to wrestle with and I am absolutely confident that all of them have and are doing their fiduciary responsibility for our association while at the same time doing their best not to get themselves sued.
Ryan wrote: "Lastly, please do not be too hard on our board of directors pastand
present. This is a very difficult task they have to wrestle with and I am absolutely confident that all of them have and are doing their fiduciary responsibility for our association while at the same time doing their best not to get themselves sued"
Thanks for including that. I heartily agree. In this as in so many issues the BOD is in a bit of a pickle, and even when they make patently wrong decisions they still deserve our thanks and appreciation for trying, and for the sacrifice and hard work they put into the effort. It is NOT a fun job.
Then after the hugs we should go back to bugging them to reconsider and change direction. 
Ryan, When RMA started Broadband a few years ago, I, Wilbur, John, George and others were on the comunications committee, I seem to recall that you were the driving force behind the effort to get RMA in the Broadband business and were the one that got us started and set up this successful endevor..
At that time I heard no mention of all the these technical and security issues you now bring up. I remember the need based on your recommendation to purchase a rather expensive piecre of equipment to monitor band width of certain "power" users such as the music, video and gamers you mention. You advised more T1 lines to expand the capicaty, which were approved. Your expectations led us to forecast a bright future for RMA operated Broadband as it was not "brain surgery" and could be run by RMA.
Ryan I am your friend but am now very disappointed in the fact that you did not warn the committee of these future concerns an expert such as you must have known about.
What say you???
Firstly Frank, thanks so much for your post and kind words. To answer your question in short Frank, the Internet is not static. The RMA office might be able to do quite well with the locks on the front doors that were installed in 1970, but NOT an ISP.
True there were many devices requested of the previous GM and board to expand and secure the RMA broadband. 90% of my recommendations were denied, I take full responsibility for not being the salesman I needed to be in order to get the board and GM buyoff. Many requests for staff training, outside consultants (it was me who recommended Phil Jarvis be brought aboard to shore -up the physical plant), tools, a more efficient customer service structure, "off" hour service windows, a RADIUS server, bandwidth shaper, Intrusion Detection System, greater bandwidth, monitoring nodes at the amp locations, redundant power and UPS, ...need I go on ?
As you know, our intial shot was a best effort (proof of concept) with limited funds. You will notice that there were even a couple of devics that were initially purchased, but were never installed. I was not privy to the justification behind these decisions, rather I was simply asked to do with what I had; staff, physical plant, and budget.
Believe me Frank, if we built the RMA CATV and/or broadband network today, it would look VERY different. However, I venture to guess that Murietan's today are much smarter and would not follow this route. A decision today, in retrospect, that I would fully support.
I hope this clears things up and I hope that Murietan's understand in a community of our size, with limited funds, and ever increasing demand for infrastructure and cost control, the absurdity of operating this business.
I do recall discussions during that period of time of doodads which Ryan said were necessary to improve stability and security of broadband service which met resistance. It was very important to everybody that broadband meet its business plan promise of repayment of the seed money put into its startup, which it did, well ahead of schedule. But there was much tension between Ryan and staff, who did not want to hear the "bad news" about in-house skill deficits and expensive needs if we wanted to do this right, and there was a fair amount of pushback which eventually resulted in Ryan's departure. "Good news only need apply."
It must be remembered that high speed internet service was at that time a pressing need which the private sector was not meeting. RMA was wise to invest the modest sum it did to meet the members' otherwise unmet need for decent internet service. Trying to compete with the giant AT&T once they got wise and jumped into the market is a very different decision, as was the decision to try to compete with the giant dish companies, at massive expense. Those premium programming needs were, unlike internet service prior to RMA broadband, already being met by the private sector. As those of us who Frank names who were on the Communications Committee at that time got deeper into the costs involved and the long neglected infrastructure and what it would cost to bring it all up to snuff, we quickly shifted from support to opposition to the idea of competing with the big guys, finding it much wiser to just try to address the system's worst deficits for the members' sake, and start looking for an exit strategy - what is now referred to by the Board as "Plan B" - to have a competent commercial provider step in and assume RMA's role as local provider and thus get us out from under that obligation under the Cable Agreement and MBA. However, that alternative has never been effectively pursued because people keep thinking somebody is going to PAY a windfall sum for the system. This expectation overlooks the fact, as the developer apparently recently explained to RMA President Cox (just as we have been trying to explain for about four years) that the system is not really RMA's to sell without the participation and assent of the owners of surrounding unannexed lands covered by the Cable Agreement. There is no pot of gold. But conceivably RMA could remove the cable albatross from around our necks if just we abandon this persistent fantasy of a windfall and just find somebody who will take it over as is, perhaps givign us a modest payment for what we've recently dumped into the infrastructure, which is about all we are entitled to recoup (if that) under the terms of the Cable Agreement whereby we acquired it in the first place.
Joined: 2007-08-07