Eskimo North

Essentially all of our DSL subscribers on Verizon DSL circuits to the north and north east of Seattle went out of Service, mostly starting on September 27th with a few more the following Monday and one more last Sunday.

On the Verizon side we provide DSL service through a reseller that provides the data back haul and authentication infrastructure. Customers more directly east of Seattle and not as far north as well as customers in other states on Verizon seem not to have yet been impacted.

We have tickets open on all of these circuits. All of these failed in a similar manner in which initially the ATM virtual circuit went away even though the DSL signal was still present, then when it came back authentication no longer worked.

Initially, Verizon suggested problems with the customers equipment, configuration, or inside wiring. To disprove this I've gone to a number of customers locations with a known good DSL gateway, checked signal quality, made sure configuration was correct, etc.

Verizon has rebuilt a number of ATM virtual circuits but so far has only succeeded in restoring one customer to service. A number of customers also somehow ended up with not one but two virtual circuits on their DSL circuit.

As of Friday the 10th, these were escalated to Verizon's "chronic" group, whatever that means, and I haven't heard anything since.

I have three different contacts at Verizon's ISP group and I tried all day Friday to contact all three and all I've been able to reach is voice mail and nobody returns my calls. I really wanted to talk to them directly before seeking assistance of the WUTC or FCC.

Just to add insult to injury, while these DSL circuits are down, Verizon sales people have called a number of my out of service customers and offered to sell them FIOS. There are some indications that these problems are the result of something that has gone wrong during the roll-out of FIOS service.