Seattle/Everett 56k - Hopefully really fixed!

[Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>]

     Normally I wouldn't CC something like this to a general announcement list,
but this problem has had such a major impact on service that I want to make
sure as many people are aware of the status as possible. 

     We've been having problems with the Seattle and Everett lines since new
equipment was added, starting approximately on the wednesday before last, that
would be around April 21st. 

     While there were some problems caused by other issues during the actual
installation, and an attempted firmware upgrade that didn't fly, there has been
an ongoing problem since that time that we have been able to reproduce. 

     The symptoms are that you authenticate and it immediately drops carrier. 
Windows users get some weird numerical error message that doesn't really
explain anything in typical windows fashion. 

     Today what was causing this was finally chased down.  One of the new
pieces of equipment was misconfigured so that it tried to pull IP addresses
from a pool that didn't have any.  As a consequence, after authentication it
could not assign an IP address to the connection and immediately dropped
carrier. 

     Please let us know if you experience any further problems with the 56k
service.