It’s a pretty neat tool, worth checking out.



Long term, we know the answer.  We need to increase our network density to the point where most of our members have at least two independent paths back to (ideally) different local head ends, (ideally) served by different upstream fiber providers.  That’s the only really robust solution I’m aware of and that is our plan for the long term.

Today our pilot network has just one upstream vendor, Cogent, and just one head end, at the John Hancock Tower.  In March, we expect to add a second head end and then a third head end by the summer.  We’re also investigating a second upstream fiber provider for at least one of the next two local head ends.

Meanwhile, there are a few items I can address:

1.  When there is a problem, call Cogent Support if there is any chance their network monitoring tools could help shed light on what’s happening. I wasted over an hour because I thought I’d made a mistake and therefore I shouldn’t bug Cogent. Bad idea, especially as the problem turned out to be in Cogent’s fiber. Even if it had been my mistake, Cogent Support could have helped establish what was going on, so I should have called them immediately.

2.  Arrange a better procedure for after hours access at the John Hancock Tower.  This is a minor issue, but things could have worked more smoothly.

3.  Get proper lighting in and around our rack, and also a chair. This was the first time I’d had to work on our gear after dark and it quickly became apparent that the lighting in the 61st floor mechanical room doesn’t reach to the far corner where our rack is located.  During the day, we have natural lighting (and a spectacular view).  At night the view is still spectacular, but our rack is in the dark.

4.  The moment we get a second local head end on line we need to establish a wireless path between the two so we can provide backup bandwidth in the event of future fiber problems.

PS:  Here are daytime views from our rack looking west and northwest.

At around 3:30pm on Friday I was investigating some strange behavior. Throughput on the upstream direction of our fiber connection from the John Hancock Tower to the Internet had fallen off dramatically.  While attempting to remotely diagnose the problem, we lost all connectivity (at 3:45pm).  My first assumption was something I’d done had crashed our router at the Hancock.  Luckily, the MikroTik routers have a “safe” mode which I was using.  This will restore original settings if remote control is lost, so I expected everything to recover in 2-5 minutes.  When that didn’t happen we got really worried.  Jason manned the Internet side of the link while I drove to the John Hancock Tower and connected directly to our Hancock router.

Well actually, before I went into the Hancock, I wasted more than 25 minutes parked on Berkeley Street, loggin into our router wirelessly.  This seemed like a good idea as, what with checking in and getting keys, the process of getting from the street to the 61st floor of the Hancock Tower typically takes more than 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, the problem couldn’t be diagnosed with just remote access.  So I ended up having to go up to the 61st floor anyway.  Here’s our rack on the 61st floor:

Once there, I quickly established that we had a working wired connection from our router to Cogent’s media converter but no data was getting through.  Of course I tried resetting the media converter and the router.  I also power cycled them and replaced the Cat5e jumper cable.  All to no avail, so we called Cogent support.  Actually Jason had to make the call, as Verizon cell phone coverage in the mechanical rooms on the 61st floor of the Hancock Tower is very marginal.  So, while Jason had a good connection with Cogent’s support team, I was intermittently partied in.  Cogent support led me through the same resets and power cycles.  They also had me connect my Mac directly to their media converter.  When they still couldn’t see anything connected to the media converter from their end, they dispatched their field tech.  By now it was past 6:30pm.

The field tech was scheduled for 8pm but called around 7:50pm to say he was stuck in traffic coming up the Southeast Expressway.  Meanwhile I was occupied.  By 6:30 it had gotten quite dark and there is no lighting in the corner of the 61st floor where the netBlazr rack is located.  So I went off to get some kind of work light.  In the end I picked up a nice table lamp at Marshalls on Boylston Street and a light bulb at CVS. I’ll try and remember to take a picture the next time I’m there.  It’s a very nice table lamp that now sits on top of our  rack.

By 8:30pm I was back on the 61st floor with the Cogent tech. He replaced the media converter to no avail.  He then checked signal levels and realized we had light levels below the allowable threshold.  We adjourned to the basement telephone room where he replaced the line card that feeds netBlazr’s fibers. Back to the 61st floor, but signal levels are still below spec.  So it’s a cable problem.

The fibers that feed netBlazr go from a Cogent electronics cabinet in the basement phone room to a junction box in a phone closet on the Concourse level, then to a junction box on the 54th floor and then to the wall near netBlazr’s rack on the 61st floor.  I’ve now seen more of the guts on the Hancock Tower than I really wanted to, especially on a Friday night when I’d had other plans.

By process of elimination, the problem turned out to be in the 12-strand riser cable between the Concourse level and the 54th floor.  Luckily, there were two spare fiber strand in that cable, so we got swapped over. Back on the 61st floor, the signal levels checked out, so we plugged in and sure enough — data both ways!  The routing tables appear to have settled in less than 30 seconds, i.e. before I had time to check more than one or two things.  In any event, I quickly got a flood of messages from netBlazr’s monitoring system as 68 monitored points all came back on-line at 9:54pm.

I’ll postpone reflections, lessons learned and things to improve for a later post.

On joining netBlazr, David states, “I am very excited to be joining the sales team here, at such an exciting time.  There are so many opportunities to move netBlazr to the next level and I look forward to working with such a talented team.”

Check out the full interview online

The FCC recently proposed offering government assistance to help low-income families afford high-speed broadband services. While I agree that action is needed in addressing the lack of broadband in American households – almost a third don’t have it – this is unfortunately not tackling the real problem.

A real solution involves the creation of viable competition in the marketplace; an affordable alternative that can drive costs down, while increasing quality. The FCC’s proposal will only inflate prices further, much like what we saw with the U.S healthcare system. As long as demand is high, the major internet companies can get away with charging what they want. The demand for a singular service from one or two players must end in order to break from this cycle.

“After bootstrapping our business for the first year, we’re eager to accelerate our growth in the Boston market,” states Jim Hanley, Co-founder and CEO.  “This capital will fund our expansion into 3 new areas of the city and provide the sales and marketing support to spread the good news of FREE internet service for businesses.”

netBlazr is the leading provider of co-primary broadband services. Our members connect to netBlazr by placing a state-of-the art mini-router and three small radios in their office windows to create a “node.”  Each node then creates short-range, point-to-point radio connections to other nodes and/or back to the neighborhood “head-end.” The cloud-based netBlazr platform manages all member nodes and head-ends to ensure each user receives the bandwidth they require while passing along the rest to other members.  This community built network lowers our costs while maintaining high reliability. Members can join netBlazr’s cooperative and receive DSL-speed broadband for free. Premium packages are available at 90% below traditional telco rates.

This is sadly way more common than it should be and is likely caused by one of the following:

Insufficient Bandwidth: Happens when way too many people are trying to connect to the same network connection.  Unless you pay a large amount of money to your internet service provider, you are not assured the amount of bandwidth you need to always have a fast internet connection.

Multiple Toolbars and Tabs Open: This one goes out to the multitasking individuals who feel it’s necessary to have 20 tabs open and also have five or six toolbars set up for easy access to various internet tools.

Viruses and Spyware: This only gets worse over time.  These nagging problems can rob you of memory, as well as processor performance.

Internet Service Provider: Sometimes internet providers place you on an overloaded network, which can cause for more technical errors, leading to a slower speed than advertised.  Also having faulty hardware can be a problem that you need to take up with your provider.

WiFi Radio Interference: Internet routers usually run in the 2.4 GHZ frequency range, which is often the same range as cordless phones and other appliances that are found around a company’s office.  If the router is set up near these appliances, the router becomes overloaded and can slow down your internet connection.

Bottom line: If you’re having issues with your internet service provider, it’s time to consider
adding a super low-cost provider to improve reliability and performance

netBlazr Upgrades Head-end in Hancock Tower,

Expanding Boston’s Most Affordable Alternative Broadband Service

netBlazr has upgraded its head-end at the Hancock Tower, which doubles its capacity to serve small and medium businesses in Boston’s Back Bay and South End. This will allow netBlazr to better serve additional members as they join the broadband cooperative and more aggressively promote its radical complement to the broadband duopoly that exists in Boston and other metropolitan areas. The head-end is located on the 61^st floor of the Hancock Tower and allows netBlazr to effectively serve up to 100 members. Additional members will be served through the introduction of new head-ends within these neighborhoods.

netBlazr is also adding a second head-end near South Station and the Innovation District at the end of the first quarter. There are additional plans to set up another head-end on State Street in the second quarter, expanding netBlazr service to even more of Boston.

netBlazr is the leading provider of co-primary broadband services in the Boston area. Our members connect to netBlazr by placing a state-of-the art mini-router and three small radios in their office windows to create a “node.”  Each node then creates short-range, point-to-point radio connections to other nodes and/or back to the neighborhood “head-end.” The cloud-based netBlazr platform manages all member nodes and head-ends to ensure each user receives the bandwidth they require while passing along the rest to other members.  This community built network lowers our costs while maintaining high reliability. Members can join netBlazr’s cooperative and receive DSL-fast broadband for free. Premium packages are available at super-low monthly rates.

As part of our strategy in crafting our ads, we decided to do some research on what large internet companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T stress in their online ads and website pitches. The buzz words could be summed up in three categories:

The expected: phrases like “high speed,” “secure,” “24/7 support,” and “business-class.” Some even suggested “reliability,” but it came up much less often than we would have guessed.

The made-up words: “blazing-fast,” “ultra-dynamic,” “extreme, lighting fast,” and so on. It does sound pretty radical…

WHAT WASN’T THERE: “affordable,” “low-cost,” “cost-efficient,” “value.”