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Best Telco Stories

Kimberly Adams
Level 3
Level 3

Most of us in the networking world have had issues working with telcos.  Here is your chances to share your funny telco stories!

Here is mine....

One site had a frame relay circuit that was bouncing and spent more time down then up.  The client was running on their backup ISDN circuit and getting huge bills.  I kept working with the telco and they kept saying it was a CPE issue.  We replaced the WIC 3 times and same condition.  I told them that the issue was with the line and when they tested it they said they saw no issue.  Finally after about two months of this, I asked my field engineer to go on site and hang out for at least 2 hours.  Then I called the telco and told them that all the equipment was replaced, the chassis, card (again), everything.  The telco tech broke into the circuit and told me that he now sees the issue.  That the faulty Cisco equipment was masking a secondary issue with the circuit.  They repaired the circuit and it came back up.

The funnies part of this, we didn't replace anything the last time.  The chassis was never replaced and the WIC was, but it was never the issue.

I just love dealing with some of the telco's out there!

Happy New Year to all.

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.
66 Replies 66

Huff,

Yeah it is just classic telco!!!  Well at least you didn't spend all day waiting for them to show up.  hahahaha....

Cheers.

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

Not exactly a telco story but still so funny that I'll never forget it although it is almost twenty years ago.

IT was not as advanced as it is today and standards were still not implemented as torough as they are nowadays. The Internet was an unknown phenomenon and Novell was in its heydays. I was working for a Telco as a network engineer.

We had an assignment with a customer who was migrating to the latest technology. A 10BaseT network.

They also had a mainframe which ran important business applications, I believe it was a Unisys.

At the time there was no standard solution to enable communication with that mainframe over a network.

Still, a smart salesman had managed to find something:

There was a guy from Denmark who had developed a Protocol Gateway to enable this type of mainframe to communicate over IPX.

The server was rolled in together with the guy and I was asked to support him regarding the network.

He was totally excited when he learned that I was able to capture network traffic on my PC. We would not call this baby portable nowadays.

His "product" appeared to be anything but plug-and-play so he needed to make a huge amount of adjustments. Still we got along quite well and I think he appreciated my help. Our understanding was clear though: he was the master and I was the pupil.

Then we got to a point where his software crashed due to some unknown cause.

Noticing this, I said to him: "It's crashed."

He then spoke to me the unforgettable words: "No, they are just option negotiating".

Leo

Leo,

Nice, I will have to remember that one!  "Option Negotiating".  Thank you for sharing a good story.

Thanks and cheers.

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hi Leo,

"Option Negotiating" sweet! I'm going to use that one going forward

Cheers!

Rob

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hey Kimberly,

Here's the follow-up, follow-up from yesterdays visit from the Telco

So, I extend the circuit for the tech to the Riser room in the area where he's

hooking up the new service. I meet him down at the customer location and take him

to the riser. There is a couple of new Cat6 cables hanging at the Bix cross-connect

for him to use. I ask him to go ahead and terminate the cables on the Bix...........

well he looks at me like I've got 3 heads and says "R66 block" ..........I'm like ....what???

I ask him one more time to go ahead and punch down his 2 new cables on the spare

Bix ............then he looks at me and says "we don't do that" ...OMG ....USELESS!

So he takes one of the new cables and skins it back to reveal the pairs, the sheath of the cable

where he has been working looks like it has been chewed by a Junkyard dog (no offense to any dogs

out there). He takes the W/BL pair and punches it right on the Bix where I've run his circuit to .....very nice!

So, I'll have to go back next week and re-do all this clumsy work

I just cringe every time I have to work with this group! It is painful to say the least.

Cheers!

Huff

Huff,

I completely understand about them being completely useless!!!  I do feel your pain and have some of my own coming up soon with a really undesirable telco...not fun.

Have fun with cleaning up the telco mess.

Cheers,

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

hobbe
Level 7
Level 7

Ok here is one of mine..

I was having problems getting out on the internet with my home line with a fixed ip.

and at this time the telco did not like firewalls and basically they did not help you if they found out that you had a firewall connected.

"unsupported" they would say.

so during my own testing i connected a switch with a span port so I could sniff the outside of the interface.

I come to the conclusion that I can not reach my own default gateway, in fact I can not se a single packet coming from the WAN link.

no counters on the interface and nothing in wireshark.

I call the telco support and tells them my problem and I get a support guy who starts to go through the normal faliure list.

After about 20-25 minutes of trying to get them to start looking in their end he proudly proclaims that there is no error in their side and there is nothing wrong with the link, he can see my computer.

I then am a bit stumped for an answer since i have not seen any packet at all from them, he insists that he can see my computer.

I then ask him how he can see my computer and with what tool since i have not recieved any packet on the WAN link . he proudly proclaims that he is using NSlookup and that he can se my computer and ip address there.

I then proceed with explaining to him that just because he can see me in the phone book does not mean that my phone works.

same with nslookup.

He agrees to file a error report to the backend.

Problem solved after a couple of hours.

Hobbe,

Yeah, you got to love the front line telco techs!

+5 for your story and thank you for sharing this.

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hi Kimberly,

Hope all is well

Here is the Final (I hope) outcome of our simple (for most) ADSL install.

Well ...............after 4 "so called" Techs,10 missed appointments, 43 phone calls

16 new grey hairs, 100 moments of meditation, 77 #@%! words, 10 hours of

standing around waiting and 6 minutes of "small business man" hand holding

it's all done.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

HIGHLIGHTS

1.Learning new languages

2. Explaining where our University Campus is located (Campuses are generally quite large landmarks )

3. 3 cable transfers (one planned - two unplanned)

4. a Tech who wanted to re-punch all the Bix connections with an "Exacto" knife

5. more "we don't do that's"

6. 4 "where do I park" questions

7. learning new meditation techniques (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!)

8. Priceless

The poor guy who opens his new shop on Monday finally has his ADSL circuit.

I can't wait for next time

Cheers!

Huff

Hey Huff,

All on this side is ok, I am fighting with yet another telco but that story is not ready yet! 

hahahahahahaha-----for the hightlights of your latest telco issue!  I am sure you can't wait for the next time someone needs something!!!!

+5 for your recap!

Cheers,

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hey Kimberly,

With my newly found meditation techniques I'll be ready for anything the Telco

can throw at me .Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I'll be waiting for your latest story my friend!

Cheers!

Huff

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hey Kimberly,

Hope all is well with you!

It's been awhile since our last story so I thought it must be time to add

another one from my "Telco" past life

Way back in the day of 1A2 Key Equipment telephone systems there was no such thing

as Cat5 or 6 cabling. Some phone setups needed 50 or 75 pair cables.Hahahahaha! These

were always a real Bear to pull especially for long runs.

Well......one day we were pulling a very long run of 50 pair cable through an extremely

difficult office/warehouse configuration. The conduit had alot of 90's and bad connectors that made

the pull even worse. In the middle of the run there was a pull-box and this is where I was located

for the cable pull. So, we have spent almost 4-5 hours pulling this cable and we get almost to the

end. The last bit of slack is getting pulled up into the pull-box I am manning......to my horror I realize that

I've taken the cable out of the pull-box on one side of a nice wooden (visible) beam and back up the other

side. The beautiful Gray 50 pair cable is forming a lovely loop around the nice beam ............Oooooooops!!!

Needless to say I've always been more careful when doing any wiring/cabling jobs

Cheers!

Huff

or for Leo "Smooth Rob"

Huff "Smooth Rob" 

Things here are as good as they can be....working and such!  LOL  I am glad that things are good with you.

Love your newest telco story (+5 for you), I am still fighting with a telco for my newest story!

Have fun!

Kimberly

Thanks and Cheers! Kimberly Please remember to rate helpful posts.

Hey Kimberley,

Work is never too much fun ...that's why we come to Leo's Cafe

to share Telco stories (+5)

Cheers!

Huff

2. Explaining where our University Campus is located (Campuses are generally quite large landmarks )

In GPS-language, give them the EXACT coordinates from a western branded GPS unit.  Then again, this could back-fire and someone could be using the Eastern-branded (GLONASS) system. 

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