Sun Aug 7 01:37:07 PDT 2005 — Our internal SQL server was offline briefly tonight – consistency checks meant that member tools were unavailable for a few hours. Sorry about that! -Dane, and some other folks who forgot to update the MOTD. =)

Fri Aug 5 17:26:36 PDT 2005 — FCC rules to deregulate DSL. Today the FCC has ruled that incumbent telephone carriers will no longer be required to sell wholesale access to DSL loops to ISPs. Their argument seems to be that less broadband competition will mean more availability of more competitive broadband products, and they seem to have the ability to make that contradictory statement with a straight face, despite the lack of logic.

Sonic.net has long term contracted relationships with it’s suppliers, including SBC-ASI, and we do not expect that this decision will greatly affect us in the next four to five years. In addition, Sonic.net is one of the top five SBC-ASI partners in the country, and we expect to be able to continue to maintain this partnership.

That said – the FCC has dealt what is likely to be a death blow to many small independent ISPs, and the Internet as we know it in the US is not likely to be the same a couple years from now. You can expect far fewer choices, but you can also expect Sonic.net to be one of them.

I encourage you to share your thoughts about the shut-out of independent ISPs with the FCC – here are their email addresses:

Chairman Kevin Martin – Kevin.Martin@fcc.gov Commissioner Michael Copps – Michael.Copps@fcc.gov Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein – Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy – Kathleen.Abernathy@fcc.gov

Note that Michael Copps seems to understand the problems that this will create, but he’s in the minority.

Consumers need to tell the federal government that we LIKE choice, and that this decision is just plain wrong. Please send then an email today. Thanks. -Dane and crew

Update: Phoning the FCC to register your comments is also a great idea!

1-888-225-5322 – FCC Toll-Free number (202) 418-1000 – Kevin Martin (202) 418-2000 – Michael Copps (202) 418-2400 – Kathleen Abernathy (202) 418-2300 – Jonathan Adelstein

Mon Aug 1 17:18:44 PDT 2005 — Internal SQL server outage: One of our internal SQL servers unexpectedly rebooted earlier this afternoon taking down many of our public and internal tools. It also affected some of our spam filtering systems. Services were restored as soon as the database consistency checks finished. -Operations

Fri Jul 29 15:48:37 PDT 2005 — Dialup Hardware Upgrades. On Monday, 8/1, at 10 AM, we will be upgrading the hardware that serves the dialup phone numbers ending in -9606. A few customers may have to reconnect after the upgrade occurs. -Russ, Nathan and John

Thu Jul 28 11:26:07 PDT 2005 — Broadlink Firewalling. After a number of delays we have applied firewalling to all Broadlink DSL subscribers. The same firewalls for SBC DSL subscribers are available to all Broadlink subscribers but any change to the firewalling configuration must be executed manually by a support. Again, there are three firewall rulesets:

Option One: Complete Inbound TCP Firewalling. This firewall rule set prevents any inbound TCP connections from being established, protecting your system from most types of Internet attacks.

Option Two (the default, recommended by Sonic.net): Common Exploitable Port Firewalling. This is the default firewall rule set applied to DSL circuits. It blocks traffic on port 25 (SMTP email) both to and from a customers circuit to any mail servers other than Sonic.net maintained servers as well as preventing communication on ports used by common Microsoft services that are frequently exploited.

Option Three: Port 25 Firewalling. This firewall rule set only restricts traffic on port 25 (SMTP email) to and from a customers circuit to any mail servers other than sonic.net maintained servers. This is the minimum recommended rule set. This rule set generally prevents your computer from being hijacked and used to send SPAM directly to other mail servers.

Additionally, users may request to have all firewalling disabled.

-Kelsey and Nathan

Wed Jul 27 12:46:04 PDT 2005 — Broadlink termination gear upgrade. We will be upgrading the firmware on the termination hardware that serves Broadlink customers at 12:01am on 7/28/05. This preventative maintenance will ensure continued stability for Broadlink customers. Customers will experience approximately 20 minutes worth of downtime while the upgrade proceeds. -Nathan and Broadlink

Mon Jul 25 16:22:18 PDT 2005 — Due to our upgrades away from multiple T3 backbone connections and over to Gigabit links, we currently have excess capacity on our redundant fiber SONET ring. This ring leaves our building at two points, and follows separate routes to the Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park wire centers.

To fill this capacity, for the next 60 days we are offering local businesses a limited number of full 45Mbps T3 circuits at a very deeply discounted price point of $3,995 per month. This is a full T3 including local loop, IP transit and a managed Cisco router. Only six circuits will be sold at this price, which is much less than any competitive T3 product. For full details, please see our T3 Special page at the following URL or call us at 707-522-1000 and ask for dedicated circuit sales.

www.sonic.net/sales/eic/t3_promo_2005.shtml

For more info and photos of the fiber installation of our Gigabit Ethernet links, see www.sonic.net/whatsnew/gigaman/.

-Dane, Matt and Alice

Sun Jul 24 10:40:35 PDT 2005 — Sonic.net support will be closed today from 11AM until 5PM for our company picnic and 11th anniversary celebration. We’re sorry for any inconvenience, and we will be back on duty from 5PM on this evening, and will respond to voicemail and email then. -Dane and crew

Wed Jul 20 17:03:26 PDT 2005 — In our ongoing quest to improve the quality and the reliability of the services we provide, we have deployed three new non-recursive geographically diverse name servers in Santa Rosa, San Francisco and New York. All sonic.net zones have been running off of these new servers for a few days now and we have started to update customer zones. We will automatically update the registration records for all domains registered with us while customers using other registrars will be contacted with additional information and instructions shortly. -Kelsey, Nathan and Jared.

Thu Jul 14 10:50:28 PDT 2005 — BroadLink again appears to be having some instability in their network, and they are currently working to ascertain what’s going wrong. At this point, an estimated time to repair is not available. -Dane

Update, Thu Jul 14 12:43:30, BroadLink reports that their network difficulties have been resolved. -Dane (for Jason)