[ale] AT&T best statement from support

[Alex Carver]

AT&T persons, all nine of them.  It was really sad and if I didn't laugh
about it I would cry.  Three of the people were from their "Geek Squad"
group called Connect Tech whose only abilities are things like setting
up printers, performing the basic modem configuration (setting it up for
a game console or similar, turning on wifi) and nothing advanced or
within the purview of AT&T itself.  Didn't matter how many times I
explained I kept getting bounced over there.

The last guy admitted he didn't understand but he did manage to stop and
take the time to consult with another group, find the manual for the
modem to read through it and took notes.

In the end it has to go to the firmware group that writes the master
configuration for the firmware to load onto the modems.  It's so sad
because it's only a few extra lines of code to fix the problem (code to
detect static IPs are loaded and then just a couple lines to write the
commands into the firewall to turn off connection tracking for those IPs).

I have no idea if I'll ever see a change.  I give the odds at 30% right now.

On 2015-04-10 05:42, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
> Even funnier to me than the statement form the AT&T person is the probable glazed over eyes they had as you were explaining what you wanted.    No doubt he was thinking:
> Why is this guy talking about Nat?   I don't know anyone named Nat!   Why is he using CB code like ten:twenty-four - doesn't he know this is a phone call?   What is a ten:twenty-four anyway?  Is that better than ten:four?  Network?  He just asked about network - does he think this is LinkedIn?
> 
> Anything beyond "It don't work" is going to beyond the average hiree in a call center as most of them seem to have been obtained by having someone drive around looking for "Will work for food" signs.   
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Alex Carver
> Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 10:16 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] AT&T best statement from support
> 
> 
> Sadly they are the least annoying around here.  My only other choice is Comcast.
> 
> I had called in because I needed my modem to stop using IP connection tracking on non-NATed IPs (I have a set of static public IPs).  The state table only has 1024 spaces allotted split evenly between inbound and outbound packets.  It tracks every single connection whether it's to my public IPs or to the IP of the modem itself (which is a different IP entirely from my block).  Anytime I get hammered with traffic, the table fills up and I get knocked offline.
> 
> I explained this is only going to get worse for all of their customers, not just me, as the Internet-of-Things takes hold.
> 
> 
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