If you have AT&T fiber, run the script in the linked gist:
https://twitter.com/bmastenbrook/status/1335400747794530304
It loads http://example.com and https://example.com and compares the result (should be equal) in a loop, and then reports if it finds a difference. I'm seeing multiple bit flips in the unencrypted version, and having a lot of issues loading web pages, presumably because a corrupted packet in a TLS handshake is an error and the connection dies.
Tech support, even when Twitter accounts with a lot of followers message them, is completely useless, they just say that they don't show any outages at your location. They need to be flooded with complaints for someone to look at this, or maybe someone from AT&T is on here that can get it looked at...
All of these large companies seem to have (correctly) realized that 95% of tech support cases are trivial issues that can be resolved via automated responses.
The problem is that they then assume that all cases are one of those 95% in order to solve the 95% as quickly as possible, which probably looks good to whatever metrics they're tracking.
But if you're one of the 5% you're fucked.
If there's anyone out there designing tech support procedures, you should add an "is this a 5% problem?" question to whatever checklist you give to support staff.
I had a ginormous AT&T router/modem (pace 5268ac) with a set of static ip addresses and a few times, AT&T just stopped routing traffic to it.
It had happened before and then magically fixed itself a few days later.
One time I had a week of outage with AT&T basically said the problem was on my side. They could ping the modem, and then punted. I had several truck rolls. The techs were really nice guys, but were basically cabling guys, better for finding a bad cable than debugging a packet loss. The problem for me was that my ipv4 static ip addresses would not receive traffic.
I was at wit's end after a week and I debugged the thing myself. By looking at EVERY bit of data on the router, I found mention of the blocked packets in the firewall log. I would clear all the logs, and found even with the firewall DISABLED, the firewall log would see and block incoming packets I was sending using my neighbor's comcast connection.
I called AT&T, but this time mentioning "firewall is completely off, but packets are blocked by the router and showing up in the log" was concrete enough for them to look up a (known) solution.
The fix was to disable the firewall, but to enable stealth mode. wtf?
To be clear, this was a firmware bug, and caused dozens of calls to AT&T, lots of heartache and finger pointing always in my direction.
I should also mention at the start of this fiasco, I checked the system log and noticed they pushed a firmware update to the modem at the time the problem started. Strangely after one call to the agent, that specific line disappeared out of the log file, but other log entries remained. hmmm.
since then, they basically screw up my modem every month or two - they push new firmware and new "features" appear (like the one that sniffs and categorizes application traffic like "youtube" and "github"). It also helpfully turns wifi BACK ON when I had disabled it. I immediately go turn if back off and then they immediately send me a big warning email that my DSL settings have been changed.
The 5268ac pace router is the worst ISP provided router I've ever had, and I've been an Xfinity/Comcast customer, and I've even had a connection in Wyoming. I detailed my experience with it in a review of a third-party router, and found numerous issues along the way [0]. My favorite is that DMZ+ mode, which is what they offer instead of a traditional DMZ mode, just has some weird MTU issue that leads git and other services to break horribly when running behind a third party router. The solution? Don't use DMZ+ mode. Instead, put the router into NAT mode, and then port forward all of the ports to one private IP address. Bonkers. This is sold as an official-looking solution on the AT&T website for a "speed issue." [1]
This is all because AT&T believes that the edge of their network is not the PON ONT/OLT, but rather, the router they issue you. If you want to be on their network, you have to use their router as some part of the chain.
My latest discovery is that in doing this, the router can actually get super hot operating at gigabit speeds for extended periods of time. When this happens, it magically starts dropping packets. Solution? Aim a fan at the router so it has "thermal management."
Total. Garbage. I'd switch to Spectrum if they had decent upload speed, but alas, they don't in my building.
[0]: https://particle17.xyz/posts/amplifi-alien-thoughts/#appendi...
[1]: https://www.att.com/support/article/u-verse-high-speed-inter...
Another option is getting the 802.1x certificate out of a hacked router, but it's not possible as far as I know on the 5268ac. You could buy a hackable ATT router but they're not cheap. Some sellers even sell the key by itself.
Mysteriously, doing this fixed an issue I previously had where SSHing into AWS would fail.