Upstream Fiber Update

We have been assured that the FirstLight Fiber (DNS) issue has been mitigated. We have migrated most services that we can to a new set of FirstLight DNS resolvers. However, we are seeing some residual issues--some devices failed to migrate as they should have, and others with static IPs and DNS do not seem to be performing optimally on the old resolvers. We are addressing these issues on an individual basis.

Upstream Fiber Issue

We have been seeing some instability on our FirstLight upstream fiber feed, starting around 8:00pm this evening. The FirstLight NOC is aware of the issues and working to resolve them. Customers may be having difficulty reaching Internet destinations at the present time.

Ripton Power Mostly Up

As of late today, it appears that almost all of Ripton has grid power restored, although we are seeing a few stragglers apparently without power. We still have one minor AP at the Selden Mill location down without power. Other than that all nodes remain up and running.
(The Selden Mill location came back online with grid power early Monday evening).

Grid Power Still Mostly Down for Ripton

Most Ripton customers are still experiencing only sporadic connection to grid power. All NBN nodes are staying up on alternate power except the Leeds-Grip link into the village center area, where we still have limited backup battery reserve. We will be moving more robust battery/inverter capacity there from the school sometime in the next several weeks, as that capacity is no longer needed at the school.
Again, with the exception of customers in that limited area, and a single cutomer relayed through the Selden Mill Road repeater,customers with alternate power for their receiving units and routers should be able to connect.

We're Fine, but Power's Up, Down, Up, Down, UP....

RIPTON: Yesterday afternoon and last night's heavy snow caused widespread power outages with some periods of restoral, followed by outages again. It now appears that power was restored again to most of Ripton at about 11:55am. In any case, almost all Ripton customers with backup power have been able to stay connected as backup power at all of our major nodes performed as expected. Customers should remember that if they can keep their receiving units and routers powered with small battery backups they can stay connected through these power outages.
   The forecast calls for more heavy snow and mixed precipitation right through to the weekend, so we may see more of this....be prepared!

Ripton Link Weather Sensitivity Continues

We lost the W. Cornwall to Ripton link briefly (around 10 minutes, shortly before 6:00pm) again this evening and have recovered it and reconfigured it manually to a lower data rate in the interest of stability.  This link is obviously demonstrating some sensitivity to these marginal freezing temperature weather events.  We will be watching it closely and manually adjusting it until weather permits a total link replacement. Thanks for your patience during this time.

Another Wobble, more Serious

This afternoon the Cornwall to Ripton backhaul link (same link as in the previous post from mid-November) actually went down briefly at around 3:30pm today. It came back up rather quickly, but it took some time to retune it to a perfectly stable lower modulation rate at a little after 5:00pm. It appears that we had a rare weather anomaly--severe icing on the uphill end, perhaps. It seems to be recovering signal strength slowly, and we will be monitoring it closely overnight and bumping up the modulation rate if possible. In the meantime, Ripton customers will see somewhat slower rates and video streaming may be more problematic. We will post an update in the morning.
We are finishing up an upgrade plan that includes increasing bandwith to Ripton by a factor of 10, and implementing backhaul redundancy as well.  We'll be looking for investors at various levels to help make that happen...fair warning to deep pocketed customers concerned about the availability of quality, reliable, locally supported service!