Hey all, I apologize for posting this here, especially for what is essentially an end-user broadband issue, but I'm looking at what appears to be a link a few hops upstream from me that has been flapping frequently and I can't get our provider to look into it. I am located in Madison, WI, and I have my mail/server machine geek.net co-located in Minneapolis on a business-class DSL line (1.5m/384k). For the past couple of months, I'll lose connectivity for about 5 minutes several times a day. We attempted to open a case with the DSL provider (covad), but they were only interested in addressing last-mile issues and we got nowhere. Same applied when addressing it from my broadband end, since the disconnect is 3 providers upstream. In any case, any thoughts on where I should go with this? I could try Level3, but I suspect they'll blow me off since I'm not a direct customer. It's getting quite frustrating as I'm trying to move a few hundred mb back and forth over the VPN and with that one link flapping it's become almost impossible. Traceroute examples included below. I left real IPs here since they are all easily determined anyways: ------ TRACE #1: From my home connection to Geek.NET when it's BROKEN, note where it breaks. C:\>tracert 66.166.71.243 Tracing route to geek.net [66.166.71.243] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 24 ms 10 ms 29 ms 10.44.64.1 2 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms 172.18.98.98 3 19 ms 22 ms 43 ms 172.18.97.58 4 16 ms 14 ms 15 ms 12.125.143.113 5 58 ms 34 ms 47 ms gbr2-a90s19.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.123.5.78] 6 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms tbr1-p013602.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.11.37] 7 31 ms 28 ms 14 ms ggr2-p310.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.123.6.65] 8 16 ms 105 ms 16 ms so-1-1-0.edge1.Chicago1.Level3.net [209.0.227.77] 9 21 ms 21 ms 33 ms so-2-1-0.bbr2.Chicago1.level3.net [209.244.8.13] 10 32 ms 19 ms 14 ms pos9-0.core1.Chicago1.level3.net [209.247.10.170] 11 20 ms 31 ms 48 ms gige6-2.ipcolo2.Chicago1.Level3.net [209.244.8.30] 12 64 ms 29 ms 36 ms unknown.Level3.net [209.247.226.26] 13 * * * Request timed out. 14 * * * Request timed out. .. 30 * * * Request timed out. Trace complete. ---------------------------------- TRACE #2: Same trace, but this time when it's working. C:\>tracert 66.166.71.243 Tracing route to geek.net [66.166.71.243] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 21 ms 16 ms 15 ms 10.44.64.1 2 10 ms 22 ms 11 ms 172.18.98.98 3 10 ms 15 ms 11 ms 172.18.97.58 4 13 ms 37 ms 14 ms 12.125.143.113 5 15 ms 18 ms 18 ms gbr2-a90s19.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.123.5.78] 6 26 ms 15 ms 19 ms tbr1-p013602.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.11.37] 7 36 ms 39 ms 14 ms ggr2-p310.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.123.6.65] 8 34 ms 14 ms 37 ms so-1-1-0.edge1.Chicago1.Level3.net [209.0.227.77] 9 17 ms 14 ms 14 ms so-2-1-0.bbr2.Chicago1.level3.net [209.244.8.13] 10 17 ms 13 ms 14 ms pos9-0.core1.Chicago1.level3.net [209.247.10.170] 11 18 ms 15 ms 16 ms gige6-2.ipcolo2.Chicago1.Level3.net [209.244.8.30] 12 24 ms 27 ms 25 ms unknown.Level3.net [209.247.226.26] 13 30 ms 17 ms 23 ms 192.168.5.66 14 49 ms 52 ms 102 ms 172.18.57.242 15 91 ms 40 ms 39 ms geek.net [66.166.71.243] Trace complete. ------------------- Trace #3: Final trace, from Geek.NET back to my home broadband host (my home IP changed to 10.0.0.1 for this example). traceroute to 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 r-66-166-71-241.CHCGILGM.covad.net (66.166.71.241) 1.050 ms 0.938 ms 0.891 ms 2 172.31.255.253 (172.31.255.253) 24.068 ms 26.558 ms 26.169 ms 3 192.168.5.65 (192.168.5.65) 22.466 ms 23.301 ms 22.528 ms 4 gigabitethernet8-0-131.ipcolo1.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.247.34.177) 23.638 ms 23.263 ms 22.539 ms 5 gige5-1.core1.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.244.8.17) 22.243 ms 23.256 ms 22.528 ms 6 so-4-0-0.bbr2.Chicago1.level3.net (209.247.10.169) 22.883 ms 22.522 ms 21.514 ms 7 so-7-0-0.edge1.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.244.8.14) 23.624 ms 23.530 ms 23.884 ms 8 att-Level3-oc48.Chicago1.Level3.net (209.0.227.78) 23.853 ms 22.426 ms 23.137 ms 9 tbr2-p014001.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.123.6.70) 25.277 ms 25.311 ms 23.857 ms 10 gbr6-p20.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.122.11.62) 24.244 ms 23.695 ms 24.001 ms 11 gar2-p370.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.123.5.221) 23.892 ms 23.012 ms 23.858 ms 12 12.125.142.122 (12.125.142.122) 27.939 ms 27.272 ms 28.703 ms 13 * * * 14 * * * 15 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1) 40.235 ms 39.292 ms 38.271 ms ------- Any thoughts or recommendations here? - Robert