Possible fix for your poor connection with Virgin Mobile OverdrivePro BFD

IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT BUYING THIS DEVICE - DON'T!! IF YOU ARE CAPABLE OF RETURNING IT, DO SO IMMEDIATELY!! These jokers just tried to tell me making any changes to the settings is a violation of the TOS and will void the warranty!! Can you believe that, instead of providing tech support they try to brush off my technical matters, it took them 26 hours to come to this conclusion as well!

[EDIT 7.1.13: Over a week and they continue to ignore the technical issues with the service. When they do reply, they claim it is an issue with speed and continuously regurgitate the same bullshit about being "throttled" They claim that the issue will be resolved when I am no longer throttled, but I have yet to understand how throttling would cause packets to become fragmented.]

I hate it when a company does not properly provide support for their products and/or services. You expect a lack of support for free, or nearly free services, such as MagicJack, but when you are paying market rates, support should be part of the package.

Take the last day of back and fourth on Twitter and Email between me a Virgin Mobile trying to resolve Issues in my internet connection of my OverdrivePro BFD. While waiting forever for them to reply back to my initial contact with them I did what any person would do and took to searching Google, something that you probably did to land here! I found several things to attempt to test to tweak and optimize my connection. What I came up with was that my MTU setting was probably not optimized. Virgin Mobile support has so far been unable to assist me with ANYTHING, and I will be publishing a post on the entire mess that I had to endure dealing with them in the near future, but for now I would like to present some possible tweaks that you should be able to perform to get your device to stop pretending there is a DNS issue loading webpages, when such a DNS issue does not truly exist. 

Packet fragment test with 1500 bit size packet

What you are first going to do is open a command prompt window and type in the following command:

         ping 8.8.8.8 -f -l 1500   
(that is minus lowercase F and minus lowercase L) 

I used 8.8.8.8 but you could replace that with any IP out on the internet, or any domain name, such as google.com. You will likely see "Packet needed to be fragmented but DF set." This is NOT a good sign. We need to lower the number at the end until we reach the lowest packet size that is not fragmented, and then add 28 to get the optimal MTU size. 

Unable to test fragmented packets between 1017 bits and 1372 bits sized packets!

The problem that I encountered was that Any time I tried a number between 1017 and 1372 I got "Request timed out" This is where I have been attempting to get assistance from Virgin Mobile to help resolve, since I was able to identify the actual problem on my own, I am just attempting to optimize my settings now. 

An example of an unfragmented test with a 1016 bit sized packet,
However This setting is TOO low, and not optimal! 

You ideally want to find the highest size packet that you are able to send, however, since we are unable to test between 1017 and 1372 bit packet sizes, we really have no way of testing the optimal setting other than trial and error. 

Currently I have set my MTU at 1395 1300 (apparently still having issues at 1395, lowering to 1300 immediately solved page load problems)  which is probably too low, BUT since I have adjusted this setting I have not had any issues with false DNS issues or page load issues. [EDIT 11pm 6.24.13: supposedly there is a repair ticket open on my account, although no information is being passed to me, my connection failed, dropping MTU down to 1250 did not resolve the issue, so it is currently set to auto (by default it is set to optimized) let's see how long this lasts before I am hit with another false DNS error webpage]

If the test was successful then you know your optimal MTU setting, if it was not, which I believe it probably was not, then you will need to trial and error some values to find YOUR ideal MTU setting.

Now navigate to your OverdrivePro BFD web interface which should be found at http://192.168.0.1 If you need to log in the default password is password. Then we can click on the "Advanced Settings" tab highlighted in the following image:

First click the "Advanced Settings"

From this window we will want to click on the "Router" tab:

Then click "router" 

From here we will want to click on the "LAN" tab:

Then click "LAN"

And from here we can set the MTU to "Manual" and enter in the ideal MTU from the test before (if you were able to get decent results) or try lowering it from the default 1500. I would start at 1400, if successful you can try slowly increasing the value. If you still are experiencing problems than try slowly decreasing the value.

Now you can set MTU to "manual" and enter your MTU Value.

Please comment on your success rate, and what values you have tried with your device.

As for me, I will continue to wait for Virgin Mobile support to get back to me, although I think it is a helpless cause. Stay tuned for all of the details from my Twitter feed (which you can view yourself now if you want) and my Email exchanges with their customer service agents, all of which are women, and none of which have any technical or IT experience or knowledge.

Ooma Business Phone sysyem

Ooma has begun a promotion about their latest offering, the Ooma Business phone system, but is this system designed with YOUR business needs in mind?

Before I get started with this post, I want to make it clear up front that this is in no way a hands on review of the service, this is an outside looking in perspective of the publicized features and functionality of the Ooma Business phone system  from someone with nearly 15 years as a telecommunications technician.

The Ooma Business phone system compares better to a regular land line phone system than any of the other VoIP business solutions that are available on the market.

The device is LIMITED to 5 extensions (physical phones) and 15 virtual extensions (forwarding to cell phones or other telephone numbers.

The device is LIMITED to 10 "phone lines"

This means that your business is limited to having no more than 5 workers handle no more than 10 phone calls at any given time. This might suffice for many small businesses, or start ups. The problems do not end there however. Since regular land line phones are used, initial start up costs are kept to a minimum and any off the shelf telephone or cordless telephone can be used for each of your employees extensions, but that means that there are no special function buttons for the phones, such as hold, or transfer. All additional functions must be performed by memorizing the special codes to use these features.

The service does come with an IVR, but you would need to record and set up the IVR system yourself. They do not provide professional voice actors to record, nor do they perform the set up of your IVR menu functions. Again, for a small or home based business this may not be a negative factor. Some smaller businesses want to appear accessible to their customers and do not mind recording their own IVR prompts, but do you really want to learn how to, and then set up all of your ring groups, and phone system functions on your own?

Once you get your phone system up and running, and decide that you want additional functionality such as an overhead paging system, or a door phone intercom connected to your phone system there is NO way to accomplish connecting these additional systems to your Ooma Phone system, so you are going to have to start over again.

While I commend Ooma for trying to break into the Business phone market, I think that a device like this would have worked much better as a stop gap many years ago as a transitional service to the more robust functionality that many of the hosted PBX telecom providers now offer, such as Telebroad (which employs me)

While there is a place for the Ooma Business phone system in the market, I believe that it is a very small niche market of small start up businesses that do not have much aspirations for growing their companies beyond several employees, and have no future plans for adding additional features to their communications system.

They do mention the device will do faxes, but I believe this to be fax over VoIP, which I would never recommend, hopefully it is FoIP, which the device actually caches the fax and transmits it similar to how an efax would be transmitted. If you plan on using this device for faxing, make sure to ask the questions - and I would highly recommend live testing the faxing functions before porting over your fax number to them.

All in all, if you feel that this system will meet your communications needs, you can go here http://www.ooma.com/business/refer-a-friend?referral_code=VEF3711 to order.

"small" 11 jack network.

Basement and 1st floor 11 new wires and jacks needed to be installed. Surprisingly fast. Had wires installed, and hardware installed (router, switch and 12 IP phones) within 2 days from start to finish. The shortcut? I did not test or label any of the jacks, which would have taken at least an extra few hours.

Patch panel, 16 port PoE switch and linksys E2500 installed by me,
everything else existed prior.

double network 12 runs each with patch panel and rack.

Let's try something different this time. I took a bunch of photos for this network. I am going to start with the final product and work my way backwards this time...

Closeup of the finished rack.
The camera was crooked not the rack!

Each location has a total of 2 jacks each. One for the VoIP network, and one for the PC data network. An 8U rack was installed, and 2-24 port patch panels were installed. I also ran an RG6 from the cable tap in the hallway to the rack so that the cable modem could easily be installed when ready. 

Completed rack, finally!

This job was given to me, like all other jobs - with incomplete, or inaccurate information. I was told that this was a job for "5 double runs" or a total of about "15 runs". Either someone does not know math (5x2=10, not 15) or they were just guestimating what the customer needed based solely on information provided by the customer over the phone or email, and not surveying the job, or the requirements of the customer.

Rack mounted, patch panels all punched down ready to be installed.

The first day I arrived on site to survey and begin work I was severely lacking enough materials to complete the job, but I was able to get "5 double runs" from where my rack was going to be mounted, and down the walls at the desk locations.  

Rack all assembled, and toggle bolts connected,
ready to be mounted to the wall.

After finding out what time my supplier closed, and phoning in an order it was time to depart. I had exhausted the materials that I had brought with me, and it was a long trip back to the supplier before they closed. 

Both patch panels punched in.

After 2 local service calls in the morning, it was back to finish up the wiring. I had all the materials and was ready to go. All wires were finally able to get pulled from the location where I decided to place the rack and snaked down the walls. Unfortunately due to the service calls in the morning, this meant that I only had half-day, but was at least able to pull all the cables down the walls.

Wires brought down wall behind where rack will be installed.
VoIP and PC network wiring separated.

Day 3 I was able to get the all of the wires punched down, all of the face plates installed, and all the jacks labeled and tested. Unfortunately after labeling the first jack my label machine started smoking and no longer would function, so all other jacks had to be hand labeled with a marker. I also was able to get the wires run down the wall behind my rack location, install the RG6 wire for the cable modem, and run a CAT5 loop for additional door phones, which unfortunately the model that the customer currently has is discontinued, so no hardware could be installed.

Wires snaked inside wall behind rack's location. 

With EVERYTHING completed it was time to mount the rack. But, guess what? The box that I had brought from inventory that was in the box that an 8u rack comes in was not a rack! Someone had reused the box, and taped it up, so when I opened the tape to get to my rack, it was an old piece of networking equipment  and not a rack. 

Yes that wood beam is as deep as it looks, it has to be at least 4 or 5 inches thick!

With nothing left to do, I called the supply house once again, and put in an order for a rack, since I knew I would be arriving there just as they were closing. I was able to get the rack, and jump start my day with an hour long drive for the 15 minute task of mounting the rack to the wall! 

Old phone from old tenant.
Many of the old low voltage brackets were used for my jacks,
and many of the old wires were used to snake my wire down the walls. 

Finally, after 2 half days, 1 full day, and 15 minutes the job was finally completed! 

Now lets just hope whoever patches in the network equipment does a neat job with the patch cords, and mounting the router and switches.  

Wire run to one of the jack locations,
waiting to be snaked down the wall. 

Sorry for the blury image.
This was the only 2 labels I was able to make
before my label machine started smoking. 

All additional jacks were hand labeled with a marker.

The only "mistake" in the job,
on this jack only the voice is blue and data is white.
Both pass, so no need to stress out redoing the jacks.

6 CAT 5 runs - no drop ceiling, no damage to walls.

The people in the office always have a "small" or "quick" job for me.

This one was "3 short runs" and to install 3 VoIP phones. 

The problem: the rack is on the opposite side of the office, there are no drop ceilings, and the voice and data networks are physically isolated, meaning that 2 runs will need to be made to each desk not one. 

The good thing is that there is a pipe chase that runs along the center of the basement, with a grille at the bottom of it, the rack is directly next to this location on one side of the building, and the jacks all need to be installed on a wall directly next to the chase on the other side of the building. 

7 runs were pulled (one spare) thru the pipe chase - a small hole was made on the side of the chase by the rack, and a grille was temporarily removed on the opposite side. 

On the far end of the image in the center you can see the rack.
Straight down the middle of the room is the pipe chase. 

The wires were then able to be snaked down the side wall (not the wall behind the desks, because that is a solid wall) and brought out on the side of the desks.

Wiremold brings the wires across the wall behind the desks,
and everything is topped off with surface mount jacks. 

Most of the other jacks in this office were already wired this way (just none were installed on this side of the office yet) 

Physically isolating the Voice and Data IP networks is always the best option whenever possible. When it is not possible, then you can connect your voice and data routers to the switch. It is best to turn DHCP off on the phone network's router, and set your phones static IP to that network. But a good alternitive for a small business would be a multi WAN router with multiple internet connections, this can manage all data traffic so that it should use one internet connection, while sending the VoIP traffic on the other internet connection. This is optimal because in the event of a failure of one of the internet connections the failover will automatically move all network traffic over the same internet connection, reducing down time. Many small businesses will not even notice voice quality issues, or loss of data speeds with this set up. 

another doorphone (mounted on glass window)

Again it seems as if no one in this industry takes pride in their work, or takes the time to neaten up the wiring once eveything is working properly. The only other 2 excuses I could come up with are - "it's not my job" = someone un, or underqualified made this mess, OR it could do with money. Either the person who did this was not paid a decent wage, and therefore took the fast and easy way out of it, or the customer was too cheap to pay for it to be done the right way and only wanted to pay for it to work. 

I was here twice, both times at the end of the day, and the employees like to leave at the 5:00 whistle, so there was no time for me to get in there and clean this mess up, which would have probably taken 2 or 3 hours to get done.

Yet another mess from the previous wiring tech.

So my work gets done as neatly as possible with what I had to work with. My relay was mounted just above the old relay, and behind the DSL modem, which is being replaced with the cable modems shown mounted to the wall at the bottom of the picture above.

my RC2a "mounted" behind the DSL modem (being deactivated)
and just above the old door phone relay for the old PBX

The old doorphone was mounted sideways on the left side of the door frame, just next to the door, however the e20b would have stuck out way too far, and the roll down gate is nearly flush with the storefront, so I had to get a little creative with how and where to monut the door bell, which i screwed to the side of the window frame making it appear as it is floating on the window.

Getting creative with mounting the doorphone with limited space. 

3 relays/doorphones, and a router

One of the easiest jobs to do is coming behind a professional wiring tech / company who knows what they are doing. Unfortunately my job work order did not have the switch that this company needed on it, but they have not yet moved in when I completed this so it was OK for the time being. 

I had to connect 3 door relays to the newly prewired office wiring. I also had to mount and install my SRP router (which is not only a dual WAN router with 4 GB LAN ports, but it also provides WiFi, 2 USB ports, and 4 FXS and 1 FXO analog ports.)

SRP router patched in to jacks. (middle = cisco)
3 Viking RC2A relays installed (top left)

The guy who installed the low voltage wiring
removed the guts from an e20b door phone and
mounted it inside this multi tenant door phone!
Pretty awesome Idea, have to give respect to
Real Secure for coming up with that idea. 

This is the e20b that I installed to the existing wiring. 

4 doorbells/relays, overhead paging and a SPA 8000

Had a pretty decent sized job at a voulenteer ambulance location recently. Took a little longer than I had originally anticipated, but when I did the original walkthrough I had an assistant that I was going to have go around and do the simpiler tasks, such as connecting and mounting the 15 or so VoIP phones while I focused on the more technical aspects of the job.

Unfortunately when the job finally was scheduled to be complete my assistant's employment had been terminated, and once again I was left as the only man standing to get the job completed on my own. 

Originally I anticipated the job to take a day to a day and a half to complete. It actually took about 3 or 4 trips to this customer to complete the job. Granted, 2 of those visits were not full days, because of scheduling restraints involving the customer, as well as other customers requiring service calls. 

The phones were installed and mounted within a day - including several CAT5 runs that were terminated with RJ11 jacks that needed to be converted over to CAT5 jacks. 

The most difficult portion of this job was to trace back and figure out the original existing wiring going to each door phone and door release. With the wiring being connected to power transformers, and the PBX station ports it was not possible to use the tracer tone to trace them back. Everything had to be physically traced back to the PBX relays, and confirmed/tested that they worked. This wasted a good part of a day just to isolate, and verify the wiring prior to even being able to replace the existing equiptment with the new equiptment. 2 Hours were also lost when allegedly a transformer was burned out while attempting to trace the wiring back, although I did not locate a burnt out transformer (the original wiring guys came in over the weekend and resolved that issue) Since I do not know the cause, or even timing of the power loss for 2 CCTV cameras and a door keypad I can not accept responsibility for them failing, as they may have stopped working prior to my even begining to work, or they could have been burned out due to some other action from someone else in the building. Stranger things have happened, and when I returned after those issues were resolved I did not see any of the transformers replaced.

When you encounter something like this
 it takes time to identify everything
so that you do not effect any other systems
UTI-1 installed (black box in center)
4 RC2A relays installed (bottom right)

The existing PBX is still in service for a small portion of the building, and may remain as a back up in the event of a failure of their VoIP system - while they do have multiple internet connections, they are on completely physically isolated networks, and not set up on a multi WAN router as fail over. There are also many other systems that come together in this room, such as their card access systems and CCTV systems, so removing and cleaning up the mess that existed prior to my start at this job was not an option, as it would have consumed too much time, and could have had an adverse effect on many of the other systems that this location depends upon, and as stated earlier, it is a voulenteer ambulance garage, so many of the systems are critical.

Here is a close up of the 4 RC2A relay devices
for the door phones/releases. 

The good thing is that I was able to mount the relays fairly neatly, compared to how most of the other systems wiring was done.

The networking guy just had their router and switch sitting on a shelf
in all of this mess. The SPA8000 was installed here.
This provides analog lines for the 4 door phone, overhead paging,
as well as 2 analog extensions on the VoIP hosted PBX system. 

Why the data network is shoved on a shelf in a spaghetti of wiring and not in a rack enclosure is beyond me, but this is how it was wired, and this is how the route and switch was set up before I got here. So I just installed my SPA 8000 above the network equiptment on this shelf. 

Also installed are 2 PoE injectors for 2 VoIP phones that were wall mounted. 

The UTI-1 connects their overhead paging system to one of the analog ports on the SPA8000 to allow paging thru the VoIP system. The existing PBX was not removed from the amplifier, and is still capable of accessing the paging system on a different input of the PA amp.

One of the exterior door phones.

Another exterior door phone. 

The 2 interior door phones were not photographed, but are the same model as shown above - Viking e20b

PRISIM, Room 641a, Licence plate readers, facial recognition, CCTV and more..

One of the first posts that I created way back when this website / blog was merely in its infancy stages, and just a small blog on my now defunct Yahoo profile, and finally moved over to this blog on its inauguration had to do with government surveillance of your communications. It provided the names for many past and present government surveillance programs and links (mostly Wikipedia) for further reading and research about each of the listed surveillance programs. The original post can be viewed [HERE]

One of the biggest ones that sticks out at the present time with all of the talk about this "new" program that was just leaked to the public PRISIM, was the mention of Room 641a. The information about room 641a was migrated over to this site in 2009 when This website went live, but was published a year or two prior when Yahoo still had blogs available as part of their profiles.

Room 641a was first publicly exposed in 2006 by a former AT&T technician who worked in the building. It is one of the only confirmed locations where fiber optic splitters are installed in one of the backbones of the internet where the NSA sucks up ALL of the internet traffic passing thru this point. Other locations are believed to exist throught the country at most, if not all of the major internet hubs.

Fastforward to this week, and information is slowly starting to trickle out about this program called PRISIM. It sounds like it is very closely related to the survallance taking place in Room 641a, and many other similar rooms all across the country/world. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to remain private and/or anonymous in the world that we live in. ALL of our communications are monitored, wether they mearly collect data on who we call, when we call them, what our web histories are - or if all of the content is actullay being recorded and stored (think ECHELON)

If you do not believe that they are able to obtain much information to you - check this out... https://latitude.google.com/latitude/b/0?hl=en  Especially if you have an android phone, Google is capable of tracking and mapping your every move. Google is allegedly a private company (and not a government front company) so if they are capable of maintaing these kinds of records about you and your movements, immagine what kind of data the government has aggitated about your communications and daily movements.

Cameras are a daily part of life, especially in larger cities where you will be caught on CCTV cameras pretty much from the time you leave your home until the time you return to your home. They are everywhere, private businesses, transportation systems, toll booths, police cars, and light posts to name a few. Licence plate reader software is fairly common, and relitively inexpensive. NYS actually changed their licence plates to make it easier for their licence plate software to identify your licence plate much easier. So even without a physical tracking device on your person, or on your car (just incase you leave your cell phone home for the day, or your battery dies) and if you have an older car that does not have a built in tracking system (like onStar, or LoJack) they are still able to track your movements with traffic cameras, and cameras mounted to police vehicles.

Thinking taking the bus or train will be able to reduce or eliminate their ability to track you? Think again! Many public busses, and transit systems have vast CCTV systems in place and facial recognition software has come leaps and bounds over the past few years. Just check out any of the more advanced photo editing software available. For example Picasa, which will automatically identify and tag people that you have taken photographs of. It is extremely accurate, and will often even tag people regardless of the age they were when the photo was taken - aging does not greatly effect the results of these systems, and this is just what the public has access to. In the past the government has usually been about 10 years ahead of the public with the technology that is available to them, so just imagine how accurate the facial recognition software that the government has access to is.

Ongoing Optimum / Cablevision fiasco..

[UPDATE: 6.22.13 They called me one time after I advised them to stop calling me on my cell phone since I am "not authorized" I filed a complaint with the FTC about this call that was made AFTER I told them to stop calling my cell phone. Since then they no longer made attempts to call my cell phone, although I have not heard anything from the FTC yet. But the main reason of this update is that I can NOT recommend Virgin mobile as a wired internet connection replacement, the service is just to sporadic, even with a 40% WiMax signal, it works when it wants.

[UPDATE: Several hours after this blog entery and the back and fourth on twitter occured my account was suspended for "non-payment". I can almost certanly claim that this was the cause of that effect. I currently switched to a 4G internet soloution, while not providing me with the speed I am acustom to, it seems to be able to handle much of what I use the internet for. Just working on setting up the ICS to share the connection with my wired LAN]

I take to twitter often to call out companies when I feel that I have been wronged by their policies, or actions. Occasionally I immortalize the interactions with them, and my disputes on this blog. Today is no different, other than the intended target of my dissatisfaction.

Working in the telecommunications industry, I can tell you that usually Optimum / Cablevision is usually the best ISP / cable provider to deal with as far as customer service is concerned. Time Warner Cable's customer service is just atrocious. Their rates are generally better than their competitors, and the available speed for their internet is hard to beat, especially in a similar price bracket. These are usually the complaints that I see about Optimum on the internet, however my experiences personally, and professionally being in the telecom industry are generally positive with this company.

So... If my experiences have been generally positive with Optimum, then why am I here publishing a blog post about the ongoing fiasco with them? Well Let me go back to November 2011 where the first seeds for this fiasco started.

In November of 2011 my (now ex) wife moved upstate to help her father settle into his new life after the passing of her mother. The services were in her name, but I have always been authorized to make any changes to the account. I can not recall if it was prior to this or not but at some point all services were suspended EXCEPT internet services.

After I was the only resident of my home, I eventually, WITHOUT my (now ex) wife's "authorization" turned back the television and telephone services to get a triple play package once again. Had I not been authorized, how could they allow me personally, and with out speaking with the "account holder" authorize the ADDITION of additional services which would increase the monthly bill?

As of October 2012 I was divorced, and my wife had moved to some backwoods hick state somewhere in middle America.

Sometime afterwards I attempted to have the account ownership change, however Optimum's policy requires a signature from the account holder, which is impossible to acquire being as I do not know the physical location of said account holder, nor do I care to know. Even if I did, it would be impossible to obtain said signature.

So the account continues on, with me supposedly still "authorized" on the account, and her no where to be seen or found. Remarried from what I am aware.

In the beginning few months of 2013 I decided to switch from a prepaid cell phone to a contract for two reasons. First I wanted LTE which was difficult to come by with most prepaid carriers, and secondly, I wanted the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. This increased my monthly cellular bill by about 50%. So in an effort to find ways to cut other bills in order to find the money to pay this increased bill with out reducing the amount of discretionary funds available to me on a monthly basis I had to look around and what my current expenses were, and where cuts could be made.

Being that I pretty much NEVER use the Optimum voice service, and have Ooma, VoIP from my job, a cell phone, and Google voice (as well as other communications means to contact people via the PSTN) this was just a redundant service and not a necessity.

Further examination showed that I rarely watched much television, and when I did it was usually in the middle of the night, and almost always interrupted by the stupid updates that they felt the need to push to my box, not to mention how disappointing the cloud DVR service is (no live rewind, failure to record many of the shows scheduled, etc.) So this was another service that I had little use for, especially at the cost. The television service cost more than the internet service did, which is the only service I really got much use out of. Lets not forget that I got a notice informing me that my promotional period was expiring, and not only would my rates increase, they were also going to add an additional fee for sports programming, of which I watch absolutely ZERO! The kicker, they said this was not only for channels such as ESPN, etc, but also broadcast television stations such as FOX, that I could get for FREE with an antenna connected to my televisions!

History lesson over. Now we come to trying to cancel television and telephone services. I first call them up, and so far things are going ok until they ask me my name. I always remain honest with them. They tell me I can not cancel because I am not authorized. Funny thing, that. They always accepted my payments, they always allowed me to call in for repair tickets, AND they allowed me to ADD ADDITIONAL SERVICES!!! Now If I am not authorized, how did they allow all of this to occur? And at what time was my authorization to my own account revoked?

Several phone calls later, always the same results. Eventually they told me something that had me fall off my chair splitting my sides in complete hysteria. I could supposedly have the disconnect department cancel my entire account, and then open an account in my own name. WTF!? How can I cancel an ENTIRE account if I am not authorized, if they will not allow me to do a downgrade, or partial disconnect?

At least another month passes, and I try again. This time I figure if I log into the account online and chat with a rep, they will see that I am logged into the account, and therefore must be authorized. But NO! Same run around. This all happens, and I am always referred to call some number, which department always seems to be closed when I am available to waste several hours of my life with these people.

So now what to do? Well I am waiting for them to disconnect my services for non-payment, of which is already over $400 - of which a majority are NOT AUTHORIZED by me, since I have advised them many times to cancel ALL services EXCEPT OOL with boost +! As they have already been advised, I also plan on disputing ALL past charges to my account from November 2011, when the "authorized" account holder no longer resided at this address. This should provide me with plenty of reserve cash.

While I wait for my arch nemesis to string fiber down my block (they already have around the corner, and up the block done) I will just replace my OOL service with either LTE or WiMAX, while it will not provide the bandwidth that I desire, it should suffice for a majority of my internet needs, and I can always set up something at a co-lo if I require cloud apps that need extra bandwidth instead of hosting them locally.