Tuesday, October 21, 2008

And when I thougth it was over...




First, I have a good news and a  funny news.

the good news is that we are still on MCI until mid november and after that we are going with Allstream for a 3 Mbps E-10 link (fingers crossed!)
the funny news is that today, Mr Ted from Terago called me and in a very nice way because he is such a nice guy, told me that the lawyers from Terago are going to do something about this small blog? Intimidation? no way, It was just a courtesy call to let me know.
Also also mentioned that if he was in my shoes he would do the same.
Maybe that is the only thing that I can believe from his whole speech.

Anyways, I told him that if he want me to delete the blog in fear of what his lawyers can do to me, he is wrong and this tiny therapeutic blog will grow over what Terago will ever imagine , freedom to speech, blogger community, internet itself cannot be silence.

Anyways

Thanks Ted for your call and tell the guys they can come anytime to pickup the antenna, the plastic thing and the Ethernet switch “Milan”




Wednesday, October 8, 2008

How hard is to find a reliable ISP in Canada?

Bad luck with MCI, terrible luck with Terago Networks, now I am talking with Allstream...

Anyone has any ISP to suggest?

I cancelled Terago Networks

After my terribe experience with Terago Networks, I cancelled the service and went back to MCI which is not miracle but at least is reliable.

If those guys try to get you into their crappy ISP, be smart and run in the other direction

Saturday, September 27, 2008

How bad is Terago Networks?

The short answer is very bad
the long answer is....
I was a happy IT Manager in Toronto, my company's ISP was MCI, which was great for 3 years, but in the last 6 months I started to have performance issues, so after the third speed problem a spam phone call went thru so I ended talking with a Terago Networks sales rep.
they were kinda nice so I gave them a chance to come to my office and have a chat.
they came, they were cheaper than MCI but they were WIRELESS (Microwaves) ISP
after some back and forth I decided to give them an oportunity, so they send the quotation, we made some changes in the contract in order to protect my company (money wise) if Terago was not so reliable as they claimed.
we decided to go with them (WHAT A MISTAKE)
the tech came put the microwave antenna in the roof, did not work, he said that the antenna was defective and the next one will be ready in 24 hs, I waited, a new tech came with no antenna and said it was configuration issues, he managed to make the link work, he left.
I checked the equipment they put in my server room and the first thought I had was CHEAP stuff, a white plastic box that looks like those wireless ring bells for the houses and a very cheap with unknown brand switch . no router, nothing Cisco, nothing that I can have information of.
I let it go and said to myself as long as it works, I will be happy.
next weekend I worked in the ISP switch, from the new pool of IPs changed my DNS ip , made changes on my registar for my domains, replaced MCI secondary dns server for Terago 's , waited 1 day for DNS propagation and on saturday I decided to do the firewall changes using all the new Terago 's ips.
everything was fine , did speed test, speed was fine, left home.
Monday morning the nightmare started, people complained about MSN Messenger going on and off, I checked the firewall logs, and Terago was going on and off , so I called the help desk / noc
after 10 minutes waiting I spoke with a lady with strong Indian accent, I tried to explain to her what the situation was and how critical this was (first day, new ISP, etc.)
she said that she will create a ticket, I said fine, and she gave me the ticket number.
internet was on and off, emails were bouncing back, our SQL replication was reseting, big mess!
because we did not have any customer or demo I let Terago guys to work.
Tuesday, I sent an email to the infamous noc@terago.com but nobody replied, on Wednesday we had demos, customers coming over for meeting , Internet was needed, so I called again, I gave the ticket number and the person asked me, how can I help you, I explained that I switched to them, and for 2 days I didn't have any constant Internet, they said, ohh I see that, 1 second I will let you know the status, after 10 minutes, the help desk person said that Terago was having Interferences (Microwaves?) and they had to change the channel but they cannot do it until 7 pm because other customers were in the same zone, I asked him if the other customers were in the same situation, the Terago guy said YES, so I said, so why you want to keep all the customers in the zone with no internet until 7 pm... Silence, I asked to talk with his manager, which was busy (of course) and promised to call me.
At this point I decided to drag in the sales guys (Ted and Chris), they play it a they care and they even told me that they spoke with the director of operations and I don't remember what other bull crap.
I waited, no Internet, no manager's call, so I went home,
Thursday! Internet is OFF , I called, I asked what went wrong at 7 pm, they said that they changed the channel but the interference was also in the other channel, they also mentioned a new problem : "CAPACITY"
I asked why they did not verified the other channel before trying that "fix", silence again.
I changed my tone to an upset one, and I was able to talk with the Noc Manager.
he was rude, and he told me that they will change access points and equipment in their end, they can do it remotelly and they were working on that.
I ask for a phone call when the change was done ( never happened)
I sent an email to the sales guys (Ted and Chris) telling them that nothing change and please try to do something, never got an answer back from them (no email, no phone call)
Friday, Internet is down again, spoke with the NOC , they said that the problem was interference and 1 single customer who was using all the resources of the Terago Access Point and interference , at this point interference smelled a bull crap, anyways they decided to move that single customer to another zone and leave us (rest of the customers) alone, that change supposed to happen on Friday.
aroung noon on Friday, we got back Internet, fast and great, I even sent an email to the whole company asking for apologies and telling them that the problem was fixed.
I was ready to go home when Internet went down, called the noc, gave shit to whoever answered the phone, told him that for 5 days I haven't had Internet, gave my cellphone number and demanded a phone call.
Went home
Saturday morning, Internet was down, could not access to out website, or vpn or anything.
Called the NOC, waited in a loop for 15 minutes, no option to leave a message, so I sent an email.
My CEO called me and asked me for a status, which I did not had, let's see if he will fire me or not on Monday.
I was so frustrated that I decided to go to my office, of course Internet was down, I called again Terago, and someone answered , I explained the situation, he said I will contact my manager I will call you in 5'.
someone called me when driving a car, the noise was terrible, I explained the problem and told me that the sales guys told him that we decided to cancel the service and for that reason we did not get the new equipment.
at that poing I went nuts, and started to yell to the guy, because I never cancelled the service, I always wanted to make it work from day one and I was wasting my saturday in the office because of their shittie ISP.
they guy noticed that I was ready to have a heart attak so he said, I will send you a tech today, with a new antenna which uses NEW TECHNOLOGY? WTF!
I yelled a bit more and told him SEND THE MOFO NOW! at this point I decide the roll back the whole Terago Shit mess and go back to MCI
called the sales guy from my cell, so he could not know who I was and answer, which he did, I gave shit to him, he denied the cancellation shit, so I asked him to call everyone and help me, his answer was... today I have a wedding....So I said that I had a wedding too, but I was in the office because of his fucking crappy ISP!
I asked him to MOVE and close the phone.
At this point I called MCI, asked if we were still active with them, they said YES for 1 extra week.
Changed the DNS ip for the original one, changed my secondary DNS on all the registars, changed the DNS records, changed the firewall rules and after 4 hours everything was just as before the TERAGO NETWORKS MOFOS decided to take my company as customers.
when I finish with everything and was ready to test, the guy from Terago called me to tell me that a techinican was coming with an antenna, my answer was NEVER MIND, I DON'T WANT IT, AND BE READY FOR MY LAWYER!
So, if you are thinking about using Terago Netwoks, just don't.
they are not worthy, they are not serious, the sales guys are useless, the technical stuff non qualified to handle a 24/7 operation and the NOC manager should be fired because all this mess is his fault ( or better say his lack of solutions or ideas to fix a problem)
Avoid Terago at any cost.