Maintenance every other week, nothing changes...?

michael · 2025-07-08T01:38:25+00:00

Been getting these maintenance messages every other week for what feels like almost a year now. Internet never goes out, and the “maintenance” is done almost instantly (the message goes away within 5 minutes). Still on low split. Nothing ever changes, same speeds, same channel SNR/Power/Frequencies. Should I be hopeful for FDX? or What’s going on here?

hitherelolz

Over the past few weeks ive been getting a lot of maintenance notifications as well. The first one i saw was for nothing, it was scheduled and disappeared without my modem ever losing sync, similar to a lot of others in this thread. However, the next two, one last week and one earlier today, were real and actually were warnings of big outages. Each time my modem lost connection for around a half hour and when it came back the OFDMA channel wouldnt lock on its own. I had to restart it again to get it to come back. (I’m in a midsplit market with a CODA56). Other than that nothing changed speed or signal wise. Driving around the neighborhood, i noticed 2 of those strand mount 5g small cells that werent there the week before. I suspect the outages were something to do with that.
I havent seen those mentioned too much online, wonder what they help with. Maybe help boost speeds on xfinity mobile service? If so then its strange they are installing them here, the verizon service is already great.

hex0101

hitherelolz Maybe help boost speeds on xfinity mobile service?

Primary reason for their existence is to off-load traffic from Verizon, saving costs for Comcast in the process.

hex0101

cypherstream Run a major fiber line unprotected through the dirty city, FAFO. They found out…

We had a massive brush fire back in March that burned through 15,000+ acres, including wooden power poles carrying the CRAN on the pole. (fire reached the road). Took down the entire backbone for 16.5 hours. Comcast claimed that 2.6 miles of fiber was damaged, and said they positioned crews on the each end of the damage and worked until they met up in the the middle. All while the fire was still on-going (took around 1.5-2 weeks for the fire department to completely put out the fire). Temporary fiber repair involved running the fiber on the side of the road, running through the burnt trees. Xfinity sent an email the following day explaining that the cause of the outage was due to a brush fire causing “Damage to the Xfinity network” and that “We will return to do more work in the area soon”. Another outage followed about a month and a half later, to remove the temp fiber and splice back over to the fiber up on the pole since the power company had now replaced all damaged poles.

Had the power company deployed concrete or ductile iron poles, and Comcast deployed armored fiber that is specially rated to hold up to certain temperatures (since fiber doesn’t catch on fire itself, just melts from the extreme heat), would uptime have been improved? I do see that heat/burn resistant fiber does exist for extreme applications. Usually a rating as well, indicating how long the cable can withstand the extreme heat for before being compromised and at what temperature.

MacLeech

hex0101 since fiber doesn’t catch on fire itself, just melts from the extreme heat

Fiber gets very brittle after exposure to fire even if it doesn’t melt. Movement after, often caused by wind, poles falling, or other work on the poles, will usually break the fiber. The “armored” cable is often corrugated tin to discourage rodent chewing, nothing more.

hex0101

MacLeech Oh I thought it also provided basic structural support and weather proofing. (the outer jacket). For example, in case one pole goes down and the cable is hanging low, the jacket itself can provide some structural support for the cable. A tech told me the strands up on the pole can handle 2-3 tons of pressure, so if you see lines down after a big storm, that is how severe it was (outside of power poles snapping).

A dump truck hit the CRAN fiber last month (where the power poles switch sides of the road, so the lines cross over the road) causing the fiber to get wrapped in the transmission lines above, triggering a power outage at 10:30 am. Immediately after, Comcast dropped offline for a minute. Comcast service then returned, but I noticed extreme packet loss (even on metro-e circuits). Power company said they then removed the communications line and restored power at 11:40 am. Comcast then went out at 12:16 pm, and did not return until 5:55 pm. Fiber was compromised and had to be replaced? I am just shocked that it was somehow still working after being hit by a dump truck, but with degraded performance (wavelengths down?) Also how the service went out and came back surprised me too. Who knows maybe the cable was laying across the road (all though seems to me that it would have broke with traffic driving over it).

Definitely was a lot of packet loss at all sites across town. Of course, once service came back up at 5:55 pm, everything was back to normal.

I am still curious if the XFM works on the CRAN backbone fiber, just like it does on the local fiber links from the hub-site to HFC nodes out in the field. Photo of the OTDR capabilities from a 2022 CableLabs demo:

Supposed to be able to pin-point fiber cuts and other imperfections along with the location within 90 seconds of an incident occurring. If the OTDR tells you the fiber cut is X distance out, how do you pinpoint the approximate address/coordinates of the fiber cut/imperfections? To be honest, it is likely possible to build an intelligence system that would automatically do that (if it does not already exist today).

MacLeech

hex0101 If the OTDR tells you the fiber cut is X distance out, how do you pinpoint the approximate address/coordinates of the fiber cut/imperfections?

Good documentation during installation helps immensely. The fiber cables have footages printed on them among other things. Those cable footages are tracked in splicing documentation that also indicates used fibers, splice locations, cable sizes, etc. Good fiber plant as-built maps will have those total footages calculated for all fiber splices, major intersections, and end points. Shoot the specific fiber with an OTDR, compare it to the footages on the maps, and send techs to that location.

Poor maps will be marked up as locations and footages are discovered for future reference.

A splice case can also be opened, and a bend put in a fiber strand. It will show up in the OTDR trace so the techs know how far down the cable they are.

The orange graph in your pic is the actual OTDR trace but it’s a very short 40m fiber for the 25km range the OTDR display is configured for, so most of what you see is noise. Not a very good example.

cypherstream

hex0101 I hope CRAN routes are protected. Maybe an east/west ring configuration. Could have ran on a backup link. It’s last mile distribution to nodes that isn’t protected with diverse routes.

hex0101

cypherstream

cypherstream Maybe an east/west ring configuration.

Probably depends on the topology of a given area, and whether you need to or can run aerial or underground. Plus the finance stuff. Some areas will only be running one line. Comcast did complete a network hardening project, which involved running a new 10 mile underground network backbone fiber run to Sanibel Island in FL.

https://florida.comcast.com/2024/07/08/tech-leader-completes-game-changing-project-on-sanibel-island-to-strengthen-communitys-internet-access/

Comcast recently completed over $72 million worth of essential work to restore connectivity and fortify the Xfinity network in Southwest Florida after Hurricane Ian’s impact. The project comprises more than 70 miles of new lines rebuilt across Sanibel, including the strategic installation of a 10-mile underground fiber line from the mainland in Lee County to the island community.

So, what exactly is the benefit of having network redundancy? It means that there are now separate fiber paths connecting Sanibel Island from mainland Florida. In other words, if one of them is down, Comcast Business and Xfinity services will most likely not be impacted because the other fiber path will seamlessly take over and provide connectivity.
The Xfinity network could still be impacted by other factors on Sanibel Island. However, the redundancy makes the network stronger and better positioned to provide connectivity for customers.

cypherstream It’s last mile distribution to nodes that isn’t protected with diverse routes.

Probably doesn’t make sense financially (especially for residential), but this is technically possible to do with rPHY/vCMTS. More flexibility in getting from headend to node (you can take redundant paths so a fiber cut doesn’t take out half the city).

MacLeech

hex0101 but this is technically possible to do with rPHY/vCMTS.

It’s been possible at the node level for decades as most nodes have A/B switch modules available to switch between input feeds. It’s just very expensive to implement geographically diverse fiber paths to every node.

cypherstream

hex0101 yeah I suppose you could use LAG back to the DAA switch in the hub, but chances are it’s going out that same fiber cable anyway, just burning another fiber for not much gain.

Yeah I saw for years vendors advertising redundant capabilities but unless your some sort of VIP node for the president or CEO of a major company, then I don’t see having a seperate fiber sheathing coming into the other side of the node.

The backbone itself needs to be on a redundant ring if possible. When our area lost 132 nodes due to one fiber cable melting, that seemed excessive. It goes through the city so another risk would be gunshots piercing the fiber, which happens more often than you think.

computerman2

Another Maintenance notice showing on my account for 8/8/2025, 2am

MacLeech

cypherstream The backbone itself needs to be on a redundant ring if possible. When our area lost 132 nodes due to one fiber cable melting, that seemed excessive.

Those 132 nodes can easily be on one distribution fiber cable out of one hub and have nothing to do with the backbone fiber cables feeding the hub. The backbone into the hub is probably on redundant paths already.

cypherstream

MacLeech what was surprising was even the new edge out builds from 2022-2024 were served by that diver that’s been there since the late 90’s. I wonder what the fiber strand count is on it.

Something to do white when they moved the broadcast headend from 400 Riverfront Dr in Reading which could only broadcast 62 analog channels and then cut over to the 3101 Papermill Rd hub that was originally constructed by Time Warner Cable, right before the AT&T broadband era which precluded TWC and Comcast market swaps to better align with their regional service areas.

cypherstream

Three Comcast trucks by SECV contractors digging, installing conduit and new pedistals for their FTTH project.

Think they hit something. Comcast has fiber spool unraveled from one of their pull boxes.

cypherstream

SECV left (new bigger pedistal that can fit both HFC and PON), Comcast large doghouse right which is just a tap and some cable plumbing.
SECV uses heat shrink and Comcast doesn’t.

cypherstream

Oh and in the flush mount box there’s nothing interesting. Just two conduit stub ups with a coil of fiber that you can see in the picture.

SECV has a lot of these now (smaller though) in between every 2 to 3 houses. The flush mount is nice, I can mow right over it. The 3ft monster pedestal’s are more like a mini fridge.

There are now 4 Comcast trucks there.

hex0101

cypherstream splicing maybe

cypherstream

hex0101 Talked to someone who lives around the corner from me who switched to Comcast from SECV a few months ago, and she said they didn’t have internet almost ALL DAY yesterday.

I had an outage with SECV today for about 3 hours but I’m not working from home. I called it in right before I left for work and they called me and texted me a link. I could see the SECV technicians name and picture and where he was on a map. They fixed it outside. They are digging in front of my house again. I think I’m getting a giant 3 ft tall pedestal because it was completely gone when I left for work as shown here: https://broadbandbulletin.com/d/20-service-electric-cablevisionservice-electric-cable-tv-discussion/208

But yeah since this is a Comcast thread, this outage took all day. They used a phone hotspot to continue to work, etc… but boy digging is intrusive. If everyone would have had the foresight to install conduit from the get go decades ago, it be nice to just pull new cable through an existing pathway. Verizon is direct bury as well, one of the many reasons why they never installed FIOS.

hex0101

@MacLeech Looks like there is a lot of strength here..

MacLeech

hex0101 Minimum required break strength for strand is usually 6000 pounds, which is around 5/16”
https://nationalstrand.com/content/cut-sheet.pdf

The poles will often break before the strand will.

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