It appears our local cable provider is having a problem with FTP (file transfer protocol), the service that allows you to upload files from your local hard drive to a server. At the moment, evidence of this is anecdotal. Two days ago I tried uploading a PowerPoint file from home to a server and it failed over and over. We have Suddenlink as our Internet Service Provider at home. The next day we tried uploading the file from our office where we have DSL and had no problem.
At the time we assumed it was an issue with the server that had since been fixed. However, today I learned that others have had the same problem and some have tested this by trying to upload files through Suddenlink and the same files over DSL. They were uploading to different servers from the one I had been working with. In every case, the Suddenlink uploads failed, and the DSL uploads succeeded. Apparently this occurs on only certain file types like Word and PowerPoint documents.
It seems some folks at Suddenlink are aware of the issue, but so far they have not been able to locate the source or find a fix. I’d be interested to know if others have had similar problems. Perhaps we could move the problem higher up on their priority list.
Too late for me. Suddenlink is history. For what it was worth I ran an bunch of speed tests side by side between Suddenlink and DSL from the same computer. Average download for Suddenlink was 4.1 mbps, and up was 470 kbs. With DSL it was 4.9 mbps down, and 615 kbs up. DSL is the clear winner in performance, and I have not yet improved my wiring which may make it even better. FTP appears to work much better as well, possibly partially from the much improved uplink speed.
I activated ATT DSL today. Even though I purchased “Elite” service it is not running anywhere near the advertised top speed of 6.0 mbps. In fact it is running slightly slower than Suddenlink (3.934 vs 4.185). Upload is quite a bit faster (623 kbps vs 486) however. Not quite what I hoped for. I will have to check my phone wires and make sure all connections are good and tight but at this point it looks comparable. I guess it was simply too much to hope for to get 6.0. Oh well.
After long last I received this e-mail from Suddenlink. I sharing it here in case it helps anyone else. It it not going to make any difference to me because I am switching to DSL.
—————– from Suddenlink.net —————
If a customer is using a third party email address, one that is NOT @suddenlink.net, @cox.net, or @cox-internet.com, they must use mail.tyler.net for the outgoing mail server. This server does NOT require authentication.
Actually no. I think you may have solved my problem. As someone said, you should get paid for this kind of help. I consider myself fairly competent, and was getting really frustrated with Suddenlink. Now you have me wondering if ATT is any better.
Did you check out my post here: Mail Settings for Suddenlink
Actually that is not quite what I am trying to do. I want to use Suddenlink as my smtp server for outgoing mail (smtp.suddenlink.net). Changing to port 26 for this does not work. I did some more testing this morning. It works on my PowerMac, and on a machine running Windows 98 SE. But it does not work on a machine running Windows SP Home Edition. So while I am sure Suddenlink has something to do with this, it is somewhat complicated to figure out what what is wrong.
Suddenlink blocks smtp on port 25 if you are using your domain email for smtp and it’s hosted other than on their servers. However, this can be routed around if your host allows smtp on port 26. As far as I know, AT&T does this now also. It’s very common for ISPs. It doesn’t make it right, though.
Something is very wrong with Suddenlink. In addition to my FTP uploads of web pages becoming very erratic, mail service is no longer reliable either. Suddenlink is blocking access to the SMTP out server for those with private e-mail servers. This is not acceptable. I plan to switch to DSL. I used to have DSL and it worked just fine but I switched to Cable a couple years ago because at that time it was faster. Not any longer, however. The Elite service looks faster to me now at 6.0 mpps down. I will install it in parallel and run speed tests and let you know what is going on. In any cae Suddenlink however cannot be allowed to do this to private e-mail. Amazing how fast the decent Cox service went bad after Suddenlink took over.
I should have known that it wouldn’t be so simple.
By the way, Suddenlink was suddenly unlinked and out of service in Eureka and Arcata today for seven long hours.
Yeah. This works if what you are doing is using web mail and the user on the other end can unzip the file, or you have the ability to unzip files on your server account. Most people don’t have that ability since you either need a script set up to do that, or access to and ability to use the command line.
In our case we were trying to upload a power point through a web browser to a project management site we use. Putting up a zip file would just confound the other users who needed access to the file.
These files might upload successfully if they are compressed (zipped or stuffed) before uploading, but we shouldn’t be forced to figure out fixes like that.