All Services will be taken down at 11:00PM for a scheduled upgrade, we estimate the upgrade will take 45 minutes.

The E-Mail Server has been taken down for routine maintenance, normal operations will resume at 2:30AM.

We have upgraded the mail system and are still tweaking some settings. If you are unable to log in to your Email with just your username, try logging in with your entire Email address as the username, this should eliminate any log in problems until we get the default domain issue solved. If you use squirrelmail you may notice new features such as mailbox quota information and you may also notice a decrease in spam with the new filtering method this server uses. If you have any questions about the upgrade please feel free to contact us via Email or phone.
Update 5/12/13 - Default Domain issue has been fixed, tcenet users should now be able to login with just your username.

There has been some confusion regarding recent spam messages that some users received claiming to be from tcenet.net.   Email from tce administrators are sent from our personal accounts. Any messages coming from "administrator, support, updates" etc, are likely forged or spoofed. Please remember we will never ask for your passwords, especially through Email. If you receive a message claiming to be from tcenet that asks you to click a link for "an important update" it is likely faked and should be deleted/ignored. Thank You.
Sites explaining this spam in more detail can be found here and here.
-The TCE staff

SAVVIS will be performing and extensive test on one of our Internet Links on April 21, 2009 from 1:00AM to 5:00AM. During this time you may be able to connect to the Internet, but dialup customers will likely not be able to access the TCE homepage, or retrieve Email. Broadband customers should not be affected by this outage.

A problem with sending Email was caused by connection info not being sent to TCENET servers to allow outgoing Mail. The problem appears to have originated in a datacenter used by TCENET. Technicians at this data center appear to have resolved the issue as of 3:20PM, If you are still not able to send out Email, try reconnecting to the Internet. This should send your proper connection info to TCENET upon your new connection and allow outgoing mail.

After performing a routine backup of the mail server, an abnormality required the server to be rebooted. Because of the huge volume of spam being received, and the processing of various anti-spam filters to remove the majority of it, the mail server is currently backlogged in processing mail. Messages sent may be delayed, or you may experience trouble connecting to the mail server to send out messages. The server should catch up overnight tonight. Reports have indicated that the amount of spam has doubled since October, which is consistent with what we have observed.
Update 9:30AM 11/27/06
The TCE Mail server is currently under attack by spammers who are trying to use our domain name in the "From" field of emails, causing our server to be bombarded with tons of bounced messages. Although the mail server has caught up, this problem may cause instability for the next few days and also most users may get "bouncebacks" of messages they didn't actually send.
Update 3:00 PM 11/28/06
The attack on our mail server appears to be over, we were getting approximately 13,000 bounceback messages per hour being processed. That has sharply decreased in the past 4 hours and everything should be back to normal operation.

The TCE network will be shutdown for approximately 2 hours on 8/26/06 to perform several upgrades. The service interruption is scheduled for 12:30AM to 2:30AM. Some TCE services may be unavailable during this time.

We have implemented a new server which is being used to take over some of the workload our current mail server was being bogged down with. One task being switched over to this new server is the SquirrelMail Web Interface. In this process some of the additional mailboxes you may have previously created in SquirrelMail may not have transferred correctly. If you notice problems with the webmail system, please Email support@tcenet.net with details of the problem. The older version of SquirrelMail is still running at http://mail.tcenet.net/src/login.php if you need to access it. If you are not experiencing problems, you are strongly encouraged to log into webmail from the TCE homepage as the older system will be removed once we have verified everything is running smoothly with the new server.

SAVVIS engineers will be performing emergency maintenance to ensure network reliability. This will take place tonight, 3/31 between Midnight and 4:00AM EST. You may experience service interruption during this window.

The authentication server went down at approximately 8:57PM and was restarted at 12:11AM This caused all login attempts to fail.

Earlier last week, a new Microsoft exploit was released related to a remote code execution flaw in the Graphics Rendering Engine. This vulnerability rapidly began being exploited throughout the Internet in the last few days. This is commonly referred to as the "WMF vulnerability, which takes advantage of a security vulnerability referenced in Microsoft Security Advisory 912840 Dec. 28, 2005. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/912840.mspx
There are several different variations to date, with the release of many more likely to occur.

Microsoft has not yet released a patch for this vulnerability, and their suggested workaround is not 100% effective in mitigating the issue. On Dec, 31, 2005, several new issues came to light that have resulted in this issue being raised to critical status.



1. Several other (possibly all) image file types are affected by this vulnerability. This is especially dangerous since many users typically assume .jpg, .gif, and other image files to be safe.

2. The variety of exploits already seen in the wild make normal filtering methods of filename, IDS content filters, and Anti-Virus very ineffective at detecting more than 70% of exploits.

3. Multiple infection vectors will enable rapid spread of infection or compromise. This includes Internet browsing, email, and Instant Messaging.

4. Virtually all current Windows Operating Systems are vulnerable, although most likely infection point is workstations and Terminal Servers where user interaction takes place. Customers with Citrix servers and Windows Terminal servers that permit users to run IE, Email, or Instant messaging software should be considered at extremely high risk and should discuss immediate implementation of workarounds or other mitigation prior to the release of a patch from Microsoft.

Recommended Actions:
1. If you must visit Internet sites for business requirements, use an alternate browser with less risk of an exploit. (Firefox is not immune to this, but should pop up a warning dialog box that can be cancelled when unauthorized code is trying to execute). Firefox is a multi-platform browser that can be obtained free of charge from http://www.mozilla.com . Some improperly coded applications may not function fully within this browser.

2. If you have a Linux or Unix based system available, use that for email, browsing, etc. Linux and Unix are currently not vulnerable to these exploits.

3. Do not surf non-business required sites until this issue has been resolved and/or systems patched. Simply browsing sites that contain exploit code can result in system compromise.

4. Disable Preview mode in your Outlook settings. (View, Reading Pane, Off) - Then delete any unexpected emails without opening or viewing in preview mode. Some of these exploits will execute without opening the attachment, just by clicking on the email in preview mode.

5. Do not use Instant messaging clients. Numerous exploits are being circulated via Instant Messenger systems. You may want to consider taking steps to temporarily disable Instant messaging clients until this issue is resolved.

6. Check to be sure your anti-virus is up to date. While not 100% effective, for these exploits, it can detect and mitigate several variants. Check that your Anti-Virus is running the latest DAT files.

7. Consider viewing email in Plain-text mode rather than HTML.

** Applying the Microsoft workaround will cause some loss of functionality, and is not completely effective in mitigation of this issue. If they are applied, they will need to be removed/reverted prior to applying the official Microsoft patch.
Update - 1/11/06 Microsoft has released a patch for this problem get it here.

Savvis is performing emergency network maintainance to repair connectivity issues in New York State. They assure us the connectivity will be restored soon.
Update - 6:45PM - Link seems to be restored to normal operation.

There is a problem with the local telephone service which is preventing operation of TCE's Internet connection to Savvis. Engineers at Savvis have referred this problem to Frontier and we are awaiting its repair. Connection to all local resources will still be functional such as retrieving Email and viewing local websites, however anything on the Internet is currently inaccessible. Also, it seems no long distance calls can come in or go out of the Sandy Creek area. Customers with TCE Wireless Internet access should be unaffected by this outage.
Update 5:24PM - We have configured an alternate connection to the Internet so that all dial-up users can now access the Internet. New Emails may not be available until 12:00 tonight because of our main link still being down.
The problem was caused by damaged fiber cables in Jefferson County, Verizon says it wont be repaired until between 9:00 and 12:00 tonight.
Update 9/11/05 7:00PM - Systems have been restored to normal operations and configurations.

There appears to be a new Email virus making its rounds. Our Mail server was flooded with messages containing viruses. These messages are spoofed (faked) with a tcenet.net address but if you look at the full headers you will see they are actually originating from roadrunner. If you get any file attachments, from these fakes messages, please delete them immediately as they are viruses.

Savvis (TCE's backbone provider) reports they are experiencing an outage in the NY area and they are working to resolve the problem. Until it is fixed you won't be able to access anything outside the TCE network.
Update 12:57PM - All links are back up and working normally.

The Server that validates user passwords went down at approximately 7:31PM, it was restarted at 8:21PM. You may have gotten an "invalid password" error during this time when dialing up to TCE.

The modem bank at TCE had to be rebooted because some modems were not answering properly. The problem has been corrected and everything is now working normally (8:20PM).

We have implemented an additional system to eliminate spam. This system blocks traffic from open mail servers listed in the ORDB.ORG database and is similar to the system we tried to implement back in October of 2000 but at the time many E-mail servers were still left open for spammers to use for sending out junkmail. Since then it has gotten to the point that ANY network admin running an open mail server is doing it for the sole purpose of sending and promoting Spam. This will not only reduce spam and lighten the load of the mail server but also greatly reduce the chance of new viruses from getting to the TCE mail server before Antivirus updates are available. To view mail processed by TCE click HERE.

Once again a brand new virus variant W32.Beagle.K@mm is floating around using faked addresses such as "management@tcenet.net", "staff@tcenet.net", or "administration@tcenet.net". Please DO NOT open the file attachment as it is a virus. We should be getting antivirus updates shortly for this.
Again, please note, we NEVER send mail from these addresses, only our personal accounts. NEVER open a file attachment unless you know what it is.

If you receive a file attachment from "webmaster@tcenet.net" or "support@tcenet.net" DO NOT OPEN IT. The message header is faked and it appears to be a new virus although it has not been discovered by antivirus companies yet. We have submitted the file for evaluation to Kaspersky Labs.
Also, please note, we NEVER send mail from "webmaster@tcenet.net" or "support@tcenet.net". If you receive a message from one of those addresses it is a FAKED header. We only receive messages from those addresses.
Update - 11:13PM Antivirus updates are now available for this new virus: W32/Bagle.C@mm which was first discovered today. The TCE mail server is now blocking this virus.

There is a problem at the local telephone office which is preventing operation of TCE's Internet connection to Savvis. Engineers at Savvis have referred this problem to Frontier and we are awaiting its repair. Connection to all local resources will still be functional such as retrieving Email and viewing local websites, however anything on the Internet is currently inaccessible.
Update 5:00AM - Savvis reports TCE's circuit was looped at the local telephone office on this end. They removed the loop and the circuit is back up.

Microsoft has issued another critical update for Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT4. This security flaw seems to be the target of new virus/hacking activity. Please be sure you have the latest security patches from Microsoft by visiting Microsoft Windows Update. As of today it appears the Microsoft update site is down, so TCE has provided local links to the patches. Click here.

Savvis reports serious Internet congestion problems in their Watertown node which is causing some connectivity and latency issues. They have their senior engineers working on the issue which should be corrected shortly.
Update 1:02PM - Service has been restored to normal.

There is a new virus that was discovered on 1-26-04 named W32.Novarg.A@mm and/or W32/Mydoom.A@mm this virus sends out a virus infected file attachment in Email. It appears to collect a database of actual Email addresses for a specific domain (such as tcenet.net) and send itself to other members of that domain, faking the from address. Although our mail server scans and removes viruses from all messages, this particular virus seems to have made its way through our mail server BEFORE it was discovered by the anti-virus community. It is now being blocked after our system has received Antivirus updates late last night, but some copies of the virus have already passed through. If you received and opened any file attachments Monday, be sure to update your antivirus software and do a full system scan. For more information on this virus please visit Symantec AV Center.

It seems TCE's lines that take incoming calls went down around 6:00PM and calls to TCE were not being routed to our location. This appears to be caused by some kind of system reset at the phone company's office because when the circuits came back up they were in a different order. They are now functional as of 6:30PM.

It has come to our attention that several computers on Time Warner's Network (roadrunner) are spoofing tcenet.net EMail addresses in an attempt to spread the W32.Sobig.F@mm virus. If your Email address is being Spoofed you may be getting messages from various Mail servers complaining that you sent a virus to one of its recipients. This is not the case. The roadrunner computer is the machine sending the virus while faking your address so the receiving mail server responds to you. Read the info about spoofing and how this virus works on the Symantec website. If you look at the headers of the spoofed message you will see something like: Received: from someone@tcenet.net [24.59.65.147] (HELO HARVEY007), this shows the actual IP address of the computer that sent the virus. Doing a trace route to this IP address will show whose network owns the IP. All TCE IP addresses start with 66.101.x.x We have sent several messages to Time Warner regarding this problem and they have given no response. TCE's mail server blocks viruses so you won't get the W32.Sobig.F@mm virus in your TCE Mail. In the past week, TCE's mail server has blocked over 10,000 Emails containing this particular virus from getting to TCE users.

One of our four T1 circuits that is used to receive calls is down returning a "fast busy" signal. The other 3 circuits seem to be working fine, so if you hear a fast busy when trying to connect, simply redial, within 4 calls it should roll your call into a working circuit. This problem appears to be at the phone company's office. We have reported the problem to them at 9:34AM and are awaiting their response.
Update 3:23PM - Circuit came back up and appears to be functioning normally. The Telephone Technician called at 3:34PM to confirm.

The Server which authenticates usernames/passwords was not responding from approximately 2:46AM until 7:43AM. This would cause your password to be rejected when trying to log in or check mail. The server is now up and running and things should be back to normal.

Several customers have reported slow connection speeds and disconnection problems since 4/21/03. We have noticed that once again noise had been introduced into our incoming phone lines. We have contacted a technician at the Phone company who reported that 'someone' changed line coding on our inbound call circuits without telling us. He indicated he will try to get everything set back to normal as soon as possible.
Update - 4:43PM The problem seems to have been corrected at this time. If anyone is still having trouble with connections please let us know ASAP.

The Internet link was very slow for about 9 minutes, this problem appears to have been with the Savvis network. Although it seems to be back to normal, we are reporting the trouble as a precautionary measure.

There is a new virus "Bugbear" that was discovered on September 30th and is causing some trouble on the Internet for many people. Since October 1st, our mail server has blocked 208 messages containing the virus. Please be aware that if you use other mail servers hosted outside the TCE network (if you have another EMail address that doesnt contain @tcenet.net, @sandycreek.net, etc.), you could be vulnerable to a virus. You could also get viruses from websites hosting malicious code. If you do not have your own virus scanner installed on your computer, you should obtain one. We recommend Kaspersky and Norton virus scanners.

Other top 3 viruses removed by our mail server since Aug 17th are:
Klez - 1557 messages
Sircam - 763 messages
Magistr - 78 messages

2 of our incoming T1's have gone down as well as our outgoing T1 to the Internet. This is caused by a problem at the Frontier telephone office so we expect it to take a long time for repair. The problem has been reported to Frontier and we are awaiting their response.
Update 8:50AM - Frontier says they are having trouble with a "Span" which means several local circuits are down (not just TCE), they have a technician working on the trouble which should be resolved shortly.
Update 12:15PM - All circuits came back up.

The radius server which is used to authenticate usernames/passwords was rebooted at 11:50AM, we suspect it may have been causing some of the DNS errors. After reboot it seems to be functioning well on the TCE network.

At approximately 6:00PM the DNS server stopped resolving hostnames and was rebooted. This would cause domain names to not be found, and not load the appropriate webpages, etc. The system has been rebooted and is now funtioning normally.

Savvis reports they are having network problems and are working on correcting the connectivity problem. The connection should be restored shortly.
Update 6:12 - Savvis informed us they found an Engineering problem and will issue a full report on it tomorrow. The link is back up and running normally.
Update - Savvis has issued a Engineering report as follows:

Beginning at 15:43 Central Time and ending approximately 1 hour later, A portion of the SAVVIS edge routing devices experienced subscriber resets. During this time portions of our subscriber base were impacted with loss of connectivity to the SAVVIS Network. The SAVVIS Engineering team has isolated the root cause to a corrupt security policy and has forwarded the core dumps to our vendor for analysis. SAVVIS will refrain from further security policy changes until the issue has been resolved. SAVVIS regrets any inconvenience this has caused our customers and will continue to work diligently to bring this issue to resolution.

Savvis has informed us that they've noticed our T1 to the Internet "bouncing" meaning that it stops transferring data for a minute or two. They say it happened on 8/22 at 6:42AM and at 8:40PM. Because of this they have scheduled "Intrusive Testing" on the Internet T1 link to be sure problems don't arise. It has been scheduled for Saturday 8/24/02 from 3:00AM to 5:00AM. During this time, there may be no access outside our local network, but you should still be able to connect. We've tried to scheduled it for a time when most people won't be needing it.
Update 8/27/02 - The Intrusive testing showed no problems and the trouble ticket has been closed.

Our link to the Internet is down again due to a problem at the phone company, we have reported the problem and are waiting for them to make the necessary repairs.
Update 7:43PM - According to the manager of the Pulaski Telephone office, A truck hit some fiber optic lines in Watertown causing several outages, including Fulton Boiler Works and Schoeller.
Update 8:14PM Savvis called us at 8:14 to verify that there is a major break in OC48 lines connecting from Watertown to Syracuse. This may take a while to repair. This is affecting more than just TCE, as these lines are used by phone companies such as Verizon, Sprint and Frontier/Citizen's.
Update - 08/20/02 7:02AM Service has been restored.

It seems the telephone company is doing something with our dial-in lines. All lines dropped carrier then when trying to reconnect, only a message saying "number cannot be completed as dialed" was heard. The problem was reported to the phone company and seems to have been corrected. We have not heard back from them as to what they did to cause the problem.
Update - 4:38PM Received a call from Telco, their logs show several circuits going down and restarting but they are unaware of the cause. Our dial in circuits seem to have been running fine since 1:02PM. However, we've noticed that we now receive calls in a different order which means something was changed at the telephone office.

One of our modem banks seem to have been conflicting with some new devices connected to our network today. This caused some connections to drop after a few seconds. The conflict has been corrected and both modem banks should be operating correctly now. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

The Internet T1 circuit to the Savvis backbone seems to be down again this morning, the problem has been reported to Savvis and we are awaiting their response.
Update 9:19 - Based on testing from our network and to our network from an outside source, we have determined that the problem is with a piece of equipment in Savvis' Watertown office. We have reported our findings to them. They now have a technician in the Watertown office working on the problem and we suspect everything should be back up by 10:00 AM Update 10:39 - Savvis is still troubleshooting the problem and expects to have a resolution shortly.
Update 11:10 - Internet Link is back up, Savvis says it recovered on its own, although they were working on some equipment in the same office. They say it shouldn't have been related to our circuit.

3 of our T1 circuits have gone down which appears to be troubles at the local telephone office, we have reported the problem and are waiting for them to make the necessary repairs. This means that our Network, including Email and sites we host are accessible, but anything else on the Internet is not.
Update 12:57 - Telco Link to the Internet came back up, However half our dial in lines are still down.
Update 1:09 - Our remaining lines have come back up, everything is now functioning normally.
Update - Savvis will be doing a "stress test" on our Internet Circuit, it was rescheduled for 6/19/02 from 2:AM to 5:AM because the phone company didn't "get to it" The testing is to ensure the Telco equipment is working properly. The Internet link may be down during that time.

We are phasing out the old analog lines and will be using only digital dial-up lines. This means that if you are currently using the dialup number 387-2217, you will need to change your settings to use our digital dialup number of 387-6644. We expect the old number to be out of service within the next 2 days.

A link in Watertown is down causing the TCE Network to be without Internet access beyond the local webpages at the moment. Savvis is working to correct the problem.
Update - 11:33 Savvis has given us an update on the trouble and reports that the problem is affecting a few other networks in addition to TCE. Their Engineering team expects to have it resolved within an hour.
Update - 1:58PM Link is back up, it came up momentarily at 1:30 for about 15 minutes. We have not yet gotten a call from Savvis saying they have completely resolved the problem, but appears to be functioning normally at this point.

A representative from Citizens called to inform us they will be taking our circuits out of service at 7:AM on 11/30/01 to change some equipment. We don't know how long it will take, but are assuming it will be only momentarily. In the past we've asked them to inform us of planned outages but that hasn't happened until we complained about yesterday's incident to Citizens' NYS manager. Hopefully they'll also notify us of future outages which we will post on this news page as soon as we get them.

It seems Citizens is again interfering with our data circuits. Some of the dial in lines have gone out of service and back up. Our link to Savvis (TCE's Internet uplink) also has gone down and Savvis informed us they will be reporting the problem to the phone company as well.
Update 4:04 PM Service has been restored
Update 4:18 PM Circuit went down again because their equipment at our location indicates someone at the phone company has put the circuit in "loopback" which is normally a diagnostic test initiated at the phone company.
Update 4:28 PM The T1 circuit is back up again, Citizens Communications is saying the problem was caused by a "defective jack" at their central office in Lacona.

Because of the problems and downtime associated with Verio, TCE has switched sources for its Internet connection. We have researched the matter and consulted other ISP's and decided that Savvis is the best choice. Through this transition we have changed our IP range and converted most traffic to use the new Savvis connection. We were particularly impressed by their "minimal downtime" policy that gives us the right to terminate our contract with them if our link to the Internet's total downtime reaches 8 hours for the length of the 2 year contract. Our contract with Verio will expire in December 2001. The Member Services link has been updated to show Internet traffic graphs for Savvis and Verio.

There still may be a few people unable to receive their mail due to settings in their mail program. This seems to be affecting mostly people who had their computer setup manually by a TCE representative several years ago, as opposed to the TCE CD-ROM. Most of these people are using Eudora Email. To fix the problem, you simply need to set your "pop mail server" and "smtp server" to mail.tcenet.net instead of tcenet.net
your "POP account" should be < your username>@mail.tcenet.net
and your "return address" should be < your username>@tcenet.net
In Eudora, this can be accessed through the "options" choice under the "tools" menu. If you still have trouble, please call 387-6761 and we will be happy to assist you in correcting the settings.

We are in the process of converting our main unix server to a new machine. This is the most important of four (4) servers at TCE. It handles E-mail, some web and domain hosting, ftp and dial-up authentication. We will be systematically switching processes over to the new machine starting today with the Email services 3:08PM. There are a few E-mail accounts that may not work due to lack of passwords for those people (about 8 accounts). If you have trouble with getting or sending Email, please let us know and we will look into the problem.

The old server will eventually be taken out of service after all the processes have been sucessfully switched over.

The old server is running FreeBSD ver 3.4 (unix) with a 233 Mhz processor, 64 Megs or RAM, and a 4 GB hard drive. The new system will be running FreeBSD ver 4.3 (unix) utilizing a 1200 Mhz processor, 256 Megs of RAM, and (2) 40 GB Hard drives operating as a redundant failsafe in case of a Hard drive failure (RAID). Please note that the old server was so effective (as the new server will be) because unix systems run much more efficiently than typical Windows systems and don't require as much processing power.

Verio is again having trouble with their Syracuse router. We are waiting to hear from them regarding estimated time of repair.
Update 1:15 PM - Verio is sending an Engineer from Rochester to investigate the problem in their Syracuse office. He should arrive at their "POP" (point of presence) at about 2:PM. Things should be back to normal shortly thereafter.
Update - Link came back up at 2:28 PM

It seems that one of Verio's Internet routers in Syracuse is malfunctioning causing TCE and other providers in Syracuse to be without access. Verio is working on restoring service.
Update 12:30 PM - The problem is caused by a T3 (high volume data circuit) being down between Syracuse and Rochester. A few Internet servers connected to Verio's Syracuse location can still be accessed from TCE, but most of the Internet is still unreachable.
Update 4:08 PM - Verio tells us they have several engineers working with Verizon to pinpoint the problem. We have gotten reports that other ISP's throughout New York (as far as Hornell, NY) are without service, so it seems to be affecting a good part of New York State.
Update 11:20 PM - The problem has been traced to a bad part which is being shipped to Verio within 2 hours starting at 10:50. They anticipate having the system up and running within 2 hours from now. We have redirected TCE's traffic through another location to allow some Internet traffic, but it appears websites are not responding through this channel.
Update 8/9/01 3:05 AM All Links are back up.
Update 8/9/01 11:30 AM The Name Servers don't seem to be resolving addresses properly, we are working to fix the problem and should have it running soon.
Update 12:10 PM - Everything should be working normally now. If you are still having trouble please let us know.

There was a power outage at 7:14 AM today. We performed a full system shutdown at 7:40 AM. Power was restored at 9:25 and all systems were back online by 9:45 AM.

The T1 Internet link went down and we reported it to Verio, the company that manages our Internet link. The Telephone company's equipment on our end indicates that there is a failure at their Sandy Creek office.
Update - 10:00PM Verio has informed us that Verizons has been having trouble contacting the Citizens Communications' technician that is on call tonight. A call was made to Citizens' Pulaski supervisor at home who claimed he couldn't get in touch with their technicians either. Although, it seems the technician wasn't contacted until Sat morning which may indicate this delay was a decision made my Citizens' management.
Update - 5/12/01 9:54 AM Citizens is working on the problem and they seem to have a temporary fix for it. You should now be able to get to other servers on the Internet although it may be slower than usual until Citizens gets the circuit properly fixed.
Update - 11:32 AM The circuit has been repaired and everything is back to normal. We encourage everyone to visit the AISPA website and review the laws congress is passing to deregulate phone companies' responsibilities. It would be nice to let your congressman know the effect the new laws have had so far.

The T1 Internet link went down due to a power failure in Syracuse. Verio's technical team tells us the power failure is affecting the router on their end of the link as well as many other connections in Syracuse. They are working on getting it resolved.
Update - Service was restored at 12:20 AM

The Telephone company will be switching all our cabling over to a new interface box this morning. In order to do it they will have to take down each of our circuits momentarily. This may cause unexpected disconnections so this morning is a bad time to download those huge files :) We would expect it to be done by noon.
Update- Work was completed at 1:PM

The Link from TCENET to the rest of the Internet is down, the problem has been reported to Verio and they are working on getting it restored. You should be able to retreive your Email and view local web pages, but anything outside the tcenet.net domain won't work until our service is restored.
Update - The Internet link came back up at 11:00 AM

We are happy to report that the new lines have FINALLY been installed. Service was turned on for these by Citizens at 3:00 PM today. Throughout the course of today from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM you may have been disconnected due to testing and configuration of the new lines. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but everything should be operating smoothly.
We will be monitoring the new lines to be sure everything is working smoothly, if you have any problems with connecting, or with getting disconnected, please report them to support@tcenet.net or by calling 387-6761. We also will now be accepting new customers.

All of our 56K modems are now connected to a specialized terminal server. We are phasing out the old method of connecting modems to serial ports on a computer so that the whole network runs more efficiently. The purpose of this upgrade is also to make room for the installation of the new incoming lines which we are told should be installed this week.

Note - It seems that some WebTV units are having trouble connecting to the new terminal server. If you are using a WebTV unit, for now, you should use 387-2217 as your primary dialup number since it still uses standard ports. The best way to reconfigure the WebTV unit is to unplug it, plug it in, and when it asks if you want to use the same access numbers say "no". It will then let you modify your "ISP" settings. We are working with the manufacturer of the terminal server to find the cause of this problem.
Update 2/21/01 1:52 PM - The problem with WebTV was resolved and WebTV users should now be able to connect with both numbers. Turns out WebTV was having trouble the same time we made the changes.

The equipment on half of our digital circuits indicate "Frame Slips" which shows a problem at the phone company. Upon calling their repair service they say there are Telephone line problems in the Pulaski surrounding area and it's currently being worked on. Any long distance calls you try to make, the person answering wont be able to hear you. It may be harder to get on the Internet as this problem seems to be also affecting half of our incoming phone lines.

Update - Frame Slip alarm stopped at 12:11PM and all our modems started receiving calls at 12:11 PM

Sometimes when calling during busy times you may get this message. For the past few days it seems that customers were getting this message even when lines were available. We reported the problem to the phone company and seem to have it resolved after rebooting our main modem rack around 3:00PM today. We're not sure but we suspect the cause may be from some recent upgrading the phone company is doing. Please keep in mind if you are having trouble connecting to try both dialup numbers 387-6644 and 387-2217. Under normal conditions our lines have been filling up; for that reason we have ordered 2 more T1's which will add another 48 lines.

We have implemented AVP's virus scanner/cleaner to work with our mail server to detect and remove possible viruses. If a message is sent through the E-mail server that contains a virus, it should attempt to disinfect and/or delete the message. It also sends a message to the sender and intended receiver informing them that a virus was detected, whether sent from or to a TCE member. Our web server at http://tce.tcenet.net will show statistics on detected viruses. Although this should help prevent viruses from getting on your computer, you should have your own anti-virus software installed on your computer. For personal virus security, we recommend Kaspersky's AVP.
Because of this change our mail server is running a little differently. If you notice anything out of the ordinary regarding E-mail, you can send a message to jmyers.

An order for full T1 access by TCE has just been completed. Although we have been using a T1 circuit for Internet, it was limited by our provider to 384K because it was all the bandwidth TCE required. Due to expansion, our data throughput has occasionally reached our 384K maximum during peak hours. Our new upgrade gives us full 1.54Mbps direct T1 access to the Internet, 4 times the amount of bandwidth we've been operating with. You can view our bandwidth graphs by clicking here. Although dialup users will not likely see any change, this will allow for more expansion and provide the bandwidth needed for the possibility of high speed wireless access.

There have been several people reporting more trouble connecting or maintaining a connection within the past 3 or 4 days. We have done some troubleshooting at TCE and it appears that one of our 3 banks of phone lines has "noisy" channels which is most likely causing the trouble. The telephone company is in the midst of tracking down the cause and will be replacing some equipment on their end in Pulaski on 12/7/00 around 8:00 AM to try and eliminate the problem. If you have been experiencing trouble in the past few days, it should clear up after the phone company has it repaired.

Update 12/8/00 1:00 PM
The phone company has repaired some equipment on their end and things seem to be back to normal. I have been doing some testing and find that the lines seem to be clean. I would appreciate any feedback on whether users have seen improvements since 1:PM today, you can email me at rpmyers@tcenet.net

TCE has implemented additional filtering for "Spam" (junk) EMail. To see how many messages have been blocked to date visit http://tce.tcenet.net. This latest spam software blocks mail from any email server that is "open relay" - as in, allows anyone on the Internet to "bounce" mail through it. Spammers do this to hide thier true identity. If you have trouble receiving messages from some people visit http://www.orbs.org which better explains how this blocking works.
Update 10/20/00 This filtering was removed because it seems there are still a lot of mail server administrators on the Internet that are having trouble getting their servers to work correctly; causing some mail not to get through to TCE. Therefore, we will implement this system later when more administrators throughout the Internet correct the problems with their mail servers.

The main analog modem bank burned up at 9:41 PM and no longer answered calls. This is a bank of 16 Analog (33.6) modems. Some external modems were installed on a few of these lines to take calls, and the rest of the lines were busied out so that the calls would roll into the 56K modem pool. The 56K modem pool was unaffected. This change was completed at approximately 10:40 PM. The problem was traced to the modem rack's power supply.
Update - 9/21/00 11:42AM The parts arrived today to fix the modem rack, it has been repaired and re-installed. All modem lines are back to normal.

It seems the telephone system in Sandy Creek was shutdown and reset by the phone company around 9:30 PM. This set alarms on our 2 T1's that handle incoming calls and didnt recover until approximately 1:00 AM when the T1's were reset at TCE. Also, 1 analog (2217) line terminated improperly from the telco reset which caused 1 line to ring without answer. That line was also reset around 1:AM

TCENET will be shutting down Friday Night (Saturday morning) 7/29/00 at 1:00AM so that we may perform some upgrades. These upgrades will consist of a larger battery backup system for the entire network and a more powerful power supply for the primary 56K modem bank to allow for future expansion. We estimate this upgrade will take approximately 1 hour. The primary terminal server has been running 61 days since its last shutdown/reboot.

Update 7/29/00 2:07 AM New equipment is online, upgrade completed.

7/10/00 - 8:00 PM - Internet Link Down

The Internet link was down from 8:00PM to 10:00PM due to problems at Verio, it seems their entire network was down throughout the country.

5/28/00 - 9:30 PM to 10:30 PM - Name Server Down

The Name server was down from about 9:30PM to 10:30PM. This may have caused you to experience difficulty reaching some web pages or reaching servers that require a "domain name".

5/23/00 - 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM - Mail Server Down

The Mail server was down this morning and into the early afternoon. You may have experienced trouble sending and/or receiving Email. The mail server is now up and running normally, and you should no longer be experiencing trouble with Email.

11/30/99 - 8:45PM - Internet Link Down in Sandy Creek

The Internet Link from TCE to its provider, Verio went down due to more failures at Citizens Communications. Users were only able to retrieve Email and view local webpages. The problem was reported to Verio and Citizens, and was fixed at 10:38PM.

11/27/99 -11:45PM - Telephone System Down in Sandy Creek

All telephone service went down in the Sandy Creek area. The 56K dialup lines as well as the service for our Internet connection was down due to failures at Citizens Communications. Our 33.6K lines did answer, but users could not do much more than look at local web pages and retrieve EMail. It seems no telephone calls were able to get out of the 387 exchange either. As of 11/28/99 - 7:55AM service has been restored.

11/17/99 - TCE Internet Setup Master

TCE Now has a program that will automatically reconfigure your computer for the optimal Internet settings. It also reconfigures your Email and WEB browsers for use with TCE. Use this software only if you are setting up a new computer or are having serious trouble connecting to the Internet. The authentic copy can be downloaded from our setup page at http://www.tcenet.net/setup.html

7/30/99 - electrical storm

After the storm hit early Thursday morning, strange things started happening. Our web server seemed to be dead, no web page showing up, and our monitor going blank. However, the internet was still available to callers. After a day of trying all sorts of things, it turned out that a complete cold start of the computer was the answer, and the monitor again came to life. That was the web server - the place for pages & FTP files etc.
The high speed modems also began intermittently giving busy signals, then just ringing. Fixed this late Thursday night, only to have it recur on Friday. At this time both numbers are functioning, and no more busy signals. This required some extensive testing and rebooting of modem equipment. At the moment, although power was never lost, a fuse in another part of the building is blown, and the light on the telephone pole outside is out. Although this does not affect our Internet connections, it does indicate that miscellaneous strangeness has been happening as a result of the strong and sudden storm on Thursday.
It may be a good idea to protect your modems and phones in addition to your computers, either with good surge protectors, or by disconnecting lines going to your computer when you know a storm may be imminent.

4/28/99 7:40am

Hard Drive converted, Operating System has been upgraded also. These seem to be functioning well. However, there are adjustments being made to recognize incoming calls. (i.e. phones were not answering early Wed morning) Jon is still working on this and making progress. Up most of night with this re-installation, and looks ok.
NOTE:phone line connections were stable by 7:23 a.m. System Update complete.

4/23/99

Hard Drive Check --- UPDATE Sunday 9pm

** Upgraded HD is not yet ready to install, so downtime is being delayed. **
* There continues to be no problem with the current HD *
Situation mentioned below was caused by ONLY ONE ACCOUNT, No other account has caused the server to crash. System is as busy as usual, and e-mail is working. Tentative maintenance downtime is during the week, but in early, wee hours. ****

[Previous Message]

Because of unusual crashes that occurred late last Saturday and Sunday nights, and/or early Monday, we are doing a MAJOR checkup on the Hard Drive for our main Unix server. This must be done in the daytime on Saturday, since this is when the technical crew is most easily available. The system will be brought down to remove and replace the hard drive between 1:30 and 2:00. Please allow time for this to be completed if you find the system not responding at that time. The switch should not take over an hour, since the new HD will have been prepared beforehand. If you do notice a difference in system behavior AFTER this switch occurs, please send email to joeshmo@tcenet.net, or one of the techs listed on our Web Page. They will keep Jon informed. Thank You!!

3/10/99 1:00pm

More lines, better modems
We've put 24 additional phone lines/modems in, This is a special circuit which allows for up to 53k access using a "56k" modem. If you own a 56k modem, please upgrade to the latest firmware revision for the v.90 protocol to be sure you can establish a connection! These new modems will answer if all modems in the 387-2217 group are busy, however if you have a 56k modem, you can dial into these new modems directly by calling 387-6644. If there are no 56k modems available, the call will then resort back to the group of 33.6 modems in 387-2217.

1/24/99 3:00am

We're Back!!
Its 12 midnight in Las Vegas (3am in Sandy Creek), and I just noticed the link is back up! We don't know how the fiber damage came about, but were just told of the event. I suppose the important thing is that we're back online!

1/23/99 3:00pm

At approximately 12:47:32 this afternoon, there was a fiber cut occurrence in Watertown, NY. Several internet connections, including ours, were affected. What this means is that a major telephone cable was damaged, usually caused by someone's digging without checking for buried cable. The phone company in the area is now working on restoring service. This generally takes about 1/2 day.

12/16/98 2:30pm

Even though we have a high speed connection now, it seems people are now running into a problem where they cannot login at times. there is a new script that should fix this problem, even though I have had no luck in duplicating this error on any of our 3 windows95/98 test systems. Other operating systems dont seem to have a problem either. If you are still experiencing trouble, please send me a DETAILED MESSAGE of what exactly happens when trying to dial in. Send email to jmyers

12/3/98 12:07pm

Looks like we're FINALLY up and running on the new circuit. Please let us know if you have any problems. With this finally in place, we can again look forward to new and improved things in the way of more flexible services, web hosting, faster dialups, and faster access all around. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience in this time of chaos, and our all being at the mercy of the phone companies.

10/23/98 12:30pm

We are up and staggering along. Receiving Email should be working within the next couple of hours. Hopefully everything will be fully back on track within the next couple of days at a higher speed than before.
Our normal connection to the internet was removed from service without any warning whatsoever. It wasnt untill two days LATER that we at least knew what was going on. We are now awaiting for the phone company to install a DIRECT high speed dedicated circuit. Once this is installed, we will have a link to a major backbone provider who has a network all accross the US. This will solve many problems we are facing, and avoid the hassles we have been going through.
Sorry for getting this information to you a bit later then I had hoped, but I am approx. 2,500 miles away from TCE, and just TODAY finally obtained a connection to the internet, because of problems. We're waiting anxiously to get things back up and running 200%!!
We are terrible sorry for the inconvience, and are doing everything we possibly can to restore fully reliable service. Its just beyond our control at the present time.
Thank you for your support, understanding, and patience in this time of chaos.

7/21/98

We are testing out another modem. If you are one of the people who have been having problems connecting, please send email to joeshmo@tcenet.net and let me know if it has been any better lately. thanks.

6/29/98

Getting onto the Web Monday night

As some of you may know, we could not get past the TCE homepage last night. The problem seemed to be the phone company's long distance connections. Although our system remained up, the calls made were not being serviced and put through. The loca l phone company is not free with its information on all that goes on with their lines. However, they do have a person who assists ISP's with communicating with them. We are in the process of consulting with him concerning the latest glitch in phone line service.

5/24/98

New Modems - Found Solution?

We have been able to get a number of people back online by resetting thier modem before dialing in. The reasoning WHY the modem has to be reset is still unknown. It seems that Windows95 for some reason is passing the modem a bad setup string upon startup. To reset your modem before dialing into The Circuit's Edge, do the following:
From the START menu, select Programs, then Accessories, then Dialup Networking. RIGHT click on The Circuit's Edge and select Properties. Next go towards the bottom where is says Connect Using and select Configure. Select the Connection tab on the top of that window and click on Advanced. There should be a field labeled Extra Settings. Put the following in that space provided: AT&F &C1 &D2 W2 S0=0
You can also try using &F1 or &F2 to see if that has any effect.
Also note that after the C is the number one, and after the S is a zero equals and another zero.
Select Ok (3 times) and see if you can now get online easier.
The above Extra Settings is commonly referred to as a modem initialization string. The previous string should be somewhat generic, and work with all modems. If you have any questions, feel free of course to email me.

Extra Phone Jacks.

We have also found that using the AC adapter phone jack (not exactly sure what they are called. You plug one into a wall outlet, then plug your telephone line into it, plug another one in somewhere else in the house, and plug a phone into that in order to put a phone where there isnt a phone jack handily available) creates problems when trying to connect. For testing purposes, if you are having problems connecting, Remove any of these units that you are using, even if they are not directly used by your modem. If you have two telephone lines, then make sure the line for your modem does not have one of these devices, but the other line MIGHT be able to use one. (not sure, but I'm guessing it SHOULDN'T effect it).

5/20/98

New Modem Update

Even though the modem situation appears to be getting better, we are still having problems, and still working with various updates and settings to fix the problem.
The main problem appears to be when someone connects, and the two modems (one at each end) are trying to negotiate a common set of communications parameters. If this process fails, the modems will disconnect. HOWEVER, if this process completes, you get connected and will STAY connected until either you hang up the line yourself, or a problem with the line quality arises where the modem cannot re-establish the connection. I have changed the allowable time for this re-establishment from 6 seconds to 20 seconds.
We really have no control over the quality of lines that the phone company gives us. The equipment needed for a digital line for the phone/modem connections would cost more per month than the income from TCE plus my personal job.

Given the conditions for this area, running this service costs approx. twice as much as running a system HALF this size in Syracuse. 100% of the funds generated go back into the running of TCEnet, as well as anything that I can afford out of my own pocket.

Going back to the origional purpose of TCE: To provide an Internet connection to people in the Sandy Creek area who would otherwise have to pay high long distance charges to connect.

As always, any comments and suggestions are welcome. I can be reached most easily by email.

5/2/98

New Modems

We are "experimenting" with putting a new block of 16 modems online. We have been having some difficulty with these. If you have/had trouble connecting, PLEASE send email to jmyers be sure to say the TIME you tried connecting, or had a problem. We have some new modems and some old modems online to be sure that most modems can connect reliably.

4/17/98

A Get Together for Computer Users: April 20, 1998

The Sandy Creek Firehall will be the place to go Monday night from 7pm-9pm for a first get-together of local computer users! No need to be a subscriber to The Circuit's Edge, or even to be on-line! Any computer user will be able to meet others with the same interests. Tips and techniques, new sites to visit, info on the next Computer Show in Syracuse, and questions answered by fellow enthusiasts are some of the benefits of a local group.

Details are being handled by two of our local "experts" on how not to kill your computer ;) These two people have been members of the Syracuse PC Users Group, and feel they have greatly benefitted from that group. The current meeting in Sandy Creek will be like an extension of the Syracuse group -- i.e. they'll share "stuff" with us here <:*]

So, Bring a Friend, and we'll see you Monday!!

4/3/98

User's Group Mailing List:

Well, we are trying to get things somewhat started for a User's group by setting up a Mailing List. Basically, the way it works is by sending all the members of the list any email that is sent to the main list address. This way, people can talk openly over email to everyone on the list easily.
To subscribe to the list, send email to scacug@tcenet.net with ONLY the word subscribe for the subject of the message. Anything in the message portion will be ignored. You may also do this by clicking here: Subscribe

3/16/98

Spam:

We have implemented a few different kinds of "spam" (unsolicited, bulk e-mail) filters to block some kinds of these messages. We are continuing to improve on this as well.

Idle:

Please note that if you are not using the internet, disconnect to allow others to get online. I have seen people as Idle for two hours or *MORE*. I also see others who try to make it look like they are not idle by checking email every 2 or 5 minutes automatically. Obviously we can see past this, and various other ways people use to make it seem like they are doing something when they haven't been at their computer for 20 minutes or so!
It's very expensive to provide service for this area, and tying up phone lines does not help. Please help me to keep this service billed as "flat rate", by not putting us in a situation where we have to charge per minute. I dont mind your actively doing things on the net for 24 hours straight, just please don't tie up a phone line if you are NOT doing anything. It's been much easier to get online anyway, since the last addition of phone lines, plus we're going to be adding more!

3/2/98

Phones:

Phone company has FINALLY fixed the ringdowns, all modems answer, and when the system is full, you will get a busy signal now! We all know what THAT sounds like, unfortunately.

Even though we just added more lines, there are still times when the system gets "maxed out". So it looks like we'll need to do yet ANOTHER upgrade. This time, things get a little complex because we've maxed out the terminal server, so we need another one of those, this will add SUPPORT for 30 lines, plus the 15 we already have. More modems are needed as well. We'll be moving away from the standard "desktop" modems that have been giving us (and you) occasional trouble. The modem system we are looking at is very impressive, and a great many service providers have had a lot of luck with people connecting with all kinds of modems! We MAY even be able to provide 56k dialups!

ANOTHER Upgrade?:

This next upgrade will cost quite a bit, but will put us in a good position for easy future upgrades. Since this upgrade will cost a lot more than what TCE (and my own personal account) has available, perhaps you may be able to help by paying 3 or so months in advance.

Administration:

Unfortunately our main customer support representative has been transferred by his company, and is no longer in the state. He has e-mailed our current subscribers regarding this. He will remain in touch, and should be on line again within a week. However, we are looking at ways to remedy this setback. I myself am 200 miles from the server, and maintain it remotely. We do of course have some people on-site in Sandy Creek keeping an eye on things, especially in case of weather problems, etc. I will be going back up to Sandy Creek more frequently than usual, on weekends, to assist people who need more advanced help then anyone else can give. I will also be returning phone calls from where I am now if possible.

Under this "new" administration we will be answering and returning phone calls faster than in the past. PLEASE UNDERSTAND that, at this time, we provide a connection to the Internet ONLY. If you, or someone else "messes up" your computer so you cannot get online, it is not our fault, nor our responsibility to get you online again. However, because we understand what it feels like to to be without the internet when we want it, we will try to help in whatever way we can. For computer related problems, we can also refer you to a PC Specialist in the area who would be able to fix your problem if it is too much for you to handle. These people do not work for TCE, and you would be dealing with them and their business directly.

Meetings/Newsletter/UserGroup:

These are all needed, but we do not have the time to make it happen. It would be nice if someone could coordinate something along these lines. We would like to come out with a newsletter of some sort, and its on the drawing board for a not too distant future project. If someone has the ambition, perhaps a few people can get together, Email us, and work on coordinating something.

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It has been a pleasure to provide internet access to the area. We never imagined that it would grow so big. Thank you for staying with us, and for your support. We are doing our best in trying to accomodate everyone, but its been a real tough job.

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Any Comments? Questions? Suggestions? A burden on your heart? Feel free to Email one of us:

Jon Myers - Me! - System Administrator (basically the one who makes sure the system and hardware is up and running smoothly)



Bob Myers - Customer Support, Billing, General user administration. Available through e-mail only at this time.



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