| Big Sky Telecom Technical Support | ||||||
![]() Do
you have questions about us or
your service? Business email: sales@bigskytel.com Technical email: support@bigskytel.com After Hours on call technician, 208-447-6351 |
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| Technical Support Information | ||
| Technical Support Number | 208-398-7380 (Voice) | |
| Office Hours | Monday thru Friday: | 10am to 6pm |
| Saturday | 10am to 4pm | |
| Sunday | Closed | |
| Technical Support Announcements | |
| Grey - Info notice ****** Yellow - Warning/Minor notice ****** Red - Severe/Outage | |
| 6-24 Jun 2006 | Dialup number 581-9975 is getting fast busy 9:44am. Service restored 10:12am. |
| 6-10 Jun 2006 | Bogus Basin wireless down - backhaul radio being replaced 9:27am. Replaced bad cable, all okay. 11:30am |
| 5-3 May 2006 | Network went down again. Found bad ethernet switch, replaced. ALL OK. |
| 5-2 May 2006 | Network was down twice. Looking into problem but network came back up. |
| 2-12
Feb 2006
|
Network problems have been periodically and randomly going on. We have been having everything from a few customers affected to every customer affected at different times. We have found a couple customer's machines with infected with virsuses spewing out tons of traffic and spam. We have found some servers in China trying to hack through our defenses resulting in our network getting some denial of service attacks. We have had two radios go out and we have had some internal network issues as well. We have replaced internal equipment in looking for some of the "unknown" network issues. Every few minutes our DSL network takes about 10 seconds of hit, no bandwidth issues but we do find an packet error from time to time. We are continuing to scrub our network for the errors and block more ports that are compromised by the internet. If you experience problems or something worked that no longer works, please call us for support or email support@bigskytel.com with the issue/problem for us to address. - ALL WORKING 3-4-06 |
| 11-26 Nov 2005 | Network problem found 3:00am causing network stoppages and lockups since 11/11. Internet address coming inbound to Big Sky Telecom broadband customers at random causing the network to take massive errors and packet loss resulting in the network resetting on its own to affecting a complete outage. Internet site blocked 4:30am. All working well. Big Sky will continue to monitor. |
| 11-25 Nov 2005 | Complete Network outage, all systems affected. 2 hours down. 2pm to 4pm. Primary switch locked up again. Reset three more times. Equipment replaced. |
| 11-24 Nov 2005 | Complete Network outage, all systems affected. 3 hours down. 5pm to 8pm. Primary switch locked up. Reset twice. |
| 11-11 Nov 2005 | Big Sky Telecom is experiencing repeated network stoppages that last for 30 to 60 seconds. Internet access, logins, Wireless and DSL, emails, VPNs and other services are experiencing periodic interruptions. Big Sky continues to look for the interruptions. |
| 10-27 Oct 2005 | New Internet Backbone delivering more speed and bandwidth is operational today. Broadband customers are notified to change IP addresses. If you are a Big Sky Telecom Wireless or DSL customer and haven't received an email to change your IP address, please call 398-7380 for assistance. |
| 10-23 Oct 2005 | Dialup service was interrupted at 10:30am lasting till 4:00pm. Qwest had a major node go out of service and backup parts were delayed in getting in for replacement. Not everyone was affected, but the 581-9975 dialup number was in the service interrupted area. |
| 10-14 Oct 2005 | Wireless backhaul link to Payette experiencing ongoing interruption of service. The link is up but data is not passing in one direction. Will continue to monitor. |
| 9-15 Sept 2005 | All broadband services took a denial service attack from the Teardrop DOS attack. Service was interrupted from roughly 7:30am to about 9:00am. A broadband user's machine got infected and was launching the DOS attack unknowingly. It was isolated, removed for repair and service restored. Please keep firewalls updated and virus software updated! |
| 8-24 August 2005 | Email services have been updated with more SPAM filtering and virus protection. We have also increased the security for "outgoing" emails. You need to set SMTP Authentication (i.e. logon) if you are using an email program instead of webmail when sending an email outside Big Sky. We apologize for any inconveniences but the internet world we live in today forces us to keep updating and changing to stay somewhat ahead of the abusers. Call if you have any problems and we can assist you. |
| 8-24 August 2005 | We have been experiencing intermittent timeouts and slow wireless speeds to the Caldwell Airport access, and to some of the Freezout and Payette customers, we found a piece of equipment that was causing random network floods. |
| 8-17 August 2005 | We have some customer experiencing routing problems, where they cannot go anywhere on the internet at times. If you are experiencing any routing problems please call for assistance to resolve the problem. |
| 8-4 August 2005 | Since Thursday, August 4th we have been experiencing a denial of service outage off and on daily. We have been troubleshooting this needle in the haystack. We have isolated down to a couple networks and we have a bad router port as well. The router has been swapped out as of Sunday 8/7 at 7:10pm. Two networks disabled to be worked on Monday. All other customers are running at this time. |
| 6-29 June 2005 | Major outage on Squaw Butte Tower - lightning strikes took out two towers including tower Big Sky radios and antennas are on. Big Sky lost three radios. Equipment was replaced and sService was restored at 2:30pm. |
| 5-10 May 2005 | Freezeout Tower upgrade was done today. Service was interrupted for about 30 minutes installing a new piece of equipment. If you are still experiencing problems, please call us 398-7380. |
| 4-9 Apr 2005 | Major Outage 7:50am. All services affected. Found and replaced central core switch with backup switches, service restored 12:30pm. If you still have problems please call 398-7380. |
| 4-2
Apr 2005 |
New private IP addresses down, router failed. Replaced all okay. 8:00am |
| 3-26 Mar 2005 | New wireless tower performance problems on Emmett bench. 7:00pm Locked up access point in remote support. 1:00am All restored manually. |
| 1-31 Jan 2005 | Purple Sage tower down 1 hour and 24 minutes. Power failure and restoral with new battery backup then regular power back on. |
| 1-21 Jan 2005 | Wireless is experiencing massive interference for the entire week. The inversion appears to be the culprit, all towers in the Treasure Valley are experiencing intermittent performance hits and outages. Signals spike then go away and some can't connect from time to time. No problems found otherwise. |
| 1-15 Jan 2005 | Boise wireless will be down at 1:30pm for repairs to antenna from ice damage for approximately 1 hour. |
| 12-8 Dec 2004 | Power outage on Squaw Butte, Idaho power has section of valley out of power, affects Customers off Bogus Basin as well. Notice outage at 6:30am (automatic notification failed), idaho power says 17,000 homes including the towers on Squaw Butte affected all the way to Garden Valley. No ETA as of 8:05am... stay tuned. |
| 12-7 Dec 2004 | The wireless link on Bogus Basin down at 5:00am, power related. Back up at 8:00am. |
| 11-13 Nov 2004 | Wireless link to Caldwell is experiencing intermittent errors. Swapped out radio and cable today. Service was up and down for 3 hours this moring 10:30am to 1:30pm. |
| 11-12 Nov 2004 | Dialup number 947-0928 was down for 30 minutes around 4:30pm. New routing domain name services by ELI were updated. Changes made by Big Sky, all okay now. |
| 11-1 Nov 2004 | DSL service outage, service up but no routing. 2 hour duration outage. No problem found. Qwest claims all service was up. All Okay. |
| 10-15 Oct 2004 | Backbone internet service took hits, no information found , service intermittent. |
| 7-9 Jul 2004 | All Dialup services can use either the old number 947-0928 or the new number of 581-9975 till further notice. |
| 7-4 Jul 2004 | Intermittent service on new dialup number - please revert back to the 947-0928 number till further notice. 7:00pm |
| 7-4 Jul 2004 | Dialup service restored 11:50am, authentication for user's access ID and password server repaired. |
| 7-4 Jul 2004 | Dialup Access outage: Known fro 7:00am to 11:50am. User authentication server failed, repaired and backup put back in service. Failure unknown. |
| 7-3 Jul 2004 | Dialup service restored 9:07am... failed router replaced. |
| 7-3 Jul 2004 | Router failure: A router on the new dialup access failed late last night, it is being replaced, service will be up as soon as possible. |
| 6-23 Jun 2004 | Power Outage: Some areas will be affected with Idaho Power's mandatory rolling blackout from Hells Canyon to Pocatello starting at 6:30pm to last up to 2 hours. Some services affected. |
| 6-23 Jun 2004 | Dialup problems started late in the evening on 6/22 and finally corrected at 10:30am today. Radius server failed. Radius servers do the user authentication which grants or denies accesss to the internet. We regret the inconvenience. |
| 6-1 Jun 2004 | Notice: Big Sky Telecom is changing the main dialup number to 581-9975 for the Treasure Valley effective immediately. The old number will not be valid after 6/31/2004. |
| 5-7 May 2004 | *** SERVICE OUTAGE *** Idaho Power had an unexpected city wide power outage in Emmett. The power was out for a little over one hour. When power came back up, our primary authentication server would not come back online. Replaced harddrive and reloaded system. This affected dialup users for more 3 hours. |
| 5-4 May 2004 | *** SERVICE OUTAGE *** Main windows web server went offline at 2:30am. Service back up and operational 3:50am. |
| 5-3 May 2004 | New Windows "Sasser Worm" virus out on the net. Windows 2000 and XP affected. Go to http://www.norton.com/ for information. |
| 4-21 Apr 2004 | Big Sky Telecom replaced its windows domain server, if you are having Frontpage access problems, please contact support@bigskytel.com or call 398-7380. |
| 4-20 Apr 2004 | Squaw Butte wireless went out of service at 8:00am, restored at 9:55am. Ethernet switch power failed, replaced, service operational again. This affected all Squaw Butte customers and Bogus customers. |
| 4-18 Apr 2004 | Double Outage! Wireless in Boise was down till 2:45pm. Another company accidentally pulled Big Sky Telecom's cables on one radio out of service. Fixed 2:45pm. Denial of Service attack on main network from Sprint through to Big Sky roughly 5:20am partial service back up at 7:45am, full service back up at 9:10am. DoS attack was not traced, monitoring for more. |
| 4-17 Apr 2004 | Notice. On Tuesday 4/13/04, Microsoft released some vulnerabilities they have found. Check Microsoft's website for any necessary updates you may need. |
| 4-17 Apr 2004 | Notice! Idaho Power scheduled power outage for 1 hour from 2:00am to 3:00am for all Emmett. Big Sky Servers will be shutdown temporarily for this maintenance window. |
| 4-4 Apr 2004 | 2:00am Sunday morning wireless link went out of service. Backup radios put back into place. 45 minute outage. All Okay. |
| 4-3 Apr 2004 | Intermittent problems worsen on wireless link to Big Sky, replaced ethernet switch and installed two backup radios to roll over if problem continues. Outage 3 hours. |
| 4-2 Apr 2004 | Wireless link from Freezeout to Big Sky Telecom having intermittent outages beginning at 9:30pm. Will monitor. |
| 2-27 Feb 2004 | *** SERVICE OUTAGE *** Major Outage at 5:20pm through 8:15pm. Several systems compromised due to Denial of Service attack. Two systems pulled off line, compromised. 9:50pm to 10:35pm Denial of Service attack hit again. Third system pulled off line. All back up, large mail backlog. |
| 2-25 Feb 2004 |
Interference in the AM on the Bogus tower causing some performance issues, then at 2:00pm the service went out on the repeater site on Squaw Butte. 5:45pm a power supply was found to have gone out on the repeater radio. Replaced power supply all okay now. |
| 2-24 Feb 2004 | Payette tower experiencing bad performance, repeater link appears to be okay but data isn't passnig. 4:30pm found ethernet connection on outside exposure corroded. Repaired, all okay now. |
| 1-30 Jan 2004 | Email Server Crash! Email server has
stopped responding to logins 5:20am. There was a problem logging onto your mail server. Your Password was rejected. Account: 'pophost.bigskytel.com', Server: 'pophost.bigskytel.com', Protocol: POP3, Server Response: 'could not connect to mysql update server Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) with database', Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0x800CCC90, Error Number: 0x800CCC92 |
| 1-26 Jan 2004 | New mass mailig worm virus! This affects email, please update your virus protection software. See info here: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a@mm.html |
| 1-23 Jan 2004 | EMAIL Server Crash! The Big Sky Telecom email server has crashed, 11:55am. It is only partially working and we are continuing to work on it. 2:30pm Email server back up as of 3:25pm. If expecting specific emails, please contact sender to check and/or resend. We apologize for any inconvenience. |
| 1-23 Jan 2004 | Denial of Service attack approximately 6:30am, network data overflow. Back up 6:50am. |
| 1-20 Jan 2004 | Bagle Virus out there... keep your virus protection software up to date. The Bagle Virus will have a "Hi" in the subject line and it can be from someone you know unsuspectingly. If it has a file attached ending in .exe DO NOT click on it. BST servers block most .exe files. Click here for more info on viruses and free antivirus software if needed: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php |
| 1-19 Jan 2004 | Wireless services off Wilderness Ridge tower (Bogus Basin) experiencing heavy interference. DoS (denial of service) has been minimized. Worked with customer to fix apparent problem, still working on issue. Please contact support@bigksytel.com if continued issues on performance. |
| 12-19 Dec 2003 | Entire Network Down... 5:02am. Bad LAN switch, replaced bad switch, all back up 7:40am. |
| 12-17 Dec 2003 | All broadband at Big Sky Telecom is being affected by a Denial of Service type attack daily. The bandwidth gets totally used up for a few minutes, then resets. Replaced routers and now have replaced a radio. Continuing to work on finding culprit. |
| 12-2 Nov 2003 | DSL is performance issues worsening. Worked with Qwest, apparently router is taking several errors. Will replace router with spare router, service will be interrupted momentarily as changes of equipment need to be reconfigured. 11:30am through 5:00pm today |
| 12-1 Nov 2003 | Noticing DSL host router locking up. Ethernet card is taking errors, ordering replacement. Will continue to monitor. |
| 11-8 Nov 2003 | 10:35am 11-8, power supply died, replaced, back up 10:44am. |
| 11-2 Nov 2003 | 9:12pm 11/2 - Payette, Clay Peak tower out of service. Tried resetting bridge manually as well as replacing switch, no change. Access Point radio has gone bad as it will not keep the ethernet connection alive. The radio will be replaced on Monday 11/3 during light hours. |
| 9-26 Sept 2003 | 2:50pm Email Services restored, however problems still exist with some new accounts, domain emails, and recent changes. If your email isn't working, please call into support for assistance. |
| 9-26 Sept 2003 | Temporary Outage Notification: Big Sky Telecom's email services down. 7:55am MDT, 9/26. Outage was caused by a failed harddrive sharing services between primary system and backup system. Both systems were affected. |
| 9-9 Sept 2003 | Extremely high interference Treasure Valley wide... appears to be coming from Bogus Basin area. We are working to pin point it exactly and work with whomever might be causing the interference. We are continuing to work on the issue. |
| 7-31 July 2003 | AOL blocked emails from Big Sky Telecom customers for almost 12 days. An AOL customer complained that Spam was originating from Big Sky Telecom's email servers. AOL put a block on from ALL Big Sky's emails. In working with AOL, Big Sky Telecom was able to get unblocked. At this time AOL doesn't know exactly what was the issue but they were unwilling to check with their customer to determine the problem. Unblocking occurred on 7-31-03. It started 7-20-03. |
| 7-24 July 2003 | SPAM emails - Big Sky has instituted new SPAM filters and beginning Monday 7-28 more SPAM mail will be blocked. Big Sky Telecom uses industry "best practices" services and programs to reduce SPAM emails. We can't block everything nor can we guarantee everything blocked is SPAM. If you have difficulties, please contact support. |
| 7-17 July 2003 | NOTICE: Major backbone failure at telephone company for dialup customers. Service outage 5:00am to 2:00pm. A backbone gateway router at Electric Lightwave went out of service during the early morning hours while trying to upgrade. It caused ELI outages nationwide. Services are back up. |
| 5-11 May 2003 | Wireless radio experiencing problems on Big Sky Telecom's rooftop. Six new radios were installed to provide more bandwidth and better performance. One of the new radios is dropping out of service and only "hard resets" are clearing it. We have a another new one coming to replace it. This affects Payette, Boise and Squaw Butte wireless customers. These are new 5.8ghz high speed Motorola Canopy radios. |
| 4-19 April 2003 | T1 backbone service restored 11:45am! |
| 4-19 April 2003 | Sprint backbone T1 lines down as of 9:45am! Sprint Gateway router in Seattle had a piece of equipment go out. It was out of service for 2-1/2 hours. |
| 4-15 April 2003 | Email service restored, 9:20am. One change had to be made. The email login ID (or username) needs to now be the full email address: i.e. Joe Blow had user ID of jblow and now it has to be jblow@bigskytel.com. The server crash reason is not known. We were unable to correct the crash and the backup system would not operate. A new mail system was being tested for a future release and we had to implement it instead without testing. So far all is working. Please let us know if you are having problems and tell anyone you know who has our service if they are still experiencing a problem. It is most likely our server change. |
| 4-14 April 2003 | Major Email Outage! The mail server and backup server at Big Sky Telecom have both crashed. At this time there is no information on what the damage is. A new server is being constructed and emails will be restored as soon as possible. We regret the failure. Emails not received prior to the crash will still be delivered. Any urgent emails, please contact those individuals of the outage. |
| 9-12 Mar 2003 | We are upgrading the equipment on Squaw Butte Sunday through Wednesday, you may experience possible intermittent outages. |
| 20 DEC 2002 | We have been experiencing problems at the Squaw Butte location, and because of this we will be working on the equipment at that location today with possible intermittent outages. |
| 17 DEC 2002 | We are swapping out the access antenna with a new type on the Payette tower today. We expect minimal interruptions of service with this equipment change. The new antenna is build to deflect some of the background interferences that we have been experiencing in the Payette area. |
| 16 DEC 2002 | The link from Emmett to Boise went down at approximately 1:30pm today and was down until about 6:30. Western Communications installed some new equipment into the same building on Squaw Butte that our service occupies, We were not informed of this equipment change that also required our wireless equipment being moved to another part of the building. The wireless equipment had not been plugged back in correctly which caused some system down time until the problem was resolved. |
| 06 NOV 2002 | A new Email server was brought online today, to meet the growing volume of email. The migration schedule was accelerated due to rapid deterioration of the former email server. All customers of current and future domain accounts will have to use their full email address to retrieve their email from the server. (address example: john@domainname.com). Customers can manage the emails for their domains via web interface: https://mailgate.bigskytel.com/cgi-bin/qmailadmin. Note: Customers requiring a password for the domain interface access need to contact bigsky support for assistance. |
| 04 OCT 2002 | *** FYI *** Wireless internet service in Emmett and Boise for all towers experienced over 2 hours of constant interference that kept service basically unusable. After that time, the interference cleared and service went back to normal. Big Sky continues to experience interference bursts daily and are working to rectify it for the future. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 21 SEP 2002 | *** FYI *** Wireless internet service in Emmett experiencing interference off Squaw Butte and Freezeout towers. Interference has been intermittent for two weeks. Big Sky is continuing to troubleshoot and isolate. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 17 SEP 2002 | *** FYI *** Wireless internet service off Squaw Butte tower affecting Emmett, Sweet, Ola and Boise was down due to an Idaho Power mountain outage. Service was interupted for 2 hours. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 29 DEC 2001 | *** FYI *** Wireless internet service in Boise is still seeing performance issues. Thanks to a customer we are seeing a Denial of Service attack at our backbone router and excessive non Big Sky network traffic which is affecting the wireless performance. We are continuing to work on it at this time. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 25 DEC 2001 | *** FYI *** Boise wireless internet service is experiencing excessive interference. At different times of the day and evening our signal is being interfered with. We know this is happening and are working to see whether we can get past this interference. Peformance problems took place in the evenings of the 24th & 25th. Please check back for status periodically. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 20 DEC 2001 | *** FYI *** Big Sky Telecom backbone internet service is experiencing performance problems on mostly inbound service at the Emmett location. Inbound affects email access, logon, and domain name queries (DNS). Wireless and dialup customers alike are affected at different times of the day. At present this service isn't causing any outage of service. We are working with Sprint our backbone provider to resolve these issues. Please check back for status periodically. Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 17 DEC 2001 | *** SERVICE RESTORED *** Big Sky Telecom wireless service off Squaw Butte tower has been restored. Idaho Power has installed the new power and we are up and running. We have new equipment that will be replacing and adding onto equipment on the tower. The new equipment should provide a better access and throughput as well as sustained service. Battery backup will be added to help provide continuous service as power or radio repairs due to snow can cause delays. If you are a Squaw Butte wireless customer and are still having problems, please email support@bigskytel.com or call 398-7380 for assistance and troubleshooting. |
| 16 DEC 2001 | *** FYI *** Big Sky Telecom wireless service off Wilderness Ridge tower experienced poor performance most of Saturday late evening to Sunday morning approximately 10:00pm to 2:50am. This was due to excessive interference.BigSky Support |
| 16 DEC 2001 | *** FYI *** Big Sky Telecom service was interrupted briefly due to Sprint maintenance outage.Big Sky Telecom Support |
| 14 DEC 2001 | *** SERVICE OUTAGE *** Big Sky Telecom wireless service on Squaw Butte has been interrupted due to weather and power outage. Squaw Butte is solar and battery powered. Due to the abnormal weather conditions, service was interrupted beyond repair. On Monday December 17th, a crew is schedule to replace equipment and meet Idaho Power for permanent power setup. We will notify customers when power and service is restored. Big Sky Telecom Support |