Midcoast Internet Solutions

System
News & Notices

Please check here for notices of system events
that may have or will affect your service.

To report a problem, please use our Trouble Ticket Form.
This form is the best way for you to let MIS know there is a problem. Answers to many commons question can be found through our Online Help pages. You can sign up to receive email updates when we post new notices to this page.

Current Notices

  • October 28, 2009 3:30pm. Belfast, Northport, and Islesboro Saltshed sites were moved to a new faster link to Rockland. This caused about a 60second outage.
  • October 18, 2009 There was a problem in Somerville at our Crummett Mountain tower location. This was traced to a bad wire connecting the batteries to our solar panels there. This was replaced and all is fine now.
  • October 10, 2009 There was a problem in South Hope this afternoon. This was located to a routing problem and was quickly corrected.
  • October 9, 2009 South Thomaston, Waterman's Beach repeater is down due to an extended power outage. Once power is restored to this location, all should be back to normal.
  • October 6, 2009 1:45pm. Something is broken, and DSL and Wireless customers are calling to let us know. We're not even sure what's broken yet, but a sys/admin is looking into it. 2:20pm. The problem was a broken ethernet switch at Benner Hill. This has been replaced and things are back to proper operation.
  • September 30, 2009 9:35PM A problem has been found with the link to North Haven. A tech has been dispatched to investigate.
  • September 29, 2009 We're having issues with our modem pools in the Fairpoint calling area. They're all ringing busy. A technician from one of our downstream providers says there's an issue at a Fairpoint switch. We're doing all we can, but it looks like we're waiting on Fairpoint. Update: Things seem to be working as normal as of 9am. If you're still getting a fast busy signal, please call us and let us know what number you're dialing.
  • September 16, 2009 We noticed some slower activity than normal for customers in Union and further west. The problem was quickly identified and corrected. There were no customer complaints regarding this, but customers who utilize these locations should notice a speedy increase on the Wireless Network.
  • September 13, 2009 A routine check of the voicemail messages this weekend yielded a higher number of voicemails than normal. Apparently, the wireless access point on the Islesboro School is acting up again. We've contacted the sys/admin, and he's going to reboot it.
  • September 8, 2009 Over the weekend, users of our accelerator software experienced trouble with this feature. The software vendor has fixed this problem. Users of this software may have to right click on the accelerator icon in the menu bar tray and clink of repair in order to resume using the accelerator software.
  • August 27, 2009 The Islesboro School Wireless access point is still acting strangely. This morning, an abnormal amount of interference was dectected at the AP. One of our techs is on island with a spectrum analyzer trying to determine the source. UPDATE: Spectrum analysis found a construction company using a 900mhz GPS system used to triangulate coordinates. They've shut their system off, and now all should be fine.
  • August 26, 2009 The Wireless access point on the school in Islesboro is acting up. Some people have service, some people don't. A remote reboot of equipment didn't help. We're on it.
  • August 25, 2009 Dark Harbor, Islesboro. The tower at this location has stopped responding, we are sending a crew to investigate with all needed replacement parts. Should be back and working later this morning.
  • August 20, 2009 There's an issue with a piece of equipment on Benner Hill in Rockland. We've dispatched someone to investigate. This affects many wireless and DSL users.
  • August 13, 2009 We will be working on a new Wireless link today that runs between Waldoboro and Rockland. There might be some short outages for Waldoboro Wireless users, and for Tidewater DSL users.
  • August 11, 2009 We have a tech working at the Islesboro School today for an upgrade. We expect an outage of about 20 minutes starting at 11:45am. After finishing that work, additional working will be done at the Dark Harbor tower site.
  • August 10, 2009 6:30pm Islesboro School is currently out of service, we are investigating the problem. Update: Construction on Islesboro took the power out for longer than estimated and outlasted our batteries. The outage was for about 30 minutes and all is back up and running.
  • August 10, 2009 We have a tech working at Dark Harbor upgrading antennas today. This will cause a few short outages in that area. Update, 3:44pm. Something seems a little off kilter currently. We're investigating.
  • August 5th, 2009 One of our techs is working in Jefferson, and he reports very strong thunderstorm activity. We would like to remind customers to unplug equipment during thunderstorms. And for DSL and dial-up customers, don't forget to unplug the phone cord too. Yes, electrical surges can travel over phone lines. Consider visiting our lightning information page for more info.
  • July 30, 2009 We have noticed some intermittent problems with the equipment at the Islesboro school today. We have sent a team over with spare parts to investigate.
  • July 29, 2009 5:15am-5:30am. There will be interruptions in Internet traffic during this time. We are upgrading one of our upstream connections and expect some short outages while things automatically switch to and from the backup connection while this work takes place.
  • July 27, 2009 5:30pm. Users of the Rose Hill and South Shore Drive Owls Head wireless repeater had experienced a gradual slowdown recently. This was caused by a tree in the way to one of our towers. We removed the tree, and that work has greatly improved the service through that repeater.
  • July 27, 2009 6:30pm. There will be a series of thunderstorms moving in the area this evening. We ask if you have one of these storms in your area to please unplug your broadband devices from power, or power and phone if a DSL system. This will help ensure once the storms pass that your internet connection will not be affected.
  • July 21, 2009 8:00am. Our Westport Island repeater location is down again for the same reasons as posted here for July 9th: no wind. This strange atmospheric condition will clear up by itself, believe it or not, when the wind starts moving.
  • July 17, 2009 3:30pm. We were able to repair the problems on North Haven that caused outages last night/today in the towns referenced below. This work caused some short outages for North Haven customers while the repairs were underway. In the course of this work, we have upgraded the link to North Haven and replaced the link to the Isleboro salt shed site. The link to Islesboro had been destroyed by lightning last night.
  • July 17, 2009 After last night's storm, the Islesboro salt shed link didn't come back up. Wireless customers who are north of the Islesboro salt shed are down. These access points would include Perry's Nut House, The Bluff repeater in Northport, Harborside/Islesboro, et. al. We have technicians dispatched to take care of the issue. We would ask for your patience; a few ferry rides are needed to get there.
  • July 16, 2009 The Internet feed to most of our north coverage area is down following the recent lighting storm. We are investigating. Towns that are out of service: Belfast, parts of Northport, parts of Islesboro, parts of Lincolnville, North Haven and parts of Vinalhaven. Update: Most of the link was restored about 20 minutes after going down. We switched to backup antenna on the system and almost everything came back to normal. As a reminder, if you have lighting in your area, be sure to unplug the power to your broadband equipment to prevent damage and service delays.
  • July 16, 2009 Our Nobleboro office will be closing one hour early tomorrow, July 17th. Due to unforseen scheduling circumstances, the physical office will close at 4pm. Phone calls to the Nobleboro phone # (207-563-8563) will still be answered by our Rockland staff.
  • July 9, 2009 9:45pm. Westport wireless is having an intermittent issue this evening due to strange atmospheric conditions resulting from have clear stagnant air and zero wind at altitude. This is a short term infrequent condition that clears up by itself.
  • July 9, 2009 6:30pm-7:45pm. DSL in the tidewater areas was out due to a wiring problem that we quickly corrected.
  • July 3, 2009 Isle of Spring, Waldoboro, Belfast are out of service following some lightning and strong winds. We have people investigating. Other people may need to re-power their own equipment following the power and lightning troubles.
  • July 1, 2009 Isle of Springs had Internet trouble due to an intermittent backhaul problem. A backup link was activated on the island and put into service. July 2, 2009 7:30am. We are presently switched over to the backup link while the problem is investigated.
  • June 29, 2009 8:40am. A problem was happening at the school on Islesboro. This has been corrected and all is working well.
  • June 26, 2009 5:30pm. Internet service is unreliable at the moment due to a denial-of-service problem affecting things upstream. People are working on correcting the problem. This was fixed about about 5:45pm.
  • June 23, 2009 Some wireless users utilizing the Owls Head Airport are having trouble today. We have tracked down the problem and have scheduled a tech to repair it today.
  • June 22, 2009 Technicians are working at Crummet Mountain today in Somerville to address a solar charging problem. This has caused some early morning outages recently.
  • June 19, 2009 10:30-10-50am. Thomaston wireless had trouble during this time due a failed power injector. This was quickly replaced and service was restored. Things failed again at the Thomaston water street repeater, and were fixed Saturday morning as soon as the rain let up enough to safely work the roof.
  • June 16, 2009 5:00pm. Isle of Spring wireless is out of service. 9:30pm. We have investigated things on the mainland and have found and repaired a problem at westport.
  • June 16, 2009 4:30pm. We are having a temporary problem with one of the mailservers for midcoast.com. This was fixed by 5:00pm.
  • June 16, 2009 4:30pm. Tidewater area DSL and Waldoboro wireless users are experiencing a slowdown at this time. We have identified the problem and are working on the repair. This was caused by a failed antenna and it was replaced at about 6:30pm.
  • June 15, 2009 7:31am. Crummet Mountain in Somerville seems to be having a problem which is affecting. Lenfest Mountain in Washington, Long Pond as well as Crummet Mountain wireless users.
  • June 10, 2009 2pm. DSL is out of service in the Tidewater/Lincolnville areas. We are working on the problem. 2:15pm. This was determined to a generator problem that is now fixed.
  • June 9, 2009 Somerville. One more adjustment was made to the Long Pond site. One other adjustment was found and corrected that improves performance for all other Somerville users.
  • June 8, 2009 Somerville, Long Pond. Our access point at Long Pond in Somerville was having some troubles this evening. We have found the problem and it has been corrected.
  • June 4, 2009 8:30am We're receiving numerous reports of an outage from wireless users out on the islands. We suspect a power outage. Those access points affected appear to be (but not limited to) Perry's Nut House in Belfast, the Fox Island Thoroughfare, and the Islsesboro salt shed. Update: 9am The problem was caused by a failed piece of equipment. This has been corrected.
  • June 2, 2009 Our Midcoast.com squirrelmail has attracted abuse at various times by spammers/phishers seeking a place from which to send their content. This is why they have asked for passwords and other information in phishing emails. As part of the recipe for countering this, we have installed a limit in the number emails sent per day in Midcoast.com squirrelmail. We suspect most people won't come near the limit, but we wanted to make it's existence and purpose clear.
  • May 29, 2009 Our Newcastle office is moving today. It will be closed for foot traffic but the phones will still be working. Our new location is on Back Meadow Road in Nobleboro. Turn east off route 1 and we are the first left, directly across the street from Tidewater Telecom.
  • May 24, 2009 1:00pm. There wass a problem with lincoln.midcoast.com mail server. People with lincoln addresses couldn't receive email via POP, or with our web based Squirrel Mail. It's been corrected.
  • May 22, 2009 1:00pm. There is a problem with our 563-8563 Office phone number. We have someone investigating.
  • May 14, 2009 The server luwak was down for a time this morning due to a failed power supply. A new spare power supply was installed and things were working by 9:15am. This may have caused some email delays for some hosting customers.

Old System News & Notices:

The following links represent all the system notices from MIS since we started saving them in 1996. Happy Reading!

Year Month
2009 1 2 3 4 5
2008 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2007 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2006 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2004 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2003 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2002 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2001 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1999 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1998 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1997 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1996 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

329535 visits
updated Wednesday, 03-Jun-2009 14:38:40 GMT-4
photo credit: 2600 Magazine