Is Road Runner dropping the Macintosh platform, or is the problem encountered by users a flaw in the Macintosh OS? MacTimes has some answers from both Apple and Road Runner. First a little background. Road Runner offers cable based access to the Internet in more than 30 cities throughout the United States. Road Runner uses a mix of vendors and technologies to deploy their service for the various markets it serves. Road Runner uses a number of affiliates to provide service in the various markets, the largest of which being Time Warner Cable. Recently reports have begun to surface of Macintosh users unable to use, or reliably use, the Road Runner service in certain markets. Upon investigation the problems appeared to be linked to Mac OS 8.5 and OS 8.5.1. The problems did not however initially occur when either of these versions of the operating system where released. Instead the problems began to surface only recently, and only in certain market areas. Initially Road Runner, and local Time Warner affiliates, had no explanation for the problem. They simply stated that they could no longer support OS 8.5 or 8.5.1 and were investigating the problem. Representatives from both companies quickly changed their tune recently and begun to blame Apple, stating a bug in the OS was causing the problem. Many news organizations, including this one, did not buy the early explanations. Rumors had surfaced that Road Runner was upgrading its infrastructure, down to the cable modems in users homes, and that this may be the source of the problems. Representatives from both Road Runner and Time Warner vehemently denied the upgrades had anything to do with the problems. Some employees of both services went as far as to express aggrevation at having to cater to such a small portion of the overall PC market. Upon recent investigation by MacTimes and others, it has come to light that the problems are in fact related to both the Macintosh OS and the equipment upgrades. Specifically, Apple has identified a bug with DHCP in Mac OS 8.5.x that causes problems with losing an IP address on certain machines. News of the bug, which is not Road Runner specific, first surfaced on Macintouch, and was subsequently identified by Apple Computer. Symptoms of the bug can range from an inability to get an IP address following a crash, to a loss of IP address following a period of inactivity. According to Apple the problem has to with IP leases and the assignment of IP addresses after a restart. Apparently Open Transport, after a restart or after a lease on an IP has expired, will try to re-establish contact with the DCHP server using the old IP address. Unfortunately some servers do not operate in this fashion and the Macintosh then in effect ends up with a bogus IP address. Apple, in private if not in public, has admitted that the problem stems from a mistake in deciphering the DCHP protocols. Apparently the problem had not surfaced earlier with Road Runner do a reliance on certain hardware which was able to effectively communicate with the Mac OS. Apple is reportedly working on a fix for the problem, which will be included in Mac OS 8.6 and also be available as a separate Open Transport installer. Rumors that Road Runner is dropping support for the Macintosh platform appear to be based in mistaken communications on the part of Road Runner and Time Warner employees. It would appear highly likely that front line Road Runner and Time Warner employees have mistakenly been advising prospective customers that the companies no longer support the Mac, or at least, Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1. These statements, when filtered through hundreds of users and prospects, resulted in widespread speculation that the Mac was being dropped. One Road Runner employee had this to say on the rumors, "I have no doubt that, in some cases, our national, level 2 tech support people - which serve all divisions - have inadvertently told subscribers from other divisions that we aren't supporting 8.5.x, which isn't the case." The employee goes on to add, "While this is not an ideal situation, and one that folks within Road Runner are working to improve, it is a far cry from Road Runner abandoning the Mac. That simply isn't happening." There of course still those at Road Runner that deny any hardware upgrades had anything to with the recent problems. According to employees of Road Runner, they were already deploying new cable modems before 8.5 was released. According to these sources no problems occurred until the introduction of OS 8.5. These reports are not however consistent with reports from end users. revenue. In the end it would appear users of OS 8.5 or OS 8.5.1 will have to wait for the OS 8.6 upgrade, or trying downgrading their version of Open Transport in the meantime, to fix this problem. That is unless Road Runner develops their own fix first.
Bob Nunn - President, Operator Headgap Systems President, AppleCore of Memphis, Inc. E-mail: headgap@headgap.com
*=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | Operator Headgap Web BBS | V.34 Modem : (901) 759-1542 | | Supporting Mac, 64&128, Amiga | 33.6k Support: (901) 759-1543 | *=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | Visit our TeleFinder Site at: bbs.headgap.com - port 1474 | | Visit our Telnet Site at: telnet://bbs.headgap.com:1474 | | Visit our WWW Site at: http://www.headgap.com | | IP Address: 208.246.252.34 Fast ISDN Web Access! | *=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* | New AppleCore Web BBS Page http://www.headgap.com/applecore.spml | *=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
