Zap!

We had an electrical storm blow through last night and had one bolt of lightning hit fairly close. This morning when I went downstairs for breakfast I noticed that a couple circuits blew. Aside from the refrigerator, my Vonage router got fried. I tried a hard reboot but only the power light comes on, I get no link light from either the modem or the switch connected to the LAN side.

I'm a bit surprised that the Vonage Linksys box got zapped because I have an APC PNET Ethernet surge protector between it and the modem, and both boxes get their A/C from an APC BackUPS 650. Before leaving for work I took the Vonage box out and threw an old Cayman 2E-H in its place, hoping to at least restore Internet connectivity. No dice, I think the PNET got fried, too.

After I get home tonight I'll see if I can get the Cayman online if I plug directly into the modem. I know the modem itself is online because I was able to poll it from the office using our NMS (it's nice to work for your ISP as an engineer :-)). If the Cayman doesn't work it'll give me an excuse to install the Netscreen 5GT demo unit I have at home.

We'll still receive calls if anyone dials our home number because we have Vonage configured to forward calls to Judith's cell phone if the VOIP line is down.

I called Vonage tech support from the office. I think I was speaking to someone in India. I explained the situation and while the tech sounded sympathetic, he couldn't send me a new router without me in front of it to troubleshoot. I understand having a script to adhere to but when the damn box won't come up, it's time to bend a little. At my insistance, he transferred me to a supervisor, who (a) sounded like he was actually in the US, and (b) agreed that a new router is warranted. So, Vonage is shipping us a new box and we should get it Monday.

ETA: It turns out that not only was my Vonage router fried, so was the uplink port on my Netgear 8 port switch. I did get back online with the Cayman, which just needed some reconfiguration, and determined that my APC PNET Ethernet surge suppressor was not affected. The surge must've come through the power line, not the cable line.