yep a read the whole thing. woosh! right over my head! On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Michael Butash wrote: > Qwest/CL DSL has always proven spotty *at times* with anyone I've ever > known using it. As a network guy I inquire with fellow geeks I know, and > they let me know. Generally the residential side of Qwest/CL fairly weak > on troubleshooting most issues because of simple physical problems that > often cannot easily be overcome with 2wire systems. If you can get VDSL, > it's decent from what I've heard, as long as you have new wiring, in a new > area, and live close to where every they dropped the local dslam. Most > fall NOT into this category. > > Data comes in the form of modulation, and consider 10baset requires 4 > wires still, gig ethernet 8. 2-wire is poop compared to the modulation and > speed capable on _shielded_ coax. Qwest has simply had to push the > envelope with dsl tech to remain relevant in the market, eventually > resorting to new wiring (twisted-pair i think), often with some shielding > now to achieve it which is hardly traditional for a telco outside of > business service. Eventually they had to begin to roll fiber as they were > reaching unpractical limitations in their 2wire tech to modulate data at > *competitive speeds*. > > Fixed point-to-multipoint ala old sprint broadband and various others > operate in parts that do it too now, sometimes a decent alternative where > available I've heard (cave creek area). At least until it is > oversubscribed to hell. Sprint acquired independents here in town setting > them up, but ultimately they oversold it to death, and finally shot it in > the head to finish years later. Not sure this isn't the eventual outcome > of any wireless deployment. > > Satellite is a last-resort option with as stated, latency and bandwidth > caps (extreme point-to-multipoint far, far away). > > If celco's weren't so greedy/proud of wireless LTE tech, it would be > decent as a fixed solution as well as mobile as latency and throughput is > much improved. I couldn't run the small datacenter in my house with it > though. I can however get a LTE EHWIC for a Cisco router now that > customers can and do use as a "backup" solution when someone back-hoe's > your businesses fiber. > > Qwest/CL fiber deployment, like fios is "pon", passive-optical network > based. These are not to be confused with anything like optical ethernet, > sonet, dwdm, etc that are "active" optics. Cable, dsl, most non-optical > (generally) are subject to async behavior as you have a small modem, and a > very large cmts and active amplifier network driving very large coax feeds > at headends and active optical from there. Fiber doesn't have so much > those physical limitations so long as the laser can use power in the diode > to shoot your frames from here to there some ways (active zx single-mode > optics can shoot 60km for gige, raman based dwdm amps much further). PON > is a cost-effective way of aggregating fiber in a controlled fashion as you > somewhat would a copper plant, only now the techs roll with portable fusion > splicers and otdr's instead of qam test kit for coax. > > Cable is where it's at, when fiber is not. I've too worked at cox, and > actually back to @home and offshoot isp back in the day when they started > the tech before cox as media whores figured out what IP was. The modulation > and timing that drives docsis 3.0 is very scalable for a copper means, and > it's nothing cox will need to dig up and replace anytime soon. Other than > being a bit proud of watching and working it along the way, it's solid tech. > > I have some issues with Cox ultimately, but they are one of the less evil > of the isp's out there, and generally have much improved stability over > most anything else. Generally speaking, the only time I call them is when > truly something dies (arizona is hell on coax), as I don't require network > support otherwise. I've used them off and on a good 14 years for data, and > as long as you have a clean physical connection (modem levels can tell > you/them this), it's pretty damn solid. Business services gets you someone > out to fix your stuff asap vs. 2-3 bd, and open ports (cox blocks > surprisingly less than you might think these days on residential - not even > https). > > So far pon is driving speeds comparable to cable with qam docsis 3.0 now > that they're channel-bonding to aggregate much as wireless tech does in > 802.11n. Pon is capable of 10g speed down, 2.5gb up. That is why cox and > other cable mso/isp's killed analog off, to reclaim huge/clean spectrum to > reuse for wide-band operation across more spectrum to compete with this. > They're ability with modems and cmts channel/timing management to > auto-provision docsis allows them to optimize channel/spectrum bonding/mimo > usage, allowing them to simply keep adding more bandwidth. > > Data on cable used to be shoehorned into a small chunk of spectrum (what > good is data? cox, circa 1996). Now that wastful tech is off, it gives > them more channels to use from 200khz to 6.4mhz. Things like qam at 128 > now allows for huge modular data streams, and diverse ones to offer assured > data/video/telephony, or the "triple play" holy grail of service provider > income. Only video and wired telephony is getting deprecated these days > with personal mobile telephony/data and the tubes. > > Speed, even stability is becoming less of an issue these days once you get > beyond 2wire poop and physical transport issues. Real problem is they all > see the decline of legacy services like video and telephony, and now data > is consuming their services so they feel the need to manage, or queue the > traffic. The routers or cmts or dslams all have intelligent QoS > capability, and by default sort your data and queue them selectively > according to their rules, not yours. Illusion of neutrality has generally > been long gone if you understand queuing and qos concepts, as your data > will always be subject to some level of priority that comes down to > src/dest ip and port. Them over you, profitable vs. non-profitable. > > Like qwest/cl (especially with government boot on their back since mabell) > or any intelligent isp, cox has multi-1/10g devices sniffing/tapping your > data as well, looking at damn well whatever they feel like, and probably > sharing more than you care to know. Any enterprise, or service provider > worth a damn does. Most devices do netflow, are tapped, include "lawful > intercept" features, span, tap, whatever. All your data are belong to them > - encryption is your friend. > > Cox is a marketing company, and a media company - remember that. They > can, but do far less than other cable isps such as comcast. They have the > same hardware to limit bittorrent and other sharing as comcast does, but > don't. They ran usenet servers (distributing binary files!) for years > (somewhat knowingly of the warez). They don't tromp the tubes or netflix > as just about everyone does. They have decent peering as well, but > Qwest/CL overall is better due to business relationships. > > Integrity of your personal data will prove to be the real mettle of your > service provider in the near future. It's not a matter of if the look at > your data - they do. It's a matter of how they queue it, and whether they > give, sell, or get hacked, giving up your data as a flow, description, or > entire tcpdump in pcap format. Yeah I'm a bit paranoid, but I have built > the tech for companies to do it. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**DOCSIS > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Passive_optical_network > http://www.netoptics.com/**products/network-taps > http://www.netscout.com/**products/service_provider/** > nSAS/sniffer_analysis/Pages/**InfiniStream_Console.aspx > > If you read this far, take asprin. :) > > -mb > > > > On 07/27/2012 11:58 AM, jill wrote: > >> >> I have to think my experience is probably atypical or they'd be rioting >> in the streets. But, you asked I answer. :) >> >> We switched to Qwest about a year and a half ago when they ran new fiber >> through our neighborhood in Chandler. No TV, just data on a business >> account for static IP and all ports. It was actually decent for a good >> long while, never had to call in for support. When we called for basic >> account stuff they were easy to work with. Speed varied quite a bit >> from the advertised 'up to' we paid for, but eh - shared dsl/cable, >> don't expect much. Then from 6/12 to 7/15 we had 6 (known) outages in >> excess of 60 minutes. Everything from failed DSLAM cards and gateways >> to 'oops we botched a vlan tag' and 'gee we don't know but hey it's >> working now'. Trying to deal with them on any of those was painful at >> best and terribly enlightening. There is nowhere in all of CL a DSL >> subscriber, including a business account, can ever sit and talk face to >> face about their account. Only fiber/t1/pri circuit accounts get that. >> Stores can only do sales, no account access at all. I had one call >> where I was transferred 8 times before being told that all departments >> who could do account support were closed (at 6:30pm on a weekday, having >> initiated the call at 4:40). Their policy is to cold transfer calls so >> you're constantly re-explaining - been told this policy by I think it's >> been 3 different CL reps. We're actively switching back to Cox right >> now. It's a bit pricier, but I know as both business or residential I >> can go into stores and get help if I need to and on a business cable >> account you get a real live human account rep. So if that's the sort of >> that's important to you, it's worth considering. (full disclosure >> disclaimer: I am also a former Cox employee, but we're talking 6 years >> ago. I've also worked for 2 other cable companies over the years prior >> to that, so I recognize my ISP standards may be excessively high!) >> >> I don't know if something might have changed at CL recently, especially >> with Eric's experience that they changed residential port blocking in >> June. Your mileage of course may vary, but I'd hesitate to sign a >> contract at least at first if you decide to try it out. >> >> ------------------------------**--------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.**phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.**us/mailman/listinfo/plug-**discuss > -- :-)~MIKE~(-: