CenturyLink/DirectTV

[Michael Havens]

yep a read the whole thing. woosh! right over my head!

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Michael Butash <michael at butash.net> 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/DOCSIS>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Passive_optical_network<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_optical_network>
> http://www.netoptics.com/**products/network-taps<http://www.netoptics.com/products/network-taps>
> http://www.netscout.com/**products/service_provider/**
> nSAS/sniffer_analysis/Pages/**InfiniStream_Console.aspx<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.
>>
>>  ------------------------------**---------------------
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-- 
:-)~MIKE~(-:
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