DSL bonding

[Michael Butash]

Exactly, this is a common scenario these days, where people are stuck in
their area with their crappy legacy isp's that are unwilling to invest in
upgrading, or even just fixing what they have today.  Take back the power.
This is really on a per-ISP basis how good they are about doing so, but
cable providers seem WAY ahead of any traditional 2-wire telco.  Cox was
actually one of the best I've worked with, they actually fix old cable
plants they've acquired over time that are sub-standard, at least around
Phoenix.

Back in 2003 when I was looking at doing the residential isp thing, I tried
a few things, including mounting a big ass 2.4ghz antenna on my house and
doing some 802.11 testing outside to see what sort of performance I'd get
even from say my direct neighbor's house.  It was crap, even using proper
cisco high-power commercial AP's at the time, so mostly scrapped that as it
would be mostly unsupportable and/or unsellable.  There wasn't any better
other than Microwave, which was/is still quite pricey to do.

Last year working with a Cali municipal ISP in Santa Monica, they do
business and residential last-mile fiber for 1-10gbe connections, typically
much cheaper than anyone there as they reuse their own city fiber used for
traffic and emergency systems all over the city.  Any sort of construction,
particularly street cuts, gets uber expensive, so we started using some
wireless point to multipoint devices using technically 5g or mm-wave 60ghz
connections that can do I think up to 5 connections per unit, which were
small and non-descript.  We dropped these on a stop light we were in
already, pointed at the general area we wanted to cover, deployed our first
customer in a week.  It helped we *were* the city to do so, but not to say
you can't add a small tower in your backyard for the hood.

This came with 1gbps rates to each end node, at roughly 1000ft line of
sight, so was a bit more ideal potentially for a residential wireless isp
type of setup, or at least localized instances, and just needed to get a
1/10g single-mode ethernet connection to the multipoint unit.  Perfect for
neighborhood isp setups, this was using Siklu components, but Ubiquiti
makes them too, I'm sure others.  Even better after they start showing up
on Ebay cheap.

I love this sort of networking stuff, working around the Man and such,
building ISP's - I'm always happy to help explore these concepts if someone
is serious about wanting to do so.  Who's got the VC hookups?  Will work
for bandwidth.

-mb


On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 11:23 AM Jim via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> I read something once about a lawyer who set up his own ISP.  The phone
> company wouldn't supply DSL to the rural area where he lived.  The only
> internet service available was dialup.  He found that from the roof of his
> barn, he had line of sight to the building the law firm had its offices
> in.  He found some interested neighbors and set up a microwave link from
> his barn to the office.  The local phone company did lease him the lines he
> needed to provide DSL to his neighbors.
> On 8/20/20 2:28 PM, Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>
> Part of me really would enjoy setting something like this up. The new High
> speed and dedicated wireless/microwave tools we have now are pretty dang
> phenomenal and could lead to a decent wireless/wired hybrid internet
> service.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 12:19 PM Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <
> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure I could live somewhere with crap internet, I would probably
>> go about forming some sort of local isp of sorts if enough folks around to
>> be worth it.  It's not exactly hard, backward telcos and cable companies
>> can figure it out, it's all capital cost up front and who pays for it,
>> ideally more than just you.
>>
>> Circa 2003 at cox business, we had some baller customers with DS3's to
>> their house (one ran an isp in his basement), which really meant we
>> installed an OC3 fiber node there, and gave them a third of it.  These were
>> maybe $2000-3000/mo circuits, but the construction to get fiber to their
>> crib alone might be $30-50k.  One customer in the middle of a lake
>> community was more to build into.  Either they lock you into a 5yr or more
>> contract to make that construction cost back, or you pay it up front.
>>
>> Back then, I worked a lot with the project group that did construction,
>> so I sat down with someone and we looked at getting fiber to my house for
>> some baller service myself, ideally with some employee discount...  They
>> estimated roughly $35k in cost alone for construction, including
>> construction street cuts to bury fiber, permitting, etc, let alone service,
>> and mine wasn't terribly complex.  I considered reselling to neighbors, but
>> back then expensive gigabit options probably weren't too attractive to
>> general consumers in 2003.  I stuck with my cable modem, they didn't pay
>> that well.
>>
>> Today that would probably be equivalent to a 10GbE+ drop to your house,
>> but at scale of cost most likely.  Resell that to your neighbors for some
>> premium bandwidth, everyone wins, but presumes your neighbors aren't all
>> luddites.  Some rural communities are doing this, when AT&T and others
>> aren't shutting them down.
>>
>> -mb
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 9:19 AM Bob Elzer via PLUG-discuss <
>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd brush up on fiber splicing  lol
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:40 PM Jim via PLUG-discuss <
>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> AT&T is still fscked up.  The tech came out today and told me that the
>>>> cutoff for the service is 4800 feet and I'm 5136 feet from the box the
>>>> modem talks to.   He ran some test anyway and confirmed it's not
>>>> available.  He told me he has heard of no plans to bring fiber to my
>>>> neighborhood, but said it is available in a small town 5 miles up the road
>>>> from me in one direction.  3 miles down the road in the other direction is
>>>> a subdivision that has it.  The fiber runs next to the highway less than a
>>>> hundred yards from here.  I guess it's time to see what other options if
>>>> any are available.
>>>> On 8/16/20 10:39 AM, Michael Butash wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think it mostly comes down to the fact that they can only really
>>>> guarantee 2 or 4 wires to a premise for residential telco, probably more
>>>> modern deployments a full 8 wires (ala CatX), though their traditional
>>>> copper distribution isn't built for it unless commercial (their big PED on
>>>> the roads your neighborhood comes back to.  Probably something in the
>>>> telcordia standards back to ma bell days that says that is just how it is.
>>>> Since the plants are non-shielded, non-twisted pair cabling too, it can
>>>> only modulate so high, particularly when poorly run/done, which is why
>>>> you're stuck at 12mbps.
>>>>
>>>> If they had to change your home copper, they'd just run fiber, neither
>>>> will happen likely.
>>>>
>>>> The DSL bonding is already a hack to get more bandwidth when DSL itself
>>>> is stuck in time now at raw theoretical limits.  Combining more physical
>>>> channels as these were would be trivial, if copper were available, and
>>>> telcos wanted to support it.  Someone would need to make the modem too.
>>>> Technically cable modems do this, literally taking "channels" or slices or
>>>> spectrum on the wire, and load-balancing them internally, up to 24 or 32
>>>> channels for multi-gig capabilities.  Same with ethernet, taking 8 into a
>>>> port-channel and balancing across them, whether 100 megabit or 400 gigabit
>>>> ethernet.
>>>>
>>>> AT&T is the most ghetto provider out there still, and always has been
>>>> imho.  Moving to San Jose in '99, there was AT&T Cable TV installed by the
>>>> owners, which consisted of 2x of your standard coax ala modern cable from
>>>> the outside, and required a physical a/b switch box to switch between 13
>>>> channels on one, and 13 channels on another.  First I looked at it, and was
>>>> confused enough I had to call them and ask wtf the cable "channels" worked
>>>> to realize just how bad it was, and I then worked for the original @home
>>>> cable isp company then supporting AT&T cable modems!  The images were even
>>>> snowy, the service was so bad even a tech couldn't (read: wouldn't)
>>>> improve.  When I asked about a cable modem, they laughed at me, so I had to
>>>> get DSL (phat 1.5mbps then), disconnected the useless cable tv (yay usenet
>>>> alt.binaries.video even then), and threw up a finger to AT&T.
>>>>
>>>> I can only imagine how bad AT&T's DSL is if they couldn't figure out
>>>> even coax.  My experience supporting their customers for Cable Modem data
>>>> in '99, relatively new tech then, wasn't much better, as if the cable plant
>>>> to your house was broke, it tended to just stay broke despite our rolling
>>>> their techs to fix it.  Then they'd get angry at us for doing so and tell
>>>> us to stop rolling so many trucks to fix things.
>>>>
>>>> Sigh.
>>>>
>>>> Having grown up in Phoenix where Dimension, and later Cox actually had
>>>> their shit (relatively) together, this was an inconceivable atrocity but
>>>> exactly what I'd expect of AT&T.  Thanks to them (and Comcast, all the
>>>> media cartels now really) owning the FCC now with your tax dollars, it'll
>>>> never, ever, get better either.  Good thing Net Neutrality and consumer
>>>> rights weren't really needed after all!
>>>>
>>>> -mb
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 12:42 PM Jim via PLUG-discuss <
>>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 150 Mbps, you're lucky.  Here AT&T has to bond  2 pairs so I can get
>>>>> 25 Mbps.    At least it's not comcast.  I wonder how many pairs they could
>>>>> bond.  Is there a technical limit or is it just a matter of how many they
>>>>> want to bond?  As more people abandon landlines, that leaves more capacity
>>>>> for AT&T to bond multiple pairs for internet customers.
>>>>> On 8/10/20 11:21 AM, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> So I went through this moving from Cox to CenturyLink, and pretty much
>>>>> as described, fairly painless.
>>>>>
>>>>> <tldr>
>>>>>
>>>>> I had scheduled a CL tech to install me for new service a few years
>>>>> ago, and we first hit the outside where CL ran their cabling in.  It was an
>>>>> ancient telephony distribution from the 90's, and I've never had a
>>>>> land-line in my house since owning it in 2002.  My house built in 95 at
>>>>> least used cat5 or like, so I have 4 pairs to every room, so 2 pairs I need
>>>>> was just fine for bonded DSL  He ripped out the old block, removing the
>>>>> house cabling but the one, and isolated the particular line we needed to my
>>>>> office where the modem lives, added an approved jack, done.  Bonded dsl is
>>>>> 2x 2-wire channels, and they essentially load-balance 75+75mbps channels.
>>>>> I have tested this to n-by gigabit upstreams.
>>>>>
>>>>> Phone only guarantees 2 wires are available, so telcos built on this
>>>>> 100 years ago are a bit assed-out on passable high-frequency modulation
>>>>> schemas in use for data and other things to move beyond where they're at.
>>>>> DSL makes up for this, particularly when double up on wires it gets better,
>>>>> but still unshielded and prone to breakdown.  Problem is mostly it isn't
>>>>> shielded, thus capable of very high frequency modulation ala Cable/DOCSIS,
>>>>> so it will never go much further than it has today whereas Cable scales to
>>>>> gigabits with channelization and QAM modulation at 32bit rates.
>>>>>
>>>>> VDSL tech is capable of roughly 75mbps per channel, and 2x of these
>>>>> get you to around CL's bonded DSL limits.  This also includes your distance
>>>>> limitations to your local DSLAM, or regional router that terminates your
>>>>> data that degrades this eventually further you are from it, so it's a bit
>>>>> tricky.  It's been stuck here for years, and pretty much at life end.  This
>>>>> is why my cousin living half a mile from me can only get 75mbps from CL and
>>>>> I can with bonded @150mbps here.  Old crap network there.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fiber, particularly Single Mode, gives you whatever to ~100GbE, but
>>>>> depends on how your provider does low-rate Passive Optical Networking (PON)
>>>>> today for residential fiber.  Not quite the same as a business data
>>>>> network, but any fiber is better than copper networks.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why Centurylink's only hope for the future is fiber vs. copper in new
>>>>> builds.  I like my 25yr old house still, so no fiber for me ever.  Unless I
>>>>> street cut my block for fiber myself, which I've considered, just need to
>>>>> get my neighbors to buy into me as their new gigabit isp.  ;)
>>>>>
>>>>> -mb
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Aug 8, 2020 at 1:27 PM Jim via PLUG-discuss <
>>>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ok.  I won't complain if I have to go out and buy a 4 conductor phone
>>>>>> cord.
>>>>>> On 8/7/20 9:05 AM, Stephen Partington wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My understanding of this is that they will activate the second pair
>>>>>> that is commonly used in the RJ-43 port in your wall. This will allow 2
>>>>>> lines active to the device.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Changes inside might need to happen if your residence does not have 4
>>>>>> wire (2 line) compatibility. (IE 2 pairs to the jack vs 1 pair)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 9:10 PM Jim via PLUG-discuss <
>>>>>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Where I live, I get AT&T for my DSL service.  I've signed up for an
>>>>>>> upgrade from 10 Mbps to 25.  I finally got someone there who would
>>>>>>> tell
>>>>>>> me why a technician visit is required for the upgrade. They're
>>>>>>> bonding 2
>>>>>>> pairs to supply the faster speed here.  I've read up online about
>>>>>>> DSL
>>>>>>> bonding.  I understand that one pair will carry some of the data,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> the other pair will carry some.  But one thing I didn't find out was
>>>>>>> whether or not anything will change between the wall jack and the
>>>>>>> modem.  Is everything done outside or do they have to come inside?
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> currently have a 2 conductor cord connecting my modem to the wall
>>>>>>> jack.
>>>>>>> Will that have to be replaced with a 4 conductor cord?  Do they
>>>>>>> install
>>>>>>> an extra box outside or inside?  I guess all will be answered on the
>>>>>>> 18th when the guy is scheduled to be here.   I'm really curious how
>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> works.
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you
>>>>>> from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Stephen
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
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>
>
>
> --
> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
>
> Stephen
>
>
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