DSL bonding

[Michael Butash]

Saw this today, interesting.

https://testmy.net/hoststats/spacex_starlink

-mb

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 2:09 PM Jim <azanorak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wait until Musk's Starlink is available.  Legacy phone companies offering
> DSL won't have a chance.
> On 8/22/20 9:05 AM, Michael Butash wrote:
>
> 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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>>>>>>>> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> 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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>>>>>
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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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