🚀 go-pugleaf

ericy@cais.cais.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:

>In article <50t4vs$roc@shado.jaguNET.com>,
>Jim Jagielski <jim@jaguNET.com> wrote:
>>ericy@cais.cais.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:
>>
>>At least with ISDN, you don't "compete" for the line, so you can
>>be assured of your 64-128bps.

>	I hope you mean 64-128Kbit/sec :-).  Sorry, couldn't resist.

Ack! Yep. I did :)


>>Although you may enjoy 10Mbps on the cable network, the rest of the
>>'Net is not there. Most ISPs are T1 or possibly T3. So what good is the
>>pipe being capable of 10Mbps on the cable-side when, as soon as you
>>move over into the "real" part of the 'Net, the odds are very, very
>>good that the place you are connecting to has, at most, a T1, and
>>between you and them there might be who-knows-what.

>        I see your point, and it is one I have already thought of.
>I have a couple of comments.

>        First of all - T1 speeds are acceptable.  If the cable modem gave me
>1Mbit/sec I wouldn't be upset.  Prior to getting the cable modem,
>I had a 14.4 connection via a traditional modem.  It is slow, it ties
>up the normal phone line, I get a dropped connection when someone calls
>me (because I have call-waiting).  I needed something better, and this is
>a cost-competitive alternative to ISDN.  Actually I know people who have ISDN,
>and getting customer support from Bell can be a real pain at some times.

One big concern is how big of a pipe does Jones have to the 'Net. From
what I can see, it looks like a T1. So they have thousands of customers
with cable-modems who expect 10Mbps performance, but once they leave
the cable network, they all pass through a T1.

In any case, a true T1 is expensive... expecting true T1 performance at
$30-40/mo is kinda unrealistic, unless you stay within the cable company's
network.

It's for this reason that almost all cable-TV providers who also have
or plan to offer Internet access promote their "online community"
aspect of it. They hope that they can make-up for the drastic performnace
drop when you leave their network for the "general" internet by
providing intensive content on their local network, where you can
hope to actually achieve some part of the promised performance. They know,
and will even admit, that their Internet access part of it suffers and
is not better than what's currently achievable with POTS. Instead, it's
sort of like a high-speed "online service" with a gateway to the 'Net.

>        Secondly, let me ask how much you pay for ISDN per month?
>Are you paying any usage fees?  Have you been following what BellAtlantic
>has proposed to the PSC's in both MD and VA?  If Bell were to get
>their way, residential ISDN would be more than twice as expensive than
>what I am paying for the high-speed access via the cable modem, and
>all you get is a physical medium that is 80 times slower.

Residential ISDN in MD is still somewhat a joke and, IMO, way to expensive
to be considered a viable alternative. When you can get unlimited POTS
for $20/mo and unlimited ISDN for $260/mo, well....

>        The main disadvantage that I see to the cable modem is that I
>cannot get into the machines at work.  All of the work machines are behind
>a firewall, and I cannot telnet past it to get to our machines there.  To
>get into the machines at work, I need to dial in with a traditional modem or
>ISDN.

Again, this is because they want their "online community" to be unique
enough (and selective enough) that people prefer using cable.

That, plus the fact that outside people downloading their multimedia
stuff would put SERIOUS load on their Internet pipe.

>>Also, simply due to the design of the cable infrastructure, data over
>>cable-TV lines will never be as noise-and-interference-free as the
>>phone system (it's very easy for noise from a neighbor down the block to
>>leak into _your_ cable and drastically reduce throughput). Cable has
>>a place in the market, as do all ISPs. It's a very big "niche" market-
>>place :)

>        I am not sure if I buy this.  Remember that they pulled fiber-optic
>lines where I am.  My understanding was that this was a prerequisite for
>the high speed data stuff - possibly for the reasons you cite.  The limited
>benchmarks that I have done so far show that I get 400-500Kbytes/sec getting
>to the mail server, which shows me that the medium is basically delivering
>what was advertised.  

Sure. As long as you stay on their side, you can get what's expected,
at least now when not that many people are using it. Once more people
start using it, you have to content with the additional data going thru
the cable-pipe as well as possible noise and interference being pumped
into the cable (depending on the infrastructure design). With most cable
designs, the ring-structure, rather than the star-structure is used
for layout. Thus, it's much easier for noise from one point to propagate
through the cable and affect other points. Fiber-optics will prevent
outside contamination, but not internal junk :/

Nevertheless, most cable co's are smart enough to promote the online
aspects of their service, with the Internet access as an added bonus
rather than the Internet access exclusively. In that, they have a very
nice market to appeal to.
-- 
Jim Jagielski  << jim@jaguNET.com >>   |   "There is a time for laughing,
  **  jaguNET Access Services  **      |    and a time for not laughing,
      Email: info@jaguNET.com          |    and this is not one of them"
++    http://www.jaguNET.com/         +++      Voice/Fax: 410-931-3157       ++