🚀 go-pugleaf

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.

>
>>        From what I can tell, the problem is somewhere on the MCI
>>backbone. I did some ftp benchmarks to the mail server at jic.com, and I
>>routinely get ftp transfer rates of about 400-500Kbyte/sec.  I believe
>>that this is quite close to the theoretical maximum transfer rate you
>>would expect from 10Mbit transfer medium.  Perhaps their gateway is
>>slow or something, who knows.
>
>Of all the backbones, I'd doubt that the problem would be with
>MCI. They have the most technologically advanced 'net so far.
>Now Sprint, on the other hand, I'd believe :) :)

        Yeah, the problem is that I don't know enough about the local topology
for me to be able to figure out exactly where the problem is.  I know that
the physical medium is delivering what it is supposed to be delivering,
and the problem lies somewhere beyond that.

        The benchmarks that I have been doing were between this machine and
erols.com.  traceroute shows that the packets are going through MCI, cais.net,
and erols.net (I can give the exact traceroute to anyone who is interested).
The reason I mentioned MCI is that I would sometimes get long latencies
partways through the traceroute when it was doing the MCI part of things.
The problem could just be congestion on the gateway from jic.com to MCI.

>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.

        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.

        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.

>That being said, cable is a fantastic medium for data transmission.
>Most cable comps try to make the most of it by caching data on their
>network and providing as much "multimedia" glitz on _there_ side.

	This wouldn't be unreasonable.

>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.  

	From my perspective JIC just becomes like another ISP, so I will end
up rating them in terms of how well they provide service, keep the lines up,
respond to growth, etc.  There may be other technological problems that crop
up as more and more people sign up - this is all fairly new, and I am sort of
a guinea pig here.  Only time will tell.

	If it sounds like I am a big booster of the cable-modem, I guess I
would have to admit that it is kind of exciting.  Getting the physical
connection working was a piece of cake as it turns out.  I still have minor
problems (I am still trying to get them to put my machine in their DNS tables,
and they still haven't done it), so not everything is perfect over here.

	Even for people who cannot get the cable modem, it provides an
important benefit.  Bell appears to be taking the position that ISDN is
the Cadillac of connections and that people should be forced to pay Cadillac
prices.  With the cable-modem, ISDN begins to look more like a Chevrolet,
(I suppose the 14.4 modem would be like a Yugo :-) and the service must be
priced appropriately.  If we succeed and residential ISDN is priced
reasonably, then this would limit the ability of JIC to jack up the rates in
the future.

-Eric

-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."