Re: [PLUG] Switching from Cable to DSL

["William H. Magill" <magill@mcgillsociety.org>]

On 22 Apr, 2004, at 16:31, MJH wrote:
> On Thursday 22 April 2004 3:53 pm, Paul wrote:
>
> > Free wireless router, after rebate.  I think it's a Linksys.
> > 1st month free, although I will have to pay shipping of the install 
> > kit.
> > Since I have a Verizon calling plan the cost after the first month 
> > will
> > remain at $30 per month.
>
> > Comcast cable connection.  The question is, what should I expect when
> > switching to Verizon DSL?  Will I need wacky PPPoE software?
>
> Verizon is PPPoE. There's a couple of linux PPPoE tools that work fine 
> with it
> (or did last I had a direct Verizon line).
>
> > I'm just wondering, other than being less stable and
> > not as fast as cable, is there anything else that I should be aware of
> > before switching?
>
> Less stable? Admittedly I'm not on direct Verizon anymore, but the 
> only outage
> I've had in the last year was when some idiot tech switched the phone 
> lines
> (there's two to my apartment, one was live the other wasn't as I hadn't
> bothered paying for a second line). That wasn't a DSL problem, the 
> phone was
> out too. I had more outages from Comcast (cable line would drop for up 
> to an
> hour every few weeks at one point, once for over a week).
>
> Slower depends on who's on your local loop and what they are doing. 
> Whilst I
> don't get 3Mb/s downloads anymore, I also don't get 28k crawls when the
> neighbours are online. (Both of which I saw when I had cable).
>
>
> I'm currently using a Verizon provisioned line through dca.net, which 
> gives me
> static IPs (which verizon does not), linux friendly and clueful tech 
> support
> (verizon will, last I heard, insist you boot into windows before 
> they'll
> provide support), but they are more expensive ($50/month).

I have the same setup - DCAnet as ISP and Verizon as DSL provider; have 
been since the "begining" -- when Bell Atlantic first offered DSL.

I have multiple static IP addresses, a "real" line (no PPPoE).

I'm in Evergreen CO, and normally have "perfect" service -- at least 
for periods of weeks at a time. (I run a monitor program locally). Then 
they (Verizon) "upgrade" some piece of equipment in the CO or do some 
other such thing and the line starts to flap -- outages of a minute or 
two every 10-90 minutes over the course of a week or more ... sometimes 
severe flapping in a 2-4 hour period, sometimes seriously random (to 
the point that without my monitor program, I would not notice the 
flapping.)

One useful thing -- as of 1 January, I think it was, Verizon gave DCA 
access to their remote testing equipment. Now when you call in a 
problem, DCA can check with you on the phone without having to pass off 
a trouble ticket to Verizon. They can evidently do all of the remote 
reset functions, even to the DSLAM in the CO, which solves 98% of the 
problems.

Right now I'm seeing 1441/370 according to DSLreports.com

I'm also in Road Runner (Time Warner aka Wade Cable) territory and have 
been tempted to see if they are as useful as they appear to be. I know 
that they have a different backbone structure than does @home aka 
Comecast, so their results should be more consistent and "high speed." 
At one time, RR offered dedicated IP addresses. I do not know if that 
is true anymore or not.

But since I run my own mail server and web server (mcgillsociety.org) 
[i.e. DCA does not block any ports] and have come to rely on the 
reliability of the DSL connection, I hesitate to switch to cable since 
the upload speed is not as fast as the DSL connection.

Before he became a Freshman this year, my son did a lot of on-line 
gaming, mostly with the old Bunginet.com, with no "lag" problems on his 
end, and "good" "Ping Times." [On-line gamer jargon which must mean 
something -- but I have yet to find any definitions meaningful to 
anyone with a networking background, but damm, it sounds impressive!]

The interesting question will be -- how bad will performance suffer 
when we start seeing VoIP traffic on any kind of regular basis. One 
assumes that wide-spread acceptance will still depend upon IPv6 
adoption, but it is possible to implement QOS control at the hardware 
level... so only time will tell. [ An one assumes that any of the Cable 
providers offering VoIP service will provision it so that VoIP traffic 
has a higher priority than "plain internet" traffic.]


T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com

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