> From: Paul Lussier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:26:25 -0500 > Subject: Comcast [ was Fedora Eight is out on the streets!]
Oops, yes. I ought to have changed the subject line. Sorry. > Comcast (and other CATV providers) *still* seem to think of > themselves as a TV provider first and foremost, thinking the ISP > portion of their business as a secondary income stream. Actually (Paul, look the other way) Verizon is guilty of this, too. When I was shopping around for DSL service (10/2007), I found it *really* difficult to find an ISP that offered so-called "dry loop" DSL. That is, offer DSL service without having voice service. I made it clear to these companies that *I had the telephone wires* but not *telephone service*. Instead, these companies claimed that, in order to provide DSL, they had to line share with Verizon and that (drumroll, please) Verizon had "not yet" released the rights to line share for dry loop service. In other words... Verizon, by third-party contract, will force you to subscribe to their voice service if you want DSL on the same line. Interestingly, I *was* able to find one company (yes, ONE company out of all those listed in the yellow pages under "Internet Service") that was able to offer a dry loop at my location (downtown Dover). Even more interesting is the fact that this company, MV Communications, seems to be the same company that hosts GNHLUG.org. $ host www.gnhlug.org www.gnhlug.org is an alias for liberty.gnhlug.org. liberty.gnhlug.org has address 199.125.75.42 $ host 199.125.75.42 42.75.125.199.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer gnhlug.colo.mv.net. Could we have actually, finally, found a fair, competent, and affordable ISP? I do hope so. > People want to buy "access" to data. They may call it TV, Telephone, > Internet, but it's really, truly, fundamentally all "just bits flowing > through tubes". Telcos get it, and they control it. CATV doesn't and > never will. Interesingly, in this absolutely fascinating article: This agrees with my experience. Telephone companies have been in the business of switched data networks for decades (remember, Comcast didn't invent digital telephone). The cable companies, rather, are quite in the position of hacking data service on top of what they designed to be a radio (RF) signal distribution network. The telcos do appear to be much better at this. By way of annecdote, I'm a VoIP user. For the past year or so (prior to subscribing with MV), I've used VoIP over cable internet provided by Metrocast and, later, Comcast. After switching to DSL I've been receiving comments about how the my call quality has improved. The connection is "the clearest it's ever been", one person told me. I've also noticed a decrease in the end-to-end delay on my VoIP calls since switching to DSL. (And, yes, I made sure I set my TOS bits.) Clearly, the telco is doing *something* right. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
