Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Paul Heinlein]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Russell Senior wrote:


"Paul" == Paul Heinlein  writes:


Paul> On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Dick Steffens wrote:

On 10/03/2017 07:43 AM, Paul Heinlein wrote:

I'll note that if you rent a cable modem from Comcast, but would 
rather use your own routing and/or wireless gear, you can ask the 
installer to disable wifi and use bridging mode. The tech may 
look at you funny, but s/he'll do it for you.


They did it for me with no funny look.


Paul> At least he didn't charge me extra for it. :-)

This is based on anecdotal, third hand information, but I have heard 
that those tweaks will work until they roll out new firmware, at 
which point the local tweaks get paved over.  I don't claim that is 
reliable information, but it sounded very plausible.


My recollection of the process was

1. connect new modem
2. wait forever for thing to boot up
3. activate it
4. apply requested changes (wifi, bridging)
5. reboot
6. wait for firmware update
7. reboot
8. test

It could be that the firmware update in #6 was merely a reapplication 
of the existing firmware, with changes, but I didn't get that 
impression.


I guess we'll wait and see.

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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Russell Senior]

> "Paul" == Paul Heinlein  writes:

Paul> On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Dick Steffens wrote:
>> On 10/03/2017 07:43 AM, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>> 
>>> I'll note that if you rent a cable modem from Comcast, but would
>>> rather use your own routing and/or wireless gear, you can ask the
>>> installer to disable wifi and use bridging mode. The tech may look
>>> at you funny, but s/he'll do it for you.
>> 
>> They did it for me with no funny look.

Paul> At least he didn't charge me extra for it. :-)

This is based on anecdotal, third hand information, but I have heard
that those tweaks will work until they roll out new firmware, at which
point the local tweaks get paved over.  I don't claim that is reliable
information, but it sounded very plausible.

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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Paul Heinlein]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Dick Steffens wrote:


On 10/03/2017 07:43 AM, Paul Heinlein wrote:

I'll note that if you rent a cable modem from Comcast, but would 
rather use your own routing and/or wireless gear, you can ask the 
installer to disable wifi and use bridging mode. The tech may look 
at you funny, but s/he'll do it for you.


They did it for me with no funny look.


At least he didn't charge me extra for it. :-)

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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Dick Steffens]

On 10/03/2017 07:43 AM, Paul Heinlein wrote:

> I'll note that if you rent a cable modem from Comcast, but would 
> rather use your own routing and/or wireless gear, you can ask the 
> installer to disable wifi and use bridging mode. The tech may look at 
> you funny, but s/he'll do it for you.

They did it for me with no funny look.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens

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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Paul Heinlein]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2017, Russell Senior wrote:

On Comcast, you have a choice to either own or rent the modem. 
However, in either case, Comcast controls the modem.  If you connect 
your own, the first 15 minutes after plugging it in is occupied with 
Comcast updating the firmware with their own.  If you want control, 
the thing to do is a) buy the cable modem; b) get one with no 
wireless interfaces; and c) use the modem in the default bridging 
mode and plug in your own router on your side of the modem.


I'll note that if you rent a cable modem from Comcast, but would 
rather use your own routing and/or wireless gear, you can ask the 
installer to disable wifi and use bridging mode. The tech may look at 
you funny, but s/he'll do it for you.


--
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Russell Senior]

> "Michael" == Michael Barnes  writes:

Michael> I was just looking at who advertised service in the area. You
Michael> will typically only find one provider per medium in a given
Michael> area. As a rule, you will find one telephone system (DSL),
Michael> possibly one cable TV system, and in some areas one fiber optic
Michael> system. These may be under one or more companies. So,
Michael> CenturyLink may be the telephone carrier and XFinity may be the
Michael> cable provider. And, in the same area, it is possible to have
Michael> Frontier providing fiber service. 

If Frontier is the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC), which means
they own the old twisted pair copper telephone wires, then they will own
the fiber there too.  I know of no cases where Verizon/Frontier deployed
fiber anywhere but within their ILEC service territory, at least for
residential service.  If I am wrong, I would love to get the details.

There are also Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC), like Integra.
They are able to lease the old copper and switching office space from
the phone company at non-discriminatory rates to provide service to
customers.  There used to be Covad as well, no idea what happened to
them.

Business service is somewhat more competitive, but also quite expensive
and spotty.  It used to cost a few kilo-dollars per month to get "metro
ethernet" to a business, and it only happened where a service provider
was already nearby, and they could justify the expense to drag the fiber
to your building from their nearest fiber run.

In Portland, the franchise agreement with the City stipulates (or did,
and I haven't heard that it changed) that Comcast will provide service
to pretty much any address.  I think that applies to everywhere covered
by the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, which I think includes
Gresham.


-- 
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Michael Barnes]

I was just looking at who advertised service in the area. You will
typically only find one provider per medium in a given area. As a rule, you
will find one telephone system (DSL), possibly one cable TV system, and in
some areas one fiber optic system. These may be under one or more
companies. So, CenturyLink may be the telephone carrier and XFinity may be
the cable provider. And, in the same area, it is possible to have Frontier
providing fiber service. Unlike electrical service, there are no rules in
place to make carriers provide their transport to other providers.
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Tomas Kuchta]

No escape is the intended design. There is term for the current state -
Regulatory Capture.

It is where encumbents capture a market and it's regulator. This is classic
economy 1:1 by the book - see who writes regulatory laws, who controls the
regulator and all the regulations.

If there would be escape, there would most likely be working market.

See Wikipedia for more:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture


On Oct 2, 2017 11:01 PM, "Russell Senior"  wrote:

> > "Michael" == Michael Barnes  writes:
>
> Michael> [...] You indicated you are in 97230, which is Parkrose. Makes
> Michael> no difference what ISPs are in Gresham. It looks like your
> Michael> choices are CenturyLink DSL, XFinity cable, and possibly
> Michael> Frontier fiber (if they have it to your house).
>
> It would be very rare that an ILEC leaves its home territory, so if you
> are Frontier land, you may be able to get Frontier DSL and/or may be
> able to get Frontier FiOS.  Or if you were in CenturyLink land, you may
> be able to get CenturyLink DSL and/or CenturyLink fiber.  But I have yet
> to see a location that have access to CenturyLink options and Frontier
> options at the same time.
>
> Note also, that on old-style DSL (speeds up to 7Mbps) you can often
> choose a third party ISP, such as SpiritOne or Hevanet or the like.  Any
> DSL that is faster than that can, with high-probability, but held
> exclusive to the party that installed the infrastructure.  This is by
> misbegotten design of the FCC and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
>
> There is no reason, other than policy, that one fiber operator can't
> provide infrastructure for all services and all service providers.  The
> vertical integration of telecommunications is an ongoing mistake that
> continuously harms the consumer for no reason other than the enrichment
> of the monopolist rent-seekers.
>
> The policy makers have provided one escape route from this trap.  That's
> the route I think we should all be taking.
>
>
> --
> Russell Senior, President
> russ...@personaltelco.net
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Russell Senior]

> "Michael" == Michael Barnes  writes:

Michael> [...] You indicated you are in 97230, which is Parkrose. Makes
Michael> no difference what ISPs are in Gresham. It looks like your
Michael> choices are CenturyLink DSL, XFinity cable, and possibly
Michael> Frontier fiber (if they have it to your house).

It would be very rare that an ILEC leaves its home territory, so if you
are Frontier land, you may be able to get Frontier DSL and/or may be
able to get Frontier FiOS.  Or if you were in CenturyLink land, you may
be able to get CenturyLink DSL and/or CenturyLink fiber.  But I have yet
to see a location that have access to CenturyLink options and Frontier
options at the same time.

Note also, that on old-style DSL (speeds up to 7Mbps) you can often
choose a third party ISP, such as SpiritOne or Hevanet or the like.  Any
DSL that is faster than that can, with high-probability, but held
exclusive to the party that installed the infrastructure.  This is by
misbegotten design of the FCC and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

There is no reason, other than policy, that one fiber operator can't
provide infrastructure for all services and all service providers.  The
vertical integration of telecommunications is an ongoing mistake that
continuously harms the consumer for no reason other than the enrichment
of the monopolist rent-seekers.

The policy makers have provided one escape route from this trap.  That's
the route I think we should all be taking.


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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Keith Lofstrom]

> "Lou" == Lou   writes:
Lou> Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP
Lou> near Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.  What is the best
Lou> ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like to tink
Lou> and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.

>From the 97230 zip code and "Gresham", we can infer that
Lou is in NW Gresham (between 162nd and 201st, between
Burnside and the Columbia).  I'm guessing he is in the
CenturyLink "zero infrastructure investment zone".  His
broadband options may be Comcast Residential ($$) and
Comcast Business ().  Regards DSL, see below.

On Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 03:48:29PM -0700, Russell Senior wrote:
> The ILEC in Gresham is Frontier, I think (I don't live in Gresham, so
> that's a guess).  I don't know what Frontier does on fiber.  Comcast is
> almost certainly also available there.

My sister, in a condo in southwest Gresham, is on Frontier
DSL.  Not sure if she could get FIOS even if she could
afford it.  However, there are some new, small third party
providers specializing in new deployments to apartment
and condo complexes.  Much of the new construction in
the Pearl district is provisioned this way.  Also, some
new  apartment buildings out here in the 'burbs.

Here in Beaverton, we once had Verizon FIOS.  Verizon
was *excellent*.  We chose the slowest speed (15/5) at a
decent price, and it was a REAL 15/5, no Ookla Speed Test
"up to" nonsense.  I looked at scraps of the fiber optic
material they installed; single mode armored, 50 year
construction, and capable of terabit bandwidth if the
optical terminals are.  In the near term, they split
the feed to the street through a wavelength division
multiplexer, so we could have expected future upgrades
to "only" 10 Gbps unless they took out the WDM and fed
us directly from a terabit switch. 

Oh, the bandwidth marvels I anticipated ...

The ONT is a hulking beast on the garage wall, but it
provides POTS and CAT5 directly. A routable IP address
that hasn't changed in years.

And then Verizon sold the copper and fiber to Frontier.

Frontier fired the nice people in the Seattle regional
service center.  Now they connect us to Texas minwage
script monkeys after 45 minutes on hold.  They changed
the contract, and won't tell us what it is.  While we
still have 15/5 to the switch, and perhaps to the netflix
server co-located with the switch (we don't watch TV),
and of course to Ookla, the backhaul to anywhere else
(including Google) measures about 100 to 200 kbps, and
routes through Pleasanton CA now, rather than Seattle.
When bandwidth plunged a few weeks ago, the spam calls
increased from 5 per week to 15 per day.  Frontier may
be getting a kickback from the phone spammers.

Frontier stock price has dropped by a factor of 270
since their peak.  When I looked two weeks ago, market
cap was $1B and debt was around $20B, interest was
about $1.5B per year.  They are failing, almost dead,
and worth more as scrap.  Their biggest investor is
Vanguard Funds.  I presume Vanguard is incompetent
also; move your retirement savings elsewhere.

So, I could wait and hope someone with brains buys them 
and fixes them (if every adult in the US sends $10 to
Personal Telco, Russell Senior can do it).  Best case,
a savvy financial group buys just Oregon and Washington,
or merely Gresham and Washington County, for some
fraction of that $1B market cap, and we expand a
community fiber system from that still-capable core.
And hire back those helpful people in Seattle.

Or, I sit on my butt and watch them fail, go dark, and
I use the wifi at PSU.  Then wait in a very long queue
for a Comcast installation.  I DO NOT RECOMMEND FRONTIER.

However, I don't expect manna (or megabits) to rain from
the sky.  My wife uses Comcast Business in her northwest
Portland office building.  Spendy, competent and prompt
field service, routable IP (connected to our own firewall).
They turned off the damned XFINITY wifi and allowed us to
put a Personal Telco node on the firewall DMZ (Frontier
treats business customers well, and charge  for it).  

Sadly, soon after the Comcast installation, the office
building was bought by twits.  The new owners are tearing
the insides apart (and cut through the comcast cable
once) "remodelling" it, so we can't do the PTP node (or
even much business) there.  We expect her to be kicked
out when her lease runs out in November.

So, we will move the Comcast Business service home, and
figure out where we go from there.  Probably move the
business and house phone numbers to Ooma, and use their
enhanced VOIP service to a POTS converter box in the
house.  Both Ooma and Comcast offer "simultaneous ring",
which allows us to use one of the phone spam filtering
services (if you want a laugh and have the bandwidth,
look at the "Jolly Roger Telephone Company" TEDx talk).
It also will help my wife transition her business to
temporary or part time office space.

There's more to the provider deci

Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Michael Barnes]

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 12:27 PM, Lou  wrote:

> Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP near
> Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.
>
> What is the best ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like
> to tink and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.
>
>  I read that if I get Fiber-optic that one does not need a modem, and the
> router just have to be compatible with the ISP. Is that correct? But if the
> router for FiOS dosnt let me flash custom firmware. Then I will chose
> something else (e.g. cable).
>

These days, your ISP options are limited. Your choices are basically
whoever actually has connections to your residence, wireless providers in
your area, or satellite. There may be some great providers out there, but,
unless they have media connected to your house, there is no point in asking
about them. You indicated you are in 97230, which is Parkrose. Makes no
difference what ISPs are in Gresham. It looks like your choices are
CenturyLink DSL, XFinity cable, and possibly Frontier fiber (if they have
it to your house).

Michael
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Russell Senior]

> "Lou" == Lou   writes:

Lou> Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP
Lou> near Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.  What is the best
Lou> ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like to tink
Lou> and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.

The ILEC in Gresham is Frontier, I think (I don't live in Gresham, so
that's a guess).  I don't know what Frontier does on fiber.  Comcast is
almost certainly also available there.

On Comcast, you have a choice to either own or rent the modem.  However,
in either case, Comcast controls the modem.  If you connect your own,
the first 15 minutes after plugging it in is occupied with Comcast
updating the firmware with their own.  If you want control, the thing to
do is a) buy the cable modem; b) get one with no wireless interfaces;
and c) use the modem in the default bridging mode and plug in your own
router on your side of the modem.

In CenturyLink land, where I reside, you can sometimes (depending on
where you live) get fiber.  With fiber, they install a thing called an
ONT (optical network termination).  In CL-land, the ONT provides an
ethernet connection to you, however, they talk over VLAN 201, and you
need to run pppoe over that VLAN to connect to the internet.  They will
sell you or rent you a router that does that, but you can also connect
your own gateway that can do VLANs on the WAN interface.  Most
consumer-off-the-shelf routers with stock firmware don't do that.  You
will need the pppoe username/password for your account for that to work.
I have set up a number of these on CL fiber.  Many CL reps won't
understand that you can use your own device and can avoid using theirs,
probably because in their world that is a fringe case.


-- 
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Tomas Kuchta]

I have experience with the C and CL companies.

C - let's you have your router connected to cable service as long as you
chose the one they support. You can use bare modem and connect any router
to it. Or you could get all in one device - modem + router. The best choice
depends on your house layout and aesthetics. I prefer separate devices for
modularity and choice.

CL fiber service gives you their modem/media converter. To that you can
connect your router if you wish.

In both cases, it is probably better to get their default most basic device
at install and then return it for refund. I think, the C company will
install your modem if you have it at install time. CL will supply initial
equipment.

Hope it helps a little,
Tomas

On Oct 2, 2017 12:28 PM, "Lou"  wrote:

> Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP near
> Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.
>
> What is the best ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like
> to tink and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.
>
>  I read that if I get Fiber-optic that one does not need a modem, and the
> router just have to be compatible with the ISP. Is that correct? But if the
> router for FiOS dosnt let me flash custom firmware. Then I will chose
> something else (e.g. cable).
>
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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2017, Rich Shepard wrote:

>   How near is near? East Gresham (97080) or West Gresham (96030)? I've been

   Oops. That's 97080 and 97030. Isn't 97230 Parkrose in Portland? Perhaps
Fairview would be closer to you than Gresham.

Rich

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Re: [PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2017, Lou wrote:

> Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP near
> Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.

Lou,

   How near is near? East Gresham (97080) or West Gresham (96030)? I've been
happily using SpiritOne  since it was Aracnet.
Their office is in Beaverton, servers in downtown (west side) Portland and
tech support where they live. I've an ADSL connection via Frontier Comm's
copper with an ISP-provided Westell 6100F that replaced the original,
ancient, modem/bridge. That connects to my NetGear VPS-18 firewall
appliance/router. I run my own postfix smtpd (but because of hardware
issues at spiritone and frontier must relay outbound mail through the ISP.

> What is the best ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like
> to tink and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.

   Go for it.

> I read that if I get Fiber-optic that one does not need a modem, and the
> router just have to be compatible with the ISP. Is that correct? But if
> the router for FiOS dosnt let me flash custom firmware. Then I will chose
> something else (e.g. cable).

   Well, fiber here is from Comcast/Xfinity or Frontier.

Rich
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[PLUG] ISP near Gresham

[Lou]

Hi guys. I would like to know your opinion and experiences with ISP near 
Gresham. I recently moved to zip code 97230.

What is the best ISP that will let me use my own modem and router? I like to 
tink and install custom firmwares like DD-WRT and LibreCMC.

 I read that if I get Fiber-optic that one does not need a modem, and the 
router just have to be compatible with the ISP. Is that correct? But if the 
router for FiOS dosnt let me flash custom firmware. Then I will chose something 
else (e.g. cable).

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