kamikaze-Tech writes "Comcast, the largest USA Broadband provider is being accused of VoIP
blocking, just days before they release their own VoIP offering.
According to a long standing thread on the Vonage Forums, many Comcast ISP users are unable to use Vonage. Tempers are flaring: 'Although you will see all manner of opinions on this thread, there seems to be a sentiment that - politely put - Comcast could really be doing a better job of carrying Vonage bits.' Looks as though this could be the beginning of the broadband quality wars,
with Comcast taking the first step."
All these ideas are entirely possible but it could simply be that Comcast doesn't provide the kind of broadband consistently necessary to use VoIP.
My experience with Comcast has been extensive and I am nothing but a little dissatisfied with how consistent my connection broadband width was. I'm not complaining that I lost connections (though I know people who have) but I will complain that my upload and download widths were anything but stable.
I eagerly await the broadband over power lines [wired.com] initiative that's inevitably going to be made available to everyone. Imagine paying for broadband but not having to pay also the cost of using an extensive cable network. Brilliant idea! Use rudimentary piggy backing techniques to deliver two signals through one line. It's actually not that difficult, I'm not sure why this took so long to develop and why it's taking even longer to make available to the public. Yes, I've heard of security concerns but there's got to be some encryption you can use.
If I ever live to see the day where cable is obsolete, I'm going to uncap my modem [cable-modems.org] and host something huge to my friends. Anyone care to take a guess on how long I'd be able to keep that up before they shut me down?
>>I eagerly await the broadband over power lines initiative
ARGH!
There are serious issues with BPL. It generates interference that compromises several amateur radio bands, and is likewise interfered with by the legal operation of numerous low-power transmitters. (This includes CB radio transmitters as well as ham radio transmitters.)
Visit http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/ for more information.
Forget BPL, let's get some of the Municipal Wireless programs implemented first. I think that it's a little more likely to happen once people start to pressure their politicians not to give into the demands of the telecom providers. Personally, I think the telecom arguments can be fought with the argument that the municipal contracts will go to them anyways, so it is a semi-moot point. Of course, IANAL nor a legislator, or anyone with any relevant information on the topic whatsoever. But, I've heard abo
Cable modems are based on TV channels being used for data. Each channel is something like 6 to 8 MHz wide. They can be dedicated, time sliced, or done like Ethernet. Different channels are used for up and down.
The down channel tells your cable modem where and when it may transmit.
If you get a channel to yourself, great! They are allocated based on demand, more of less. An idle computer doesn't need a dedicated channel for hourly DHCP updates.
Latency varies. If you need to wait for a transmit window, well, yo
Imagine [...] not having to pay also the cost of using an extensive cable network.
Broadband over power lines uses the power lines - the power grid - which is an extensive network of cables. It has a definate cost. In fact, the costs are higher than that of cable - since the power lines are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the power poles themselves, while the cable companies merely rent space on them.
Anyone care to take a guess on how long I'd be able to keep that up before they shut me down?
Anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. The uncapped modems were usually scanned for at least twice daily. First "offense" and your modem was cycled remotely and the correct cfg file was downloaded again "capping" your modem. Your account was flagged and a ticket was opened for you. If you did it again then you were booted permanently for a TOS violation. Depending on the severity of the uncapping (10+mbit/10+
All these ideas are entirely possible but it could simply be that Comcast doesn't provide the kind of broadband consistently necessary to use VoIP.
Well, there is an easy test. If their VOIP works fine and other people's don't then they are probably gumming up the lines with QoS. ISPs have been working on different levels of service for differently labeled packet s of data for a while now and I think it should be clear to everyone that QoS really stands for "pick your pocket", not "quality of service". Qu
The people who are (semi)early VOIP adopters are smart enough to suspect shenanigans
VOIP users = very small minority of the population. Smart people = also a very small minority of the population. The intersection of these groups is another order of magnitude smaller than the population of either group alone. Small enough, to where that group doesn't present any kind of real threat to Comcast.
- and change ISPs -
To who, exactly? If you think Comcast is bad, try dealing with Verizon or SBC. At leas
FYI, SIP is only the signaling protocol. Voice traffic is carried via RTP and RTP ports are dynamically allocated. There is also already significant development underway to improve the security of both SIP and RTP. See SIPS (SIP Secure).
I've noticed this too. Some calls are OK out have been OK. But a fair number are having problems. Receiving has been ok. To add to this, I've noticed Comcast is offering phone service of its own on their website. Perhaps this is what they are up to, scrrewing with Vonage and trying to tell us it doesn't work, but then saying: "Why don't you try our service instead?"
The thing that sucks is I just signed up for Vonage and a have a couple months to go to get my rebate check. I also redid all the drops in the ho
Comcast and its sibling company Road Runner routinely block access to alternative websites such as www.infowars.com and www.rbnlive.com because they take on the Feds and the "yes-man" major media. Time Warner (the owner of both Comcast and Road Runner) is a "yes-man" major media company, towing the neo-con line.
It is does not surprise me they would block access to their competitors. Soon I expect them to begin survelliance of their customers and reporting their "un-American" activities to the alphabet a
I don't think I've ever seen a comment so ridiculous here, mainly because you seem so sincere. Road Runner and Comcast are not sibling companies, they have deals in some areas for the purposes of branding. Comcast, to the best of my knowledge, has never blocked out specific web sites from its subscribers. Time Warner contributed large amounts of money to Democrats this past year (IIRC, more than 2/3 of its campaign contributions, the only major media company to donate more to GOP and its candidates was Disne
The 'alphabet agencies' were set up to provide work for the millions left unemployed after the 1929 stock market crash, stuff like building roads. They weren't in the business of spying on 'commies' or dealing with 'unamerican' elements. Most (if not all) of them don't exist anymore.
For all the mud slung at them, SBC has given me nothing less than great service. VOIP works great, I get better-than-advertised throughput (5 Mb down, instead the listed 3 Mb), and I've asked them repeatedly if I could run small servers off my connection and always been told "yes".
Now the rumor is that they're trying to bring fiber into homes and deliver television signals over the phone system.
Penn Jillette, in one of his books, wrote about how his ideal society would have all roads privately owned and managed. You'd pay as you went rather than paying for the road as part of your taxes. Those who used the road the most paid the most in tolls. However, such a situation generally assumes that road operators would be willing to build roads out to remote areas where only a handful of customers would ever drive. It also assumes that these so-called "liberated" road owners would be unprejudiced indiv
Comcast agreed to provide internet access to their users for a monthly fee, which technically means that comcast will forward traffic from their users towards the rest of the internet and vica versa.
Unless their contract with their users, into which their users enter voluntarily, says differently. Or are you only in favor of people's rights when they're rights you wish to exercise?
Technically, they can argue that using a packetshaper and reducing the QoS on vonage bound packets isn't blocking. Wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.
Technically, they have every right to filter what goes through the connection you lease from them (barring contractual violations - not sure if that applies here). But then they run the risk of losing common carrier status. IANAL, of course.
I had Comcast and Vonage. Comcast's lower lever service has a limited upload cap which is not quite enough to get consistently clear calls, especially if you are doing anything else with the computer at the same time. It is not clear that this is a problem because they don't talk about upload bandwidth on the Vonage box, only total bandwidth, which Comcast technically meets. I cancelled Vonage after a couple of months, when I encountered almost comical ass-ness from the Vonage customer support. Those guys are complete bastards.
Baloney. Bandwidth is not the problem. Comcast's upload cap is 384kb, which is enough for at least two good VoIP calls at once, if nothing else is using the link. It's possible that Comcast is doing traffic shaping to curb people they feel are bandwidth hogs. After all, "unlimited" does not really mean unlimited. You'll never see them admit that though.
If I remember, about a year ago here on Slashdot, I read about a DSL ISP who got busted by the FCC for doing exactly this. They got fined a heap of money.
I pay for Internet and WANT Internet, NOT just port 80 for web browsing.
So Far both Cox and Verizon DSL do NOT block VOIP - a good thing for me, as I have both of them.
Comcast probably did this blocking to sell their own service. They could justify the block with this part of their TOS. http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp [comcast.net]
"You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede C
I only just started having problems calling out in the last week. Yesterday I too noticed they are selling their own service. I suspect you may be right.
As far legality goes, they've got the money to hire the lawyers to make whatever they want legal as far as the courts see. They just claim Vonage takes up too much bandwidth and therefore violates the Terms of Service agreement that says they alone determine who or what is using up too much bandwidth and causing problems on their network.
I doubt a judge (or anybody with sense, really) would conceed that using Vonage's VoIP creates an overly large burden on the network, in light of the fact that Comcast is days away from rolling out their own VoIP. If VoIP created such a huge burden, then why would they start offering it themselves?
But i belive in this case this was just a shot to sell their own service, the main question is since its their network are they really ALLOWED to do this?
Sure, just as soon as they give up all their lines using publicly owned right of ways and are willing to no longer be protected from legal action for all the copyrighted material and kiddie porn they republish from router to router. That is to say, when they are no a government mandated local monopoly with special protections and privileges they can sto
I have been working with one of their local spot advertising reps, and was informed that "They may not be willing to work with me, because I have a competing product." Its too bad this kind of thing is even legal--From an economic standpoint, competition benefits consumers.
Their rep has been shady, she said a 30-second spot (with my parameters) costs $3,000 to produce, but when I spoke to the producer, he laughed and said at most $500, and sometimes they do the first one for free.
When I ask the rep ques
The solution to these kinds of games by telcos and cable companies is to remove whatever legal protections the perpetrators may enjoy under common-carrier or similar legal theories. When they suddenly become criminally liable for the unsavory activities of their users they'll rethink this idea.
From wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]"Internet Service Providers generally wish to avoid being classified as a "common carrier" and, so far, have managed to do so. Before 1996, such classification could be helpful in defending a monopolistic position, but the main focus of policy has been on competition, so "common carrier" status has little value for ISPs, while carrying obligations they would rather avoid. The key FCC Order on this point is: IN RE FEDERAL-STATE JOINT BOARD ON U
I read that very article before posting, which is why I said "or similar legal theories". Some ISPs might be considered common carriers for certain purposes -- if Verizon, a telco, starts providing VoIP over its FiOS fiber service, does Verizon FiOS become a common-carrier service? Current law is very unclear.
In any case, the business operations of Comcast and other cable companies depend on monopoly franchises granted by local governments. That means they have a responsibility beyond maximizing their
Purposfully degrading the quality or blocking certain network trafic to hinder a competitor's ability to compete with you is clear cut anti-competitve behavior and illegal in the US. This type of underhanded "cheating" to make your service look better by making someone elses look worse must be wildly tempting for a company that both provides connectivity and competes with others to provide services on top of that connectivity but no ammount of tempation makes it any less illegal. Any Comcast employee asked
make your service look better by making someone elses look worse
That's what quality of service is all about and why putting intelligence in the network is stupid and wrong. No matter how fast your equipment gets, decisions take time that could better be spent just moving the data. No matter how good you make yourself look, you are never your best. Common carriers should never engage in net shaping other than routing around damage or pulling the plug on spambots and infected machines.
You have given me another reason not to keep your service when I move. Between the constant blacked out and pixelation of tv channels, the high price of said cable channels, the moronic tech who said my surge suppressor was the reason some of my channels were snowy even though I had the device for years and had no problems and which said problems were fixed a few hours after I reattached the suppressor, your usurpation of the last 7 minutes of CNN Headline news at the top and bottom of every hour (which me
What Comcast actually blocks is a rewarding customer experience, and the desire to continue paying them money. I've never had a pleasant experience dealing with Comcast, but unfortunately, they are the only cable company available to me currently. Verizon FIOS will be here soon, and the noise you hear will be the sound of my cable modem shattering on the driveway.... Not that I expect Verizon to be nicer or anything, but it will be good to have competition and a new set of foreign national customer service
I live in the North Texas area. Charter communications has been the big cable internet provider in this area for seemingly forever. And, in the last few months, they have had their service for cable internet degrade horribly. Many of my neighbors used VoIP, and were unable for hours at a time to use their phones. It's the major reason I never went to VoIP.
Just about a month ago, Verizon threw down fiber optics, and within a few weeks, offered their FiOS service. For basically the same price as Charter's
It's just when you oversell your service, everyone ends up with shitty QoS - and since Vonage's protocol likes bandwidth (skype has much, much lower bandwidth reqs), naturally, their stuff doesn't work all that well. That said, they have been jacking their rates while at the same time killing off features - newsgroups, static ip addresses, and of course, the ever decreasing transfer limit (I don't believe there is a place in the USA where you are allowed to transfer more than 80 gigs combined up / down month
Just like to point out you can configure Vonnage to use lower bitrate codecs. Just most people leave it at 64kbps. IIRC you can go all the way down to GSM CELP at 8kbps.
It seems every 3 months or so ISPs forget they're common carriers. You can't limit traffic beyond the tech specs and then say "we're not responsible for what the traffic represents". Being immune from prosecution is a privilege extended because you're enabling the citizens to live peacefully and freely.
Otherwise the MPAA and RIAA may want to have a chat with you.
That and if Comcast is really doing this then fuck them. Make it expensive for them to suck. E.g. share connections with your neighbours, call te
According to the FCC, Internet service providers are "information services", not common carriers. They exist under a different but related set of legal regulations (see In re Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, 13 FCC Rcd. 11501 (1998)).
Whoops sorry. My point though is that if they want to claim they let all non-abuse traffic through and are not responsible (for say piracy or kiddie porn) then they ought not to modify legitimate packets and data.
Of course I live in a country where GSM comes from... Rogers. It's direct competitor is... Rogers (there is only one GSM provider in Canada).
You can get net access from... Bell Canada or.... Rogers.
etc...
You think your monopolies suck in the USA. Here in Canada we put the "pwned" in Monopwned
I had been using Vonage with my Comcast cable modem with no problems for over 2 years. Last last summer, I started having severe problems with Vonage. Calls sounded like very poor cell phone calls and a 4 to 5 second delay from when I spoke and the person acknowledged they heard me.
I called Comcast to complain. After 3 service calls in 2 months, I finally was tired of the problems and went with Verizon DSL for 2/3rds the cost of Comcast broadband.
This agrees with my own experiences with Comcast. I was testing VoIP through my own local company and for the first couple of weeks it worked great. However, in the past month or two things changed dramatically. Now VoIP calls are 100% guaranteed to disconnect during a conversation and are very choppy even when they work.
Running mtr shows lots a significant amount of packet loss though and lots of jitter; it may not be enough to affect e-mail or web browsing, but it's plenty enough to disrupt VoIP.
I'm not surprised that VoIP doesn't play well over ComCuss or RoadRunarounder. I was with Roadrunarounder for 3 years. The first year and a half was flawless. Then came the packet loss. They claimed it was "signal strength". They replaced our cable drop with RJ6 but the problem came back. Then they replaced the hybrid splitter transformer but the packet loss reared it's head after a few months. Then the packet loss went away for 4 or 5 months and it was smooth sailing. It reared it's head again and RoadRuna
I was surprised to find out that Bell Sympatico rewrites all the headers in SIP messages as it goes through. I only discovered this because in certain circumstances it does it wrong and it caused the softphone I'm working on not to work.
I'm sure this is the start of some traffic shaping experiments for VOIP on that network. Whether they have started degrading service yet I couldn't say, though.
A. They don't block ports B. Your signal levels coming into your house are probably bad, or you have a bad split in the house somewhere. Keep in mind, every time you split that coax that your signal gets cut in half depending on what type of splitter you put on the line C. From what I understand, their VOIP service isn't like vonage, and it runs over their private network D. If you have an issue, don't complain about it here. Call them and tell them exactly what's happening. I let my lower channels stay fuzzy for three years without calling, blaming it on them. They came out an reran the line to my house and I haven't had any issues with cable or net since.
Think of it as cheap insurance against flood attacks. I can't deal with a 10 megabit/second flood coming my way. The provider sure can, though not for every customer at once. Floods are rare enough that the provider should be able to tolerate them, protecting my normal-speed connection from occasional multi-gigabit blasts. Of course it would be nice if they'd let me adjust the settings via my account web page. That's a bit much to ask for from a company that has to deal with so many idiots and their spyware-
Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience with Comcast has been extensive and I am nothing but a little dissatisfied with how consistent my connection broadband width was. I'm not complaining that I lost connections (though I know people who have) but I will complain that my upload and download widths were anything but stable.
I eagerly await the broadband over power lines [wired.com] initiative that's inevitably going to be made available to everyone. Imagine paying for broadband but not having to pay also the cost of using an extensive cable network. Brilliant idea! Use rudimentary piggy backing techniques to deliver two signals through one line. It's actually not that difficult, I'm not sure why this took so long to develop and why it's taking even longer to make available to the public. Yes, I've heard of security concerns but there's got to be some encryption you can use.
If I ever live to see the day where cable is obsolete, I'm going to uncap my modem [cable-modems.org] and host something huge to my friends. Anyone care to take a guess on how long I'd be able to keep that up before they shut me down?
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:2, Informative)
ARGH!
There are serious issues with BPL. It generates interference that compromises several amateur radio bands, and is likewise interfered with by the legal operation of numerous low-power transmitters. (This includes CB radio transmitters as well as ham radio transmitters.)
Visit http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/ for more information.
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:2)
Forget BPL, let's get some of the Municipal Wireless programs implemented first. I think that it's a little more likely to happen once people start to pressure their politicians not to give into the demands of the telecom providers. Personally, I think the telecom arguments can be fought with the argument that the municipal contracts will go to them anyways, so it is a semi-moot point. Of course, IANAL nor a legislator, or anyone with any relevant information on the topic whatsoever. But, I've heard abo
cable tech (Score:2)
Each channel is something like 6 to 8 MHz wide. They can be dedicated, time sliced, or done like Ethernet. Different channels are used for up and down.
The down channel tells your cable modem where and when it may transmit.
If you get a channel to yourself, great! They are allocated based on demand, more of less. An idle computer doesn't need a dedicated channel for hourly DHCP updates.
Latency varies. If you need to wait for a transmit window, well, yo
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:2)
Broadband over power lines uses the power lines - the power grid - which is an extensive network of cables. It has a definate cost. In fact, the costs are higher than that of cable - since the power lines are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the power poles themselves, while the cable companies merely rent space on them.
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:3, Informative)
Anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. The uncapped modems were usually scanned for at least twice daily. First "offense" and your modem was cycled remotely and the correct cfg file was downloaded again "capping" your modem. Your account was flagged and a ticket was opened for you. If you did it again then you were booted permanently for a TOS violation. Depending on the severity of the uncapping (10+mbit/10+
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there is an easy test. If their VOIP works fine and other people's don't then they are probably gumming up the lines with QoS. ISPs have been working on different levels of service for differently labeled packet s of data for a while now and I think it should be clear to everyone that QoS really stands for "pick your pocket", not "quality of service". Qu
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:3, Insightful)
VOIP users = very small minority of the population. Smart people = also a very small minority of the population. The intersection of these groups is another order of magnitude smaller than the population of either group alone. Small enough, to where that group doesn't present any kind of real threat to Comcast.
To who, exactly? If you think Comcast is bad, try dealing with Verizon or SBC. At leas
Re:Perhaps Comcast is just inadequate? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually... (Score:2, Informative)
Outgoing calls are extremely choppy and cutout in the middle of words, but I can hear the other person without a problem.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
To add to this, I've noticed Comcast is offering phone service of its own on their website. Perhaps this is what they are up to, scrrewing with Vonage and trying to tell us it doesn't work, but then saying: "Why don't you try our service instead?"
The thing that sucks is I just signed up for Vonage and a have a couple months to go to get my rebate check. I also redid all the drops in the ho
Comcast blocking doesn't surprise me... (Score:2, Interesting)
It is does not surprise me they would block access to their competitors. Soon I expect them to begin survelliance of their customers and reporting their "un-American" activities to the alphabet a
time warner-owns comcast? (Score:2)
Re:Comcast blocking doesn't surprise me... (Score:2)
Road Runner and Comcast are not sibling companies, they have deals in some areas for the purposes of branding. Comcast, to the best of my knowledge, has never blocked out specific web sites from its subscribers. Time Warner contributed large amounts of money to Democrats this past year (IIRC, more than 2/3 of its campaign contributions, the only major media company to donate more to GOP and its candidates was Disne
allow me to join in the post-bashing (Score:2)
*takes the pedant-points and runs*
This is why I have ADSL... (Score:2)
Now the rumor is that they're trying to bring fiber into homes and deliver television signals over the phone system.
Libertarians and tollroads (Score:2, Interesting)
However, such a situation generally assumes that road operators would be willing to build roads out to remote areas where only a handful of customers would ever drive. It also assumes that these so-called "liberated" road owners would be unprejudiced indiv
Re:Libertarians and tollroads (Score:2)
Unless their contract with their users, into which their users enter voluntarily, says differently. Or are you only in favor of people's rights when they're rights you wish to exercise?
Re:Libertarians and tollroads (Score:2)
Re:Libertarians and tollroads (Score:2)
Wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.
Vonage will sue? (Score:2)
Or is it that Comcast has full control of what gets sent through the bandwidth they provide?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Re:Vonage will sue? (Score:2)
Not enough upload (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not enough upload (Score:2)
Didn't an ISP already get busted for this? (Score:2)
Business move? (Score:2, Interesting)
They could justify the block with this part of their TOS.
http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp [comcast.net]
"You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede C
Re:Business move? (Score:2)
I suspect you may be right.
As far legality goes, they've got the money to hire the lawyers to make whatever they want legal as far as the courts see. They just claim Vonage takes up too much bandwidth and therefore violates the Terms of Service agreement that says they alone determine who or what is using up too much bandwidth and causing problems on their network.
Time to dump Comcast
Re:Business move? (Score:2)
Re:Business move? (Score:3, Interesting)
But i belive in this case this was just a shot to sell their own service, the main question is since its their network are they really ALLOWED to do this?
Sure, just as soon as they give up all their lines using publicly owned right of ways and are willing to no longer be protected from legal action for all the copyrighted material and kiddie porn they republish from router to router. That is to say, when they are no a government mandated local monopoly with special protections and privileges they can sto
Comcast Generally Sucks (Score:2, Interesting)
Common carrier status? (Score:2)
Re:Common carrier status? (Score:2)
From wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]"Internet Service Providers generally wish to avoid being classified as a "common carrier" and, so far, have managed to do so. Before 1996, such classification could be helpful in defending a monopolistic position, but the main focus of policy has been on competition, so "common carrier" status has little value for ISPs, while carrying obligations they would rather avoid. The key FCC Order on this point is: IN RE FEDERAL-STATE JOINT BOARD ON U
Re:Common carrier status? (Score:2)
In any case, the business operations of Comcast and other cable companies depend on monopoly franchises granted by local governments. That means they have a responsibility beyond maximizing their
FTC needs to be all over this one (Score:2)
Any Comcast employee asked
Qualtiy of Service (Score:2)
That's what quality of service is all about and why putting intelligence in the network is stupid and wrong. No matter how fast your equipment gets, decisions take time that could better be spent just moving the data. No matter how good you make yourself look, you are never your best. Common carriers should never engage in net shaping other than routing around damage or pulling the plug on spambots and infected machines.
Doing a better job carrying Vonage bits? (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you Comcast (Score:2)
What Comcast actually blocks is (Score:2)
It's been similar for Charter... (Score:2)
Many of my neighbors used VoIP, and were unable for hours at a time to use their phones. It's the major reason I never went to VoIP.
Just about a month ago, Verizon threw down fiber optics, and within a few weeks, offered their FiOS service. For basically the same price as Charter's
To their credit, it probably isn't intentional.... (Score:2)
That said, they have been jacking their rates while at the same time killing off features - newsgroups, static ip addresses, and of course, the ever decreasing transfer limit (I don't believe there is a place in the USA where you are allowed to transfer more than 80 gigs combined up / down month
Re:To their credit, it probably isn't intentional. (Score:2)
Even a dialup modem can handle 8kbps reliably.
Tom
common carrier (Score:2)
Being immune from prosecution is a privilege extended because you're enabling the citizens to live peacefully and freely.
Otherwise the MPAA and RIAA may want to have a chat with you.
That and if Comcast is really doing this then fuck them. Make it expensive for them to suck. E.g. share connections with your neighbours, call te
ISPs are not "common carriers" exactly (Score:2)
Re:ISPs are not "common carriers" exactly (Score:2)
My point though is that if they want to claim they let all non-abuse traffic through and are not responsible (for say piracy or kiddie porn) then they ought not to modify legitimate packets and data.
Of course I live in a country where GSM comes from
You can get net access from
etc...
You think your monopolies suck in the USA. Here in Canada we put the "pwned" in Monopwned
I can tell you my experience with Comcast & Vo (Score:2)
I called Comcast to complain. After 3 service calls in 2 months, I finally was tired of the problems and went with Verizon DSL for 2/3rds the cost of Comcast broadband.
Vonage works perfectly again.
Comcast and VoIP (Score:2)
This agrees with my own experiences with Comcast. I was testing VoIP through my own local company and for the first couple of weeks it worked great. However, in the past month or two things changed dramatically. Now VoIP calls are 100% guaranteed to disconnect during a conversation and are very choppy even when they work.
Running mtr shows lots a significant amount of packet loss though and lots of jitter; it may not be enough to affect e-mail or web browsing, but it's plenty enough to disrupt VoIP.
ComCuss and RoadRunarounder (Score:2)
I'm not surprised that VoIP doesn't play well over ComCuss or RoadRunarounder. I was with Roadrunarounder for 3 years. The first year and a half was flawless. Then came the packet loss. They claimed it was "signal strength". They replaced our cable drop with RJ6 but the problem came back. Then they replaced the hybrid splitter transformer but the packet loss reared it's head after a few months. Then the packet loss went away for 4 or 5 months and it was smooth sailing. It reared it's head again and RoadRuna
Sympatico rewrites SIP headers (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure this is the start of some traffic shaping experiments for VOIP on that network. Whether they have started degrading service yet I couldn't say, though.
Very worrying...
Argh (Score:3, Interesting)
B. Your signal levels coming into your house are probably bad, or you have a bad split in the house somewhere. Keep in mind, every time you split that coax that your signal gets cut in half depending on what type of splitter you put on the line
C. From what I understand, their VOIP service isn't like vonage, and it runs over their private network
D. If you have an issue, don't complain about it here. Call them and tell them exactly what's happening. I let my lower channels stay fuzzy for three years without calling, blaming it on them. They came out an reran the line to my house and I haven't had any issues with cable or net since.
packet filtering can be good (Score:2)
Of course it would be nice if they'd let me adjust the settings via my account web page. That's a bit much to ask for from a company that has to deal with so many idiots and their spyware-