[u-u] Connectivity

Tue Apr 7 18:49:28 EDT 2020

 From my penthouse (really just top floor)
I have been very happy with Bell Business symmetric Gigabit fibre.
Paying for business lets me have symmetric bandwidth,
no filtering, no throttling, static IPs,
no contract violation running servers,
and all for ~$99.
(I pay $5 extra to *not* have a phone, but that's Bell for you)

Bell and Rogers both had trouble servicing the top floor.

I also have a Teksavvy (don't recommend it anymore) over Rogers cable.
It's asymmetric and the outbound is slower than dialup.
Rogers cable in this building runs through every apartment down the 
hall.

Similar problem with ADSL over the Bell twisted pair,
outbound is (literally) slower than dialup.
And no way to fix it between the top floor and the ground.

The only way out of here (apart from the microwave backhaul on the 
roof)
was straight down the outside of the building.
That was a giant fight for years.
Half the building thought it would look ugly.
Half the building was concerned about 'breaking the envelope'
and water leaking in from the holes coming in through the balconies.

The easy option, with no installer coming to your house, is wireless.
Toronto 5G is as fast as any fibre you'll pull,
just use a cat (or 6) to keep the pigeons away.
>
> --- Original message ---
> Subject: Re: [u-u] Connectivity
> From: David Gilbert <uu at dclg.ca>
> To: <u-u at unixunanimous.org>
> Date: Tuesday, 07/04/2020 4:50 PM
>
> On 2020-04-07 16:20, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>
>>
>> Apartments can be different from houses.
>>
>> - Apartment wiring might be old and crappy.  That might be hard to fix
>>        (I don't know).
>>
>> - Some apartments even have doorbells that interrupt the
>>        phone line, which isn't good for Bell internet service
> This happens only rarely now as most apartments have newer cheaper 
> ways
> of doing this.  2nd phone lines and dry-loop are immune to this.
>>
>> - Your apartment might even have a service like Beanfield's, and that
>>        might be interesting
> IIRC, Beanfield has a small footprint, last I inquired, but yeah... 
> your
> apartment can also have a custom cable provider and whatnot. You'd
> probably know, however, as they usually make this known rather 
> plainly.
>>
>> "Fibe (TM)" is a meaningless brand name.  They want you to read
>> it as fibre optical all the way to your residence, but it doesn't mean
>> that.
> In fact, "Fibe" can involve no fiber at all (although this is rare).
> You could be on a copper T3 to your aggregator (not that that 
> uncommon)
> to a 100 megabit (copper) or T3 (copper) access to your reseller (much
> less common).
>>
>> In my area, Rogers cable network speed is a lot faster than Bell ADSL
>> or VDSL.  Bell does not yet offer FTH (Fiber to the Home).  Your area
>> might be different.  You can query Bell's site to find out the top
>> speed they offer you.
>
> I actually replied to this one message to set this one straight. When
> rogers works, it is fast.  When it doesn't ... it isn't for years in
> your area.  Of customers I have had on rogers, none has survived any
> long period of time.  Rogers IS NOT A NETWORK. Rogers is a bunch of
> little networks patched together with duct tape and binding twine.  I
> had a customer paying Rogers $10k a month for colocation.  Rogers, 
> given
> 6 months could not get packets to a fiber directly connected to their
> equipment at 151 from this colocation in vaughn with jitter less than
> 500ms (!?!) and latency under 50ms (!?!) and packloss under 5% (!! ??
> !!) even given multiple calls with C-level people looped in.
>
> And that's just one story.  I provide a lot of redundant internet.  
> Many
> of the backup links are Rogers.  The only time I hear from these 
> people
> is when they're forced to use Rogers.  This sample of homes and
> businesses covers Guelph to Peterbourough, Toronto through Barrie... 
> and
> all over the GTA.
>
> When Rogers is good, they are fine.  When they suck, it always gets
> worse for 6 to 12 months before getting better.  Oftentimes 18 or 24.
>
>>
>> Resellers are available for cable or *DSL.  Bell gives them more
>> control than Rogers.  If you want a static IP address, resellers can
>> do that will Bell but I don't think that they can do that with Rogers.
> I only offer rogers as a last resort, generally.  I make more profit 
> on
> it, but I take more calls.
>>
>> | What, if any, options do I have for getting a connection, preferably
>> | without a technician visit?
>>
>> Ask them.  Even if they can do a technician-free install, you may find
>> a problem that requires a tech.
>>
>> I have vybenetworks.com VDSL and Rogers cable internet services.  Both
>> have required tech visits over the years.
> In general, ADSL and VDSL can touchless install on an existing voice
> line and my experience is that this works 80% of the time.  As far as 
> I
> know, Rogers (even as a reseller) never does a touchless install.
>>
>> | 100 GB a month and enough bandwidth for a radio feed and YouTube
>> | simultaneously ought to be adequate.
>>
>> Then a VDSL feed is enough and perhaps even ADSL.  But I suspect that
>> the only reason to use ADSL is if the phone line to the Central Office
>> is too old or long to support VDSL.
>
> ADSL can be significantly cheaper than VDSL.  The difference is 
> 6meg/800
> (fine for youtube/netflix and whatnot for one person) and something 
> more
> like 15meg/10meg.  We chop $10 off for ADSL.  The modems are also
> cheaper and I think the install fee is still waved.
>
> Both are unlimited from Towernet :).
>
> (BTW... I wanted to add ... just to be plain that while I had got some 
> 2
> week installs, we all get the same installs as someone else said).
>
>
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