 RobIn Deo speramus, God Bless the USAPremium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:2 | reply to jvanbrecht
Re: Thanks Comcast! said by jvanbrecht:said by Rob:DSL is a shared medium, just like cable. The difference is at which point you begin sharing your connection with your neighbors on a DSL connection is not the same point on cable. By your account above, it means every single link is shared across the entire internet from business to residential service. By shared, they mean segment, not the entire company, Cable segments are a shared medium, DSL is not as its a point to point connection via a local loop from your house to the ISP (bypassing the switching equipment in the CO since DSL is not a switched medium) Yes, on the ISP side it becomes shared when it hits the ISPs backbone as well as its connections and peering points to tier 1 backbones. BTW, ATT is a tier 1 backbone, where as comcast is just a customers of a tier 1 provider. If the ISP does not have the accumulated backbone bandwidth to provide all their customers with sufficient service, that is not the users fault, regardless of how much they download. AT&T may be a Tier 1, whereas Comcast isn't (though they have their CRAN Network), yet Comcast provides much faster speeds than AT&T does. Obviously Comcast is doing something right if they are usign AT&T's network, yet bringing faster speeds than the Tier 1 provider is! |
| Thats a limitation on DSL, which is heavily reliant on line quality and distance. That is one advantage that cable has over DSL. I do not live in an ATT service area, so I am not sure what they are providing with their fiber service that they are deploying. Also, as I stated in another post further down, yes they are a customer of a tier 1 provider, and odds are they use either ATT or Verizon (used to be uunet, then mci) as their provider, and I suspect they are probably running OC3's or OC12's to provide the bandwidth they need. But thats not the problem with cable. The problem is in fact that cable is a shared medium (all users on a particular segment share the bandwidth available on that particular segment), and yes, a single user can very easily saturate that segment, but that is not the users fault, that is the fault of the operator offering services it cannot support to stay in the game and compete against others who are offering faster services.
I am not being anti comcast.. well actually I am, but my beef with comcast has less to do with their bandwidth problems, and more to do with their billing practices, but that is off topic. I also equally hate ATT and Verizon.. so I consider myself unbiased on this fact. Also consider my background, I have worked for UUNET (before they were murdered by MCI and then Verizon), RCN, AOL Time Warner and Roadrunner (also owned by AOL/TW). I understand the technology and its limitations.
The issue at hand here however is not the technology, well it kind of is, but not completely, the issue here is Comcasts policy, which in my opinion is lame. A police officer cannot give you a speeding ticket, and then not tell you what the speed limit is that you broke (assuming all the speed limit signs were removed from the road) |
