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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow to probboy

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to probboy

Re: Time Warners claim is 100% accurate.....

I would disagree with that. While they do not care how it gets to them, they do care how often there is a problem. In all the years I have had cable internet (beta tester for it years ago) through all the companies (some went bankrupt or bought out and I move a lot) the vast majority of failures were between me and the headend. Usually a noisy line due to hardware failure between me and the headend. FTTH should eliminate the vast majority of those issues. It is very likely that moving to Docsis 3.0 will probably exacerbate these issues further (based on the history that every time speed increases the specs tighten for "good signal"). From that perspective I think upgrading to Docsis 3.0 is probably throwing good money after bad.
smcallah
join:2004-08-05
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smcallah

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said by Lazlow:

the vast majority of failures were between me and the headend. Usually a noisy line due to hardware failure between me and the headend. FTTH should eliminate the vast majority of those issues
How exactly would FTTH eliminate problems between you and the headend/CO? It's not like the fiber goes straight to the Verizon CO with no equipment on it.

The problems will be in the same place, between you and the headend. Fiber is not immune to signal issues either, just outside interference issues.
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow

Member

Fiber is far more robust than copper. While it is not without problems they are far fewer than copper. They are not nearly as susceptible to temperature and environment changes. There is a reason that even the cable companies use Fiber. It works.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88 to smcallah

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said by smcallah:

said by Lazlow:

the vast majority of failures were between me and the headend. Usually a noisy line due to hardware failure between me and the headend. FTTH should eliminate the vast majority of those issues
How exactly would FTTH eliminate problems between you and the headend/CO? It's not like the fiber goes straight to the Verizon CO with no equipment on it.

The problems will be in the same place, between you and the headend. Fiber is not immune to signal issues either, just outside interference issues.
Um, there is nothing in between you and the head end except for welded splices and 1 optical splitter. With HFC, DC power injectors, a fiber node, 2-10 amplifiers, 100s of taps and threaded connectors waiting to rust and get rained on. Wanna play copper last mile roulette?
smcallah
join:2004-08-05
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smcallah

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said by patcat88:

[Um, there is nothing in between you and the head end except for welded splices and 1 optical splitter. With HFC, DC power injectors, a fiber node, 2-10 amplifiers, 100s of taps and threaded connectors waiting to rust and get rained on. Wanna play copper last mile roulette?
I don't get your point. You act as if when something in the cable plant breaks that they won't fix it. How exactly is it playing roulette if they're going to fix it?

"Oh, that tap doesn't work anymore? Just leave it, those people can do without TV, Phone, and Internet, who cares?"

No, they don't care about the revenue at all, they'll let everything break and not fix it...
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

Lazlow

Member

smcallah

The problem comes in that it is apparently exceedingly difficult for them to track down what exactly (of the above list) is causing the problem. In the last two years I have been down for over a month on three different occasions. It is always a trivial thing(last time it was a cracked line right next to the amp) that is broken and is easy to fix(once they FINALLY figure out what is broken). It usually takes about ten (10) visits from low level techs in order to get a senior tech (they used to call them line techs) out. That amounts to ten(10) afternoons I have to take off from work to wait for them to show up (if they show up). In this last round they wanted to charge me for a service call for not being home (which I was). Fortunately the tech they sent could not describe my house. It also did not hurt that I was on the phone with my Corporate Escalation rep asking her WTF the tech was.

Sorry about the rant.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88 to smcallah

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So whats all this »www.kramerfirm.com/pictu ··· ?album=2 ?
smcallah
join:2004-08-05
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smcallah

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Lazy and unsupervised technicians obviously.

Are you trying to imply such a thing wouldn't happen with Verizon? Be real.

I'm neither for cable or telco here, I'm just being realistic. Both have their faults, but neither one as a whole is stupid.

You can't fault an entire company for what a few soon to be unemployed or currently unemployed techs do. And that is my point.
Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO

1 edit

Lazlow

Member

Employees are going to be employees, regardless of who employs them. But, if you can reduce the number of things that can go wrong it is more likely that the average employee will be able to figure out the problem. If you have a device with ten parts and a competing product with 100 parts, which one are you better off using? All things break down. The fewer things that can break down the easier it is to figure out the problem. Cable just has too many things that can go wrong between the house and the head end. Fiber has things that can break down as well, but they are far fewer in number and even the ones that are there are not as susceptible to partial failure. When fiber hardware fails it is usually dead, pretty much go or no go. When cable fails it can sorta work. When you get 50 things in somebody's connection chain that sorta work (most peoples), how do you find the one that is not sorta working enough?