US Telco Support > Frontier Communications > [DSL] Anyone found a way to bridge SecondConnect effectively?

[DSL] Anyone found a way to bridge SecondConnect effectively?

Re: [DSL] Anyone found a way to bridge SecondConnect effectively

reply to george357
The problem with it is that say your connection speed is set to 2.5mb for it to change to the second connection. Then your first connection slows below 2.5mb. Then you can't get to 2.5mb to switch to the second connection.

Then you go in and set it lower to make up for the slower speed. Then you try to download a file from a ip dependent site like rapidshare and it fails because your ip changed when it jumps to the second connection.

There is a ton of problems with it.

In the end you can spend a ton of money trying to get around a slow connection from frontier.

Sounds like a case of theory being better than practice. Maybe better to wait a little longer and see what develops. Thanks for the info!

When the "Second Connect" service was first advertised and I received a flyer in the mail, Frontier was making it appear as if it was going to be a "Bonded DSL" service that would double your speed. There was even a number of tech newsletter sites with articles full of speculation as to just what it was going to be. I did some homework, researched the Frontier site for just what it was going to be, Bonded DSL, or just a second line, dedicated dry loop to a second modem. It turns out to be a non-bonded service that will easily double your monthly HSI bill, nothing more. Contract, 2nd Modem rental / support fee, etc... With your current line stats, (Line db, Line Attenuation are horrible,) I'd be contacting your Areas Regional Manager and seeing about getting those problems resolved at the CO, DSLAM, Internal / External wiring, or wherever the problem origionates from, before dumping more money into a, sketchy at best, second connection. Unless you have money to burn and really need that extra line, I'd pursue the line speed issues being resolved first.

Some people are saying the Second Connect line doesn't result in an additional modem fee. It just doubles the bill minus that fee since it is, as you pointed out nothing more than a second line.

It would be awesome if it were ADSL2+ bonded. ADSL2+ bonded modems only require the Inner and Outer pairs to be connected to "teamed" DSLAM cards to really work.

reply to Strider7Sfga
When Frontier starting advertising second connect I called and was told that you would be able to bond the two DSL lines. Found out that the information was incorrect. Since I have always owned my own modem I do not pay a modem fee on the second connect. My router supports dual WAN's so I use them in a weighted round robin configuration. But when they are only 1350 down you have to judge for yourself if getting second connect if a worthwhile investment. Your area may be able to support higher speeds.

reply to Strider7Sfga

You can bond the second connect lines too, if you feel that the second line round robin will be an issue for you. All you need is a router on one end that does VPN across two connections, and a server on another end, maybe with a 10Mbps port and a large bucket of bandwidth (or unmetered!) to bond with. This I find is a very reliable way, as you can essentially send traffic down the VPN, which simply reduces in speed if one of the lines go down. If your connection to the server fails entirely, as long as the connection is up your router should fall back to a non-VPN'd state and either balance load or whatever else you decide. If you do use a server, I suggest getting at least two IPs. One IP for the server itself, one as a "everything to/from VPN" IP to avoid issues.

Either way until Frontier changes the way they do things, since much of their legacy areas don't seem to take advantage of ADSL2+ too much (which can do bonding natively at the link, reducing overhead and complexity for the customer, but allows Frontier to stick a modem at you since there aren't too many modems that bond ADSL2+ lines. But for the cost of bonded modems/routers, it would then justify their modem rental fee with the prices they go for!), I guess that's the way it will have to be.

So it's either the above and giving people $300 modems or deploy VDSL2/LR-VDSL2 DSLAMs which have the same reach as ADSL2+ but when you're closer, offer speeds that can make cable a little bit "afraid" of it (200Mbps nearby, 100Mbps/100Mbps half a mile out, to reaching 24+Mbps a mile out?), and decent modems run for 1/4th the cost of bonding modems.

When they first offered the secondconnect I called Frontier and the lady I talked to said that the network was upgrading at the end of the year, which as far as I can tell never happened. From your description of what is necessary I am OK to wait and see if the upgrades ever take place.

reply to Smith6612
I agree Smith6612, unfortunately I do not see Frontier going that direction. They may make improvements to the larger areas but it will not be to the level discussed. But in rule area similar to where I live here in West Virginia I am going to be surprised if we see any improvement in infrastructure. Frontier is doing everything they can to become improve upon the monopoly that they have. Didn't the courts rule on telecommunications monoploies once before?

They did in the past. But keep in mind when they ruled against the Bell monopoly, that was at a time where Wireless providers were only remotely available due to cost and lack of infrustructure, and Cable systems only did a light selection of TV Stations over Analog. The system wasn't regulated AT ALL and essentially, one giant company owned practically the entire country besides a few small regional Bells and this giant Bell had control over everything from phone service to pay phones, to basically every business. CLECs were really non-existent either.

Frontier I don't consider to be a true monopoly at the moment, besides their pricing which even in Duopoly/Triopoly situations is no better which does have the touch of monopoly to it as everyone knows. I don't think the State Regulators would find them to be too much of a monopoly unless they keep up with the modem rental fees for cheap little plastic things with silicon inside that run open source software, nonsense fees, keep speeds the same, perhaps consider data limits like they did a few years back, and not even improve the network one bit, or like Citizens in this area used to do way back in the day, make the local calling plan extremely limited to the point where you really had to buy Long distance to place many regional calls or expect a couple hundred dollar phone bill at the end of the month. Man I am glad that I don't need Long distance anymore to call most of my area code.

I can't expect Frontier myself to run Fiber to everyone's home, but i do expect them to make use of whatever Fiber they do have to boost speeds wherever they can, improve service reliability for all, and to not simply leave it for those who wish to pay top dollar for little (Like T1 lines without SLAs which are a scam today). If it means letting some homes along a street with Fiber on it connect to some dark, unused strands that will never be used and eventually worn out/destroyed, why not at least do that and perhaps set up some other plan to let people reap the benefits while pricing it in a way that's affordable for all but gives profit? If it means placing VDSL2 DSLAMs (Pole mount ones exist!) to take old, beat up DSLAMs out of service, by all means do so. They have more range, have far more backplane capacity and breathe a bit more life into Copper to keep people pleased a bit more.

I also expect Frontier not to underplan what they're diving into, like they did with the Verizon deal. Like leaving the company full of local techs who don't know how to fix Litespan remote when it breaks, letting edge routers run to extreme loading levels (Just because they say Cisco on the case doesn't mean it's God! I shutter half the time when I hear the word Cisco, as it means it either runs really well, or whoever owns it overloaded the heck out of the thing even though it's set up right), letting the backbone saturate to the point where chains of COs choke down (which upsets the techs, too!), or pricing in such a way or placing speeds at places where even the most barebones cable packages beat them (like in my area).

So yeah. I understand. I've been a Frontier customer for years, back in the days of Citizens Communications and I believe even before then back when the Telco was actually a small town indie company not a part of the AT&T Bell Atlantic System (now Verizon). I've had DSL with them since they even installed the gear in the CO and built an RT back in the early to mid 2000s, along with running their first Fiber cables in the area. I'm with them because despite the annoyances, they've treated me well up to this point in time. I will say though that being a person with technical background and experience, if I were a shareholder of Frontier I would be disappointed to see my invested money coming back as dividends with the state things appear to be in. I obviously expect my stock and investment to grow, but not at some rediculous value that winds up hindering investment where it actually needs to go (and why I would invest in the first place for a company that has a potential future). But to ease up on things, Frontier isn't the only company I would shame for doing things like that. There's many others out there.

Whatever the case is, I certainly hope they get their act together and solve these issues once and for all, especially in West Virginia.

after the verizon deal frontier has so much debt i don't see how they can do anything productive. FTTH/VDSL2 aren't even on the radar for frontier.

Hence my underplanning statement. If they went into the deal knowing fully what they were taking and how to best support it, expanding services without letting stuff hit the fan, they would be in a much better position and they would have actually been able to chop down that debt at a faster rate to the point where they could make Verizon look bad to even those who see Frontier as evil. Even upgrading their legacy areas like Rochester, NY where their Main HQ is and where a huge technical community is present would have gotten them onto an awesome step as well. Even if it meant taking the old equipment and moving it out to expand services, it would have been a better option.

Back before this place was even an official forum, but just some under the shelf forum, we actually saw what Frontier's 10Mbps service was like. It actually was 10Mbps when they first introduced it, was faster than what Verizon and AT&T offered (can't count for smaller companies though as I didn't keep too many tabs since there's so many). I actually wanted it to show up in my area and was hoping Marketing/Sales would let them do these things (there are no technical issues in my area that says they CAN'T do more than 3Mbps/384kbps for residential lines. I know this for a fact which is also evident looking at their website). Within a few months, Racerbob (a DSLReports member), back then known as Mazdakman who was the first person I recall mentioning getting the service at that speed actually went from Roadrunner service and liked the service, hating Frontier in the past for their practices. It was dirt cheap too, and was actually consistent. Of course, again with the underplanning, the service started to hit the fan at night. He's back with Cable, after trying the service again a year after this and seeing the same thing. Sticking with cable now, and I can't blame him at all. I respect the decision. At least he has access to DOCSIS 3.0 now AND ADSL2+.

reply to plat2on1

Re: [DSL] Anyone found a way to bridge SecondConnect effectively

That's news to me. Whereabouts are they testing it, if you can tell? Are they setting the DSLAMs to speeds VDSL2 is capable of doing at all?

reply to george357
Personally, I have no doubt that Frontier will provide upgrades along their entire network. I base this belief on what I have seen them accomplish thus far in my area. If Frontier had not done the buy-out then I would have still been stuck on Hughesnet because Verizon had made it clear they were NEVER going to provide DSL. I am very happy with my current Frontier account, my service is great, the only reason I am looking at the second connect is that I do many different things at a time and would like the extra bandwidth. OF course I am like most others and would prefer to have a 100Mbps line just because its cool if nothing else. I don't think that many of the people complaining so much about Frontier realize what a massive undertaking they are working on and how much time things like this can take. There are just so many variables when it comes to upgrading networks of this size. You have to deal with weather issues when installing much of the hardware, and there is the problems that can come up when trying to integrate new equipment with old tech, etc. I think that for those of us that are not likely to see any other options for decent internet service would be best served to be patient and see what happens. I do not think most of us will be disappointed. Eventually.
--
The wise man seeks everything in himself; the ignorant man tries to get everything from somebody else. ~Anonymous

Cancer Cures Are Just A Crunch Away