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qcarm
join:2009-12-18
Moline, IL

qcarm

Member

[IL] been offered Mediacom fiber direct to premise

Is anyone else using this in the Quad Cities?

This would be fiber all the way to premise as a business connection. It will supposedly be symmetric for 1/2 what I am paying for T1.

I am concerned about reliability and decent tech support. They claim it will be a monitored circuit. Would I be able to add speed just by changing provisioning like a cable modem?

I am supposed to meet with a sales manager sometime this week.
Cable Employ
join:2012-07-23
Saint Paul, MN

Cable Employ

Member

This is something a lot of cable companies are getting into now. It will probably be a metro-e setup. For Comcast customers that sign up for this, they are monitored 24/7 from both a local NOC as well as a regional NOC. I can't say for sure how Mediacom works it. You will have to ask your sales person.
Mike45
join:2011-04-27
Berlin, MD

Mike45

Member

I would like to know more about this as well. How is their fiber infrastructure different from their cable plant? How is it monitored? Are there any SLAs? Is the bandwidth guaranteed throughout Mediacom to the internet? Are their techs able to do fiber repairs as easily as coax cable repairs?
qcarm
join:2009-12-18
Moline, IL

qcarm

Member

I guess I will know more tomorrow, the meeting is including a Mediacom VP.

Supposedly the fiber crews are separate and in-house and local.

Monitored circuit, 5 year contract with SLA, as many public ip's as I can justify (for me /24).

They told me other providers are re-selling Mediacom's service as their own, including my current provider.

They have a terabit or more of capacity? I wonder if he really knew what he was saying. This should be interesting. I need a stout router for this.
cooldude9919
join:2000-05-29

cooldude9919 to qcarm

Member

to qcarm
I can provide some input on this.

We have them in West Des Moinies, and the service itself after the fact has been pretty good. They use primilary ATT for their backbone and transit, so normally the bandwidth is tier 1. We had a lot of issues at startup with the ip addresses, and all i can say is be sure they put how many IP's are included with the price IN THE CONTRACT, no exceptions. They came back and tried to charge us something like $100 per month for a /25. We ended up getting the issue resolved but it was still pretty amateur stuff from them.

Also keep in mind the price may be good now, but how good will it be in 3-4 years? Once you sign that 5 year contract you are locked in, and if you need more after the fact, they can pretty much charge you whatever they want, and you cant do anything about it.

We just did another site with them in the southeast, but we worked out a good enough deal due to another competitive option that we felt the price would still be good in 3-4 years, so we felt OK going the 5 year route.

I get calls from their NOC about after hours work and such that will cause downtime, so they are on top of that. Its a whole different ballpark vs the cable modem product they provide.

So overall they are pretty good, and as long as you protect yourself with the SLA and contract i have no issues suggesting them.
qcarm
join:2009-12-18
Moline, IL

qcarm

Member

I had my meeting and it is a different world than consumer. I asked for a 3 year contract and they can do that. A lot can change as you said, and they only entered the market 2 years ago as a prime example of why a 5 year isn't to my benefit.

Some of their biggest business opportunities are providing fiber back haul between cell sites with some of them needing 1 gigabit connections. Who would have thought that smartphones were fueling Mediacom profit centers. They are quoting (5) 9's for reliability with a 2 hr MTR.

In order for me to get QoS for VOIP I would have to use them as the VOIP provider which makes sense. The VOIP traffic would be completely segregated and bandwidth protected.

I was able to point out my lack of trust because of the email debacle, the DNS problems, and the CSR problems on the consumer side to someone who is actually able to change policy.

The fiber side is just about providing the pipe, no extra services such as hosting, email, etc and they have some critical infrastructure customers already such as 911, hospitals, universities, etc.

Thank you for the warning about the ip's. Twice they have indicated no problem for ip's as long as I can justify them. It is bad if they did that to you.
cooldude9919
join:2000-05-29

cooldude9919

Member

said by qcarm:

I had my meeting and it is a different world than consumer. I asked for a 3 year contract and they can do that. A lot can change as you said, and they only entered the market 2 years ago as a prime example of why a 5 year isn't to my benefit.

Some of their biggest business opportunities are providing fiber back haul between cell sites with some of them needing 1 gigabit connections. Who would have thought that smartphones were fueling Mediacom profit centers. They are quoting (5) 9's for reliability with a 2 hr MTR.

In order for me to get QoS for VOIP I would have to use them as the VOIP provider which makes sense. The VOIP traffic would be completely segregated and bandwidth protected.

I was able to point out my lack of trust because of the email debacle, the DNS problems, and the CSR problems on the consumer side to someone who is actually able to change policy.

The fiber side is just about providing the pipe, no extra services such as hosting, email, etc and they have some critical infrastructure customers already such as 911, hospitals, universities, etc.

Thank you for the warning about the ip's. Twice they have indicated no problem for ip's as long as I can justify them. It is bad if they did that to you.

Its probably going to cost more per month for a 3 year, but you may be better off going that route, it just depends on the market.

If they say the IP's arent an issue then they should be able to put it in the contract.