ISP Review remarks - dslreports.com

csalmon

join:2000-07-16
Wichita Falls, TX

Bandwidth

I do sincerely apologize. We probably *will* slow down on residential DSL orders until we get more egress and ingress bandwidth, but that should happen very soon. We have turned away business before when we could not get facilities fast enough to serve everyone. However, everyone should realize, when you sign up now you are looking at where we will be 4 weeks from now, which is probably just fine. Here is what we have done and what we are doing to try to properly serve all of our customers:

1) I worked with IPC until they finally made us a test site for IMA (the T1 multiplexing technology to present you with one big pipe instead of individual 1.5's) that should go online within 10 days, finally! This will also take layer 3 hops out of our connection from you to us, improving gaming and other latency sensitive applications. Due to SWBell facilities problems in our area we have to bond together T1's rather than order DS3 for the time being.
2) I ordered another Tier 1 backbone line in November, they told me it would be here, its not, again facilities shortage. So I ordered yet ANOTHER backbone line from another network on Feb. 28 with a "30-45 day" install time according to them.
3) I had the staff work with Cidera to get us on a testing program for a direct from satellite backbone service and I put a Cisco cache engine in place to take the satellite feed, it is currently saving us about 30% on backbone bandwidth, and it gives users their web pages from a fast local source instead of accross the net. Web surfers should be getting really fast browsing from this, however it does not help some other services/protocols, except through taking the web load off of our backbone.
4) I put another satellite on the roof to bring requests for streaming media into our network through a satellite, should save us more bandwidth and make available new services like video on demand to broadband users. This will take additional load off of our backbone and pull streams through another 45Mbit satellite. Again, this only indirectly helps services other than streams. However once in place we are assured that video and audio streaming will be "primo".
5) I have completely worked up a plan to move into a colocation facility in Dallas where we can readily get fiber to the DSL network and up to gig ethernet connection to an IP cloud with multiple Tier one providers. I am currently putting together financing for this. This is the long term, ultimate solution for us.

BTW none of this is a problem for our ATM/Internet T1's, T3's and ATM VPN customers. Those are actually routed through a different DS3 and OC3 backbone that is not limited by our own facilities, but are provided directly through our DLEC partners, IP Communications. These type lines are guaranteed by SLA and have full bandwidth at all times. Those are not, however typically home user or small business lines, since they start at $600/month if you include internet (local loop included). However, that is still a great deal for those who need a guaranteed full T1 to the backbone, about as economical as you can find anywhere. I remember in 1994 UUnet was quoting $8,000 per month to us for full internet T1!! Yet even now, $600 is as good a price as you will find.

Again, apologies, we are working hard for you. We certainly appreciate all of our customers and want everyone to be happy. If anyone wants to vent, feel free to email me at chris@cst.net. I will answer all questions that I can.
--
Founder, VP, GM Cyberstation Inc.

permalink · 2001-03-14 21:39:59 · Print ·


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