Comcast [ was Fedora Eight is out on the streets!]

[Ben Scott]

On Nov 9, 2007 11:32 AM,  <VirginSnow at vfemail.net> wrote:
> Instead, these companies claimed that, in order
> to provide DSL, they had to line share with Verizon and that
> (drumroll, please) Verizon had "not yet" released the rights to line
> share for dry loop service.

  Yah, the big telcos are just as evil as the big cable cos.  And
saying either of them "don't get it" isn't strictly accurate.  They
just have no interest in giving you what you want.  Comcast will only
sell Internet with TV because they make more money that way.  (And
they have a near-monopoly so it don't matter.)  Likewise, Verizon
doesn't want to give people the opportunity to not give them money.

  The good local players (MV is one) will have been around long enough
to know how to deal with the ILEC and wrangle service out of them.

> Clearly, the telco is doing *something* right.

  It's actually MV that's doing something right here.

  There are two scenarios for non-ILEC DSL.  One is a true dry pair:
The ILEC (Verizon) just provides a pair of copper wires from your
place to the CO.  MV co-locates their equipment in the CO, and
connects that pair directly to MV equipment.  The other scenario is
that it's actually not a dry pair, but resold ILEC DSL with
third-party Internet (MV being the third party in this scenario).
Verizon provides DSL to their CO and DSLAM, and then a PVC (or
something like a PVC; I think the technology is different these days,
but it's the same idea) to MV's network center.  The IP feed goes from
MV to your place; Verizon is just carrying bits; they don't care that
you're running IP in it.

  Either way, you end up on MV's routers and transit feeds, and that's
a good thing.  MV is a top-notch provider, so I would expect they
haven't oversubscribed their network to the point of congestion, and I
would expect their routers are configured to honor TOS bits.

ILEC = Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier, the company that owns the
wires on the poles
CO = Central Office, building where the ILEC keeps their equipment
DSL = Digital Subscriber Line, bits instead of voice going from the CO
to your house
DSLAM = DSL Access Multiplexer, the CO equipment that terminates and
concenstrates DSLs
PVC = Permanent Virtual Circuit, a configuration entity on a
packet-switched network that makes a path act like it's on a
circuit-switched network, with committed data rates
dry pair = a copper circuit, provided by the ILEC, but connected at
each end to non-ILEC equipment

-- Ben