[semi-OT] Review: Comcast Workplace cable Internet

[Jarod Wilson]

On Tuesday 11 September 2007 11:36:38 am Ben Scott wrote:
> On 9/11/07, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:
> > I still don't really know what my SLA is ...
>
>   To the best of my knowledge, if you have FiOS, you don't really have
> one, same as with Comcast.

Yeah, s/SLA/ToS/

> > Just haven't had reason to spend the time doing it, too many other things
> > going on, and the service has never been down.
>
>   ToS/SLA particulars are kind of like backups.  A lot of people never
> worry about them when everything is fine.  But when they suddenly
> become important, it's too late.  :)
>
>   (Note that I'm not arguing you should drop everything and go read up
> on this stuff.  I recognize that for a lot of people/orgs, it just
> isn't that important.)

Yeah, its just my personal/family web and email, so if its down, its not like 
its the end of the world, nobody is losing revenue or anything.

> > I haven't even lost my connection when power in the neighborhood goes
> > out.
>
>   Interesting.  Do you have your ONT (Optical Network Terminal, the
> box the fiber runs into) on an external UPS?  I've read elsewhere that
> ONTs are usually provisioned with a local backup battery, but it only
> runs the telephone services (not TV/data, to preserve battery for
> phone).  I wonder if this is a configuration option, or dependent on
> ONT model, or...

I have two fibers, each running to their own ONT, both on their own integrated 
battery backups. I have no phone service on either fiber, so the battery is 
free to keep power to the other bits. I just know that I've had my power out, 
and my servers on UPS can still get out to the tubes just fine, without the 
ONTs being on UPS. At least, that's my recollection... I'll have to 
double-check that at some point. There was use of a generator mixed in at one 
point during a lengthy outage, could be that the ONTs were actually pulling 
power from one of the outlets powered by the generator.

> > ... residential TV service paired with my business data service, which
> > ultimately ended up requiring two fibers ...
>
>   Two fibers?!?!  But I thought it was all "True QAM"!!!    /SARCASM  ;-)

Yep, two fibers, two ONTs on the house. Annoying, but oh well. Unbeknown to a 
number of people at Verizon even, certain TV services ride on the same vlan 
as residentail data, so if you switch the fiber from the residential vlan to 
the business one, no TV.

Note that the TV service actually requires a router to function -- on demand 
is all IPTV, guide data is all pulled via IP, etc. My cable box actually 
obtains a dhcp address from the router, both of which are hooked to the coax 
in the house, the communication being done over the MoCA protocol. So the 
cable box makes IP-based requests that go over coax to the router, which 
feeds them over to the ONT via cat5, which then feeds 'em up to Verizon via 
fiber.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com