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I setup an ssh linux server and run port forwarding with putty and remote desktop over an ssh tunnel. Easy, no cost and I've done this for years. http://www.dslreports.com/faq/...

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Canadians-May-Sue-NorthwestTel-Over-Broken-Usage-Meter-127342

Antiphorm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20512864-antiphorm-lite or "cookie camouflage" would be easy and effective at creating a "digital haystack" so big that NSA could not monitor it. But Antiphorm disappeared, and

If you want a map of all the [[wire-line]] COs -- they are here : http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo

[...] Now cellular is a totally different game altogether. Cellular companies are subscribers of the phone network, not really a part of it. They run their own infrastructure and don't directly participate in SS7 for routing.

Yup, the POTS Bell System was open with its information sharing (pride of accomplishment) and maps and stats are out there. But for cellular topics there sure are a bunch of Anonymous Cowards in this thread with insightful comments. No doubt because their openness and opinion does not necessarily reflect their employer's.

Now if some AC should happen to post a link to a pastebin hosted map showing CO/HLR CELLULAR facilities for each of the major providers, we'd all be able to get a handle on what state (sorry or satisfied) of disaster preparedness we have achieved, so it could be identified as a 'challenge to solve' and be addressed.

Oh I almost forgot. If you are concerned about the vulnerability of utilities maintained by private companies these days, you are potentially a terrorist threat. How bloomin' convenient for them.

I spent 8 years on the 5ESS DSIG crew installing new COs and working on the SS7 protocol.

Hats off to you! Network is where I most wanted to be years ago when I was at The Phone Company, but at the time I was so good at the Data Processing side (carrier settlement and toll billing) I was stuck there. Like a puppet on a chain.

So we have a cell Central Office layer that is regional and connectivity to it would be necessary for individual towers to complete calls. Let me extend the Q to ask: is there some standard practice that confines geographic placement of COs to a certain radius? How many of these (as opposed to mere towers) would we find on a map, if such a map was available? I presume that if a CO was isolated no one could roam-in because the necessary central inter-carrier auth could not be completed, but what of existing subscribers? Would a CO facility, even if it was restarted from power down, retain enough subscriber data to bring its 'native' users in the local area to the point where that can complete calls to each other?

Sorry about the Wheeler (FCC Chairman) booboo in the summary. Brain fart.

If you want a map of all the COs -- they are here : http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo They are not placed by geographic radius, but by number of subscribers. Back in the day, a central office might serve an exchange or two (an exchange is the three digits after the area code in a phone number, for example 517-355, where 355 was the exchange). Of course some COs were larger and served multiple exchanges, some getting as large as a dozen and some were smaller and only handled a single exchange. Each exchange could have just short of 10,000 subscribers (known as nodes, corresponding to the 4 digits after the exchange in the phone number).

COs, regardless of the brand (two of the most common in modern day were the 5ESS and the DMS100) knew ALL the info for their subscribers and how to route calls to tandem (directly connected) switches and upper class switches. These were known as Class 5 switches (they had directly connected subscribers) Similar to IP routing, if the phone number you were dialing was not a local subscriber then it would switch the call to the next higher class switch (Class 4), who knew how to route calls to every exchange in your LATA (your toll-free calling area). If it didn't know how to route it, it would toss it to the Class 3 switch and so forth. Billing is always done at your local CO using "CDR" records (and sent to your phone company for central billing). There are now exceptions to these roles with LNP (local number portability), but the same series of events generally occur. Remote COs know nothing of subscribers in other COs.

So, short answer, if a CO powered down completely, calls within that exchange would not get delivered. If your CO survived but was disconnected from the CLASS 4 switch, then it would be able to process calls locally and be able to send calls to the tandem switches, but you wouldn't be able to call others in your LATA and they wouldn't be able to call you.

Now cellular is a totally different game altogether. Cellular companies are subscribers of the phone network, not really a part of it. They run their own infrastructure and don't directly participate in SS7 for routing. A CO could disappear and the cellular network wouldn't necessarily be hurt (unless that was their point of termination with the phone network).

These were a lot more words than most people will care to read for a comment... I spent 8 years on the 5ESS DSIG crew installing new COs and working on the SS7 protocol.

Other than that the 'POTS' system stays as it currently is.
I know, reading and comprehension is so fucking hard isn't it? :)

Other than: the price controls that apply to POTS will no longer apply, the uptime requirements that apply to POTS will no longer apply, the universal service requirements that apply to POTS will no longer apply, etc.

That's what the telcos said in Massachusetts http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Working-Hard-to-Gut-Massachusetts-Consumer-Protections-126180, and in New York http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/NY-PSC-Takes-Closer-Look-at-Verizons-Killing-of-Copper-124315 and everywhere else when they've asked for "waivers" to do trial changeovers away from POTS.

Apparently reading IS fraking hard.

Other than that the 'POTS' system stays as it currently is.
I know, reading and comprehension is so fucking hard isn't it? :)

Other than: the price controls that apply to POTS will no longer apply, the uptime requirements that apply to POTS will no longer apply, the universal service requirements that apply to POTS will no longer apply, etc.

That's what the telcos said in Massachusetts http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Working-Hard-to-Gut-Massachusetts-Consumer-Protections-126180, and in New York http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/NY-PSC-Takes-Closer-Look-at-Verizons-Killing-of-Copper-124315 and everywhere else when they've asked for "waivers" to do trial changeovers away from POTS.

Apparently reading IS fraking hard.

From Marc of TSI.

we don't sell our customer data to anybody... I'm looking into what this is but it has nothing to do with us or our customers.

Official answer:

The underlying AUPs of the incumbents apply to the connections used to provide TekSavvy' services. This is so the incumbents can control network abuse and stop unlawful conduct relating to the use of the connection.

The incumbents retail terms of service however, that apply to their own end users, do not apply to the customers of TekSavvy.

The incumbents do not have the right to breach the privacy of retail customers of TekSavvy.

Actually Bell / Rogers has 24 hours to fix it once it's gone up from the ISP and they usually do quicker than that.

Actually according to the TPIA agreements that most of the other ISP's have it's 48 hours, in fact it got so bad not all that long ago that the delays for repairs from Tek to Rogers were in the 7 day range. CNOC has recently filed with the CRTC to fix the TPIA issues and issues to repair, as well as long ticket repair delays. And this is happening across the spectrum, not just with Tek, or Velcom, or Start, but everyone DSL and cable, and getting screwed over.

If you're Canadian, you should write a letter to the CRTC. Information on it can be found here.

Myself, I've been with Tek back in Ontario for 3 years. I had one two day outage thanks to rogers breaking the routing tables, while doing a node update. Tek gave me the two days back discounted, I'm out in Alberta until December doing a deployment for a small town and the only thing I can get here is LTE for internet, because Telus refuses to upgrade the number of ports available. As a fun point, that's been on-going for 4 years, if you move in this city--you can't move your DSL with you either.

If you were ever interested in running for city council or mayor, this may be your year.

Two weeks after OP balked at Google Fiber they approved it, only to have Google withdraw the offer. OP will now be the island of "no gigabit" in a sea of Internet.

1. Solved with One-Time purchase.OBi100 + Google Voice: Solved forever for $39.
2. Solved by other purchase. Tethering from no-contract $60 virgin wifi hotspot I use when I'm traveling. I'm OK with paying $35 for unlimited 4G and 3GB of 3g for a 30 day window while traveling. It runs on Sprint in most places.
3. Not solved. Still pissed off about this.
4. Solved for long-term one-time purchases. I use CableCARDs + Windows Media Center + Xbox 360 Extender + SlingBox + 4x4TB HDDs + DVD-R DL's to eternally archive and watch full-resolution television content. Without ads on the channel guide, and with skipped commercials, to boot. And I never have to worry about this sort of snafu: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Your-Comcast-DVR-Is-Watching-You-92830 since they don't get analytics from me, except when I choose to share them (Which I do, through Shazam auto-tagged shows that I have scripted to pipe in to my GetGlue account. I support my content, just not the ability for the cable company to compute my life index). Oh, and of course, a DOCSYS 3.0 modem of my own that's both Comcast and TimeWarner approved. Will eventually have to replace to get with faster technology, but I'm OK with that.
5. Solved. Credit Unions ftw.

Couple o' bits:

1) "millions an hour" is pure hyperbole if we're talking about any server that isn't processing stock trades in realtime.

2) VPN is your friend, but only if you take the time to do it right. Learn to architect it, build it, and secure it. At home, you have a hard cable going from your work laptop to the cable modem - no exceptions. I've logged into live banking sites that way with no ill effects or undue exposures.

Cable modem?

I've been running Tor on my home FIOS connection for about six months in non-exit relay mode. Last month I received a registered letter from Verizon notifying me that I was using excessive bandwidth and that my connection would be terminated in ten days if I did not cease and desist. From what I read there were less than 100 FIOS customers that received this letter, and it was sent to folks who used upwards of 10tb per month. The paranoid conspiracy theorist in me says that the NSA encourages ISP's to crack down on Tor relays, while the annoyed consumer in me looks on it as a ploy by Verizon to sell me a commercial fiber service. Either way, I don't have the inclination or money to fight this battle, and so I shut down my Tor relay for now. Interesting to note that we were blocked from accessing Hulu Plus from our home as they had identified my IP as a Tor relay. Now that the relay has been off for a few weeks I should try connecting to Hulu again to see how long they blacklist IP's for.

not only can meter accuracy be off they can.

round up

bill you for overhead data and APR traffic.

Bill you when your modem is off (well the system is trying to send data to you so we bill for it)

http://www.dslreports.com/nsearch?q=cogeco&old=Search&cat=news

ISP get billed by 95% billing which is confusing and explained here much better than i can summarize: https://secure.dslreports.com/faq/10333

Google Fiber Server Neutrality Violation Being Overblown

In short, Google isn't doing anything that the other ISPs aren't doing (it's not like there's any indication that they will actually enforce the ban), and the reason the language is there is that Google will likely roll out a business package in the future.

except this is neither relevant nor factual, you left out all the important shit. Gotta love that. but yes, google is evil1111!!!oneoneone. fucking dumbass.

Here's' the reality:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Google-Fiber-Server-Neutrality-Violation-Being-Overblown-125189

Let's quote, shall we?

With that said it's very often never even enforced, and many users never run into a problem running full-grade servers at home -- even on larger providers with a history of anti-competitive behavior (AT&T, Verizon). The language has certainly never been used to stop someone from using Slingbox or from running a Minecraft server, the kind of aggressive violations constantly being hinted at by Singel and McClendon.

Is this kind of language overly broad and could it be scaled back? Absolutely. ISP terms of service essentially give carriers the legal right to do absolutely anything they see fit, from booting you for running servers, to booting you for copyright infringement or excessive bandwidth consumption. Their recent attempt to erode consumer legal rights and force binding arbitration (thanks, AT&T) is a particularly obnoxious development.

However, this guy doesn't even speak for those on google fiber.

"Here we have a guy who can't even get Google Fiber, and as such has never tried to run a server on Google Fiber, complaining because Google Fiber won't theoretically allow him to run a commercial server for his business on his nonexistent connection? When no other residential ISP in this industry will either? That's not Google being evil or a violation of net neutrality, it's just kind of silly."

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/North-Carolina-House-Passes-AntiCommunity-Fiber-Bill-113433

You can't. If you vote for a candidate that promises to be the most transparent administration in history, you get one that imprisons more whistle blowers than all other presidents in history combined. Voting won't change anything, and direct action will only get you labeled a terrorist. There's absolutely nothing that can be done. Democracy and the rule of law is dead in America.

All we can do is sit around and wait for another Enlightenment, and then refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

It's good to see further evidence/proof of something I said a few months ago, re: Americans having become apathetic beyond all reasonable doubt. Search for the word "apathetic" and read from there. The only ones we have to blame for this are ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's the 1% who control the country/make it corrupt, we're all still to blame for it in indirect and roundabout ways. The sooner we change our belief system -- that is, the belief and reliance on money -- the better off we'll become. (Really, take an hour-long walk and think about the big picture. You'll realise most idiocies today boil down to either money or religion; money is one we can choose to get rid of, or at least minimise its importance).

I've asked peers of mine (who are in agreement) what a good first step in the right direction would be. The best answer I got was to bring back war gardens as a way of getting to know the people around you and helping one another out via non-financial means. It's a small step, but it's definitely a good step.

There are other, more extreme (or major/dramatic) means citizens could take, but that apathy -- now starting to border on the equivalent of Korean han -- is what wins out every time. We'd rather sit around staring at out mobile phones like mindless zombified idiots and play Angry Birds than actually do something for the good of mankind (because yes, the United States has way too much bearing on mankind universally at this point -- another thing we should be ashamed of...)

You've just ran into a net neutrality issue. There have been and would potentially be more law suits regarding legitimate services being denied on particular networks.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Sued-For-Traffic-Shaping-Again-92039
http://www.lawsof.com/page/Bell-Canada-Sued-For-Shaping-Internet-Traffic.html

Issues arise as they are also throttling things like VOIP services as well. Suspected reasons is to encourage people to purchase their services for communication, long distance etc, by crippling cheaper alternatives that exist on their network. The issue rises from the concept that consumes have paid for a service with a specific amount of speed and permitted volume throughput. Consumers believe they are entitled to do what they want with what they were advertised and paid for. ISP's get upset when people actually make use of their services, and also if their services are providing them with cheaper phone alternatives etc.

It's similar if you paid for an All Season pass to football games or the such, and when you actually started going, the company got upset because they sold your seat to someone else as well, and now they need to invest in more seats.
Or if say Duracell sold flashlights, and you purchased one. Then Duracell got upset that you started using energizer batteries in the flashlight instead.
So they started dimming the flashlight, and tell you if you want full brightness, you have to use Duracell batteries only.

You'd be upset, you paid for the flashlight.

They need to stop overselling their seats to cheat the competition by appearing to offer much better seats when it's not true.
Plus in generally they need to stop offering blanket services and then saying but only if you do exactly what we say with it.
There's probably a lot of physical object comparisons I can use that make these practices unacceptable.

I realize my comment / opinion doesn't really cover situations where file sharing is primarily being used for copyrighted material, but the biggest problem with their methods of attempting to curb that can easily be applied to bad practices if the data is legal.
People seem to behave as if the ISP's wouldn't do this if the volume of transfer was all legal and legitimate.
I think they just need a better way of handling copyright infringement, or business need to adopt a different business model to stay in business with the way the world is these days.

I don't think trying to make laws so they can stay profitable the same way their existing business model works is turning out to be that effective.

Pushing more traffic into Verizon's network than you pull, means that Verizon's users are requesting data from you.

Umm, no it doesn't. We're not talking about last-mile links here, we're talking about backbone. If I'm Cogent, and I need to get traffic from San Francisco to New York, I can dump that on Verizon's network (or anyone else I'm peering with) and their network will dutifully forward the traffic all the way to NY. The end-point could be AT&T, Comcast, or even another Cogent customer, but dumping it on Verizon's network saves Cogent money, not having to utilize their own backbone.

And this is exactly what Cogent has been repeatedly accused of doing in the past, by pretty much EVERY TIER-1 ISP. Here's just a few examples:

https://secure.dslreports.com/shownews/92749

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/10/31/peering-dispute-between-cogent-sprint/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/level-3-issues-statement-concerning-internet-peering-and-cogent-communications-55014572.html

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/22/peering-disputes-migrate-to-ipv6/

http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/cogent.htm

...or does that not apply to internet service providers?

In Canada it does, back a few years ago Rogers was involved in throttling everything, even though they said they weren't. Took the work of a few very determined people who brought it before the CRTC, and were told to stop or face fines. As a fun note, Rogers and Bell Canada were two of the greatest throttlers in the world back then.

I'll try to shed some light on this, as an American speaking to a Canadian. Small preface, because I think it's warranted:

I'm a 36 year old white American of introverted personality who has never felt any kind of patriotism towards his country (the concept eludes me), nor (by choice) partakes in the process which so many Americans claim is the most important part of our country: voting. I'm the odd man out, but more importantly I'm just one man with his own opinion -- mine are no more right or wrong than the next.

I've thought about all this ("the state of our nation", why Americans are the way they are, etc.) since I was roughly 14. How often I've pondered it has gradually increased over the years, solely because of all the events going on within our country. I stopped reading newspapers, online news/media, etc. (barring occasional things -- the Snowden situation is one of them) in 2000 when one day I opened up CNN's home page and every single headline in every single category had negative connotations (denotations?). I am not a good writer (I am too verbose, and my vocabulary is limited due to my education), but I did write something eloquent and terse about this last month that I feel proud about and feel is relevant to your question/comment (will get to that in a moment).

Most of the items you listed off can all be explained by one single trait: apathy. Some might say lazy, but I don't think that's necessarily the right word nor true. In my opinion, it started roughly in the early 90s and has progressively gotten worse. Folks older than me will likely state it began way before that but I'd disagree, citing the opposition to the Vietnam war (mid-60s to early 70s) as my main rebuttal; that was the last real, widespread, and massive "uprising" we Americans held. The keyword here is massive, because our governments (local, state, and federal) do not care about a few hundred people here and there. For example the Occupy Wall Street movement did absolutely nothing to impact people's thought processes or make them question their ethics -- and those are what need to happen for us to heal as a country. This has nothing to do with religion, this has to do with refocusing on the concept of the "Right Thing(tm)" and having that be our driving force. I'm not sure how or where to start in that process either, but a good friend of mine suggested bringing back war gardens and the simple process of getting to know your immediate neighbours (to the point of considering them friends); the concept here is to change thinking about oneself and instead think about others or "the group".

As for what I wrote last month: a broadband/tech forum I frequent mentioned the DOJ demanding telephone records from the Associated Press (and here's some more information if you wish to read it). This didn't shock me one bit, because you could say I've grown apathetic to this type of thing happening in our country: a strange combination form of paranoia and hastiness running rampant throughout the government and its citizens. This isn't a new thing to me, it's been going on for a long time (like I said, at least 20 years).

A person replied to the news, shocked by what had been transpiring "recently" (not sure what hole they were living in, but that's okay), which prompted another individual to ask "How many gross violations of the Constitution would it take for people to rise up against an unjust government?".

I chose to respond.

It's very hard to put into text the thoughts and feelings folks have about what's been going on, but it

I'll try to shed some light on this, as an American speaking to a Canadian. Small preface, because I think it's warranted:

I'm a 36 year old white American of introverted personality who has never felt any kind of patriotism towards his country (the concept eludes me), nor (by choice) partakes in the process which so many Americans claim is the most important part of our country: voting. I'm the odd man out, but more importantly I'm just one man with his own opinion -- mine are no more right or wrong than the next.

I've thought about all this ("the state of our nation", why Americans are the way they are, etc.) since I was roughly 14. How often I've pondered it has gradually increased over the years, solely because of all the events going on within our country. I stopped reading newspapers, online news/media, etc. (barring occasional things -- the Snowden situation is one of them) in 2000 when one day I opened up CNN's home page and every single headline in every single category had negative connotations (denotations?). I am not a good writer (I am too verbose, and my vocabulary is limited due to my education), but I did write something eloquent and terse about this last month that I feel proud about and feel is relevant to your question/comment (will get to that in a moment).

Most of the items you listed off can all be explained by one single trait: apathy. Some might say lazy, but I don't think that's necessarily the right word nor true. In my opinion, it started roughly in the early 90s and has progressively gotten worse. Folks older than me will likely state it began way before that but I'd disagree, citing the opposition to the Vietnam war (mid-60s to early 70s) as my main rebuttal; that was the last real, widespread, and massive "uprising" we Americans held. The keyword here is massive, because our governments (local, state, and federal) do not care about a few hundred people here and there. For example the Occupy Wall Street movement did absolutely nothing to impact people's thought processes or make them question their ethics -- and those are what need to happen for us to heal as a country. This has nothing to do with religion, this has to do with refocusing on the concept of the "Right Thing(tm)" and having that be our driving force. I'm not sure how or where to start in that process either, but a good friend of mine suggested bringing back war gardens and the simple process of getting to know your immediate neighbours (to the point of considering them friends); the concept here is to change thinking about oneself and instead think about others or "the group".

As for what I wrote last month: a broadband/tech forum I frequent mentioned the DOJ demanding telephone records from the Associated Press (and here's some more information if you wish to read it). This didn't shock me one bit, because you could say I've grown apathetic to this type of thing happening in our country: a strange combination form of paranoia and hastiness running rampant throughout the government and its citizens. This isn't a new thing to me, it's been going on for a long time (like I said, at least 20 years).

A person replied to the news, shocked by what had been transpiring "recently" (not sure what hole they were living in, but that's okay), which prompted another individual to ask "How many gross violations of the Constitution would it take for people to rise up against an unjust government?".

I chose to respond.

It's very hard to put into text the thoughts and feelings folks have about what's been going on, but it

I'll try to shed some light on this, as an American speaking to a Canadian. Small preface, because I think it's warranted:

I'm a 36 year old white American of introverted personality who has never felt any kind of patriotism towards his country (the concept eludes me), nor (by choice) partakes in the process which so many Americans claim is the most important part of our country: voting. I'm the odd man out, but more importantly I'm just one man with his own opinion -- mine are no more right or wrong than the next.

I've thought about all this ("the state of our nation", why Americans are the way they are, etc.) since I was roughly 14. How often I've pondered it has gradually increased over the years, solely because of all the events going on within our country. I stopped reading newspapers, online news/media, etc. (barring occasional things -- the Snowden situation is one of them) in 2000 when one day I opened up CNN's home page and every single headline in every single category had negative connotations (denotations?). I am not a good writer (I am too verbose, and my vocabulary is limited due to my education), but I did write something eloquent and terse about this last month that I feel proud about and feel is relevant to your question/comment (will get to that in a moment).

Most of the items you listed off can all be explained by one single trait: apathy. Some might say lazy, but I don't think that's necessarily the right word nor true. In my opinion, it started roughly in the early 90s and has progressively gotten worse. Folks older than me will likely state it began way before that but I'd disagree, citing the opposition to the Vietnam war (mid-60s to early 70s) as my main rebuttal; that was the last real, widespread, and massive "uprising" we Americans held. The keyword here is massive, because our governments (local, state, and federal) do not care about a few hundred people here and there. For example the Occupy Wall Street movement did absolutely nothing to impact people's thought processes or make them question their ethics -- and those are what need to happen for us to heal as a country. This has nothing to do with religion, this has to do with refocusing on the concept of the "Right Thing(tm)" and having that be our driving force. I'm not sure how or where to start in that process either, but a good friend of mine suggested bringing back war gardens and the simple process of getting to know your immediate neighbours (to the point of considering them friends); the concept here is to change thinking about oneself and instead think about others or "the group".

As for what I wrote last month: a broadband/tech forum I frequent mentioned the DOJ demanding telephone records from the Associated Press (and here's some more information if you wish to read it). This didn't shock me one bit, because you could say I've grown apathetic to this type of thing happening in our country: a strange combination form of paranoia and hastiness running rampant throughout the government and its citizens. This isn't a new thing to me, it's been going on for a long time (like I said, at least 20 years).

A person replied to the news, shocked by what had been transpiring "recently" (not sure what hole they were living in, but that's okay), which prompted another individual to ask "How many gross violations of the Constitution would it take for people to rise up against an unjust government?".

I chose to respond.

It's very hard to put into text the thoughts and feelings folks have about what's been going on, but it

The issue is abandoning ship and restoring the copper once the fiber has been laid in as a replacement.

My knowledge of copper removal for the GP post I made seems outdated, so I don't know if things have changed. Trying to find proof, I only saw this old thread. It says you can get copper restored for free with one fiber provider and that they don't *always* take away your old copper wires.

The problem is that conditions change, unwritten rules stop being followed, and suddenly you're out of luck.

Verizon seem to have a different idea as to the cheapest and fastest way to replace their damaged copper lines and poles - go wireless:
see (for example) http://www.app.com/article/20130503/NJBIZ/305020135/Verizon-Wireless-Mantoloking and http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Tells-More-Sandy-Victims-Theyll-Never-See-DSL-Repaired-124166

Uverse has coverage of around 30M homes, out of around 125M in the country and some of those areas they have the catv monopoly too.

Since uverse is mostly fiber to the neighborhood with DSL from there, maximum effective speed varies a lot because DSL is distance dependent. 18-24Mbps is the shortest distance.

That nonsense has been debunked numerous times. Reddit latched on to the "workaround", but if you actually read the full thread -- not skim it -- you will find intelligent network-savvy folks commenting on its idiocy. The person who came up with this "workaround" doesn't understand things like DNS load balancing, anycast, and other methodologies Youtube deploys (including back-end stuff) to accomplish load balancing. You might also be surprised to know Youtube's Flash applet (not sure about the HTML 5 stuff) has rate-limiting implemented in it as well (really, it does).

Here are two forums threads I've been involved with now where in both cases asking people to step up to the plate and provide hard proof (specifically of TWC implementing some kind of throttling) resulted in them admitting the supposed "workaround" doesn't work at all, not to mention contains references to netblocks that have nothing to do with Youtube, and netblocks of the wrong size (based on ARIN WHOIS, rather than what's advertised on the Internet via BGP):

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28102912-Heads-up-guys.new-trick-to-eliminate-Youtube-throttling-
http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/youtube-loading-issues-possible-solution.68493/

I wish that Mitch Ribar guy would take down that blog post already.

It's still an eInk Pearl display, though. The different resolution displays all use the same eInk screen, but they put a different resolution of magnetic grid behind it.

Having compared macro shots of my Kindle 3 and Kindle Paperwhite, I wonder if they're not getting near the limit of how much detail the Pearl display can resolve anyhow, regardless of the resolution of the magnetic grid behind it. On the Kindle 3, the pixels were very noticeably square, but by the time they hit the paperwhite they were a lot less distinct. As in, the eInk capsules are only so small, so you don't necessarily get improvements as you keep shrinking. They'd need to make the capsules smaller for that.

I could be wrong, though, the Paperwhite might not be close to the limit, but take a look at the macro shots I made:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27956537-

The first shot is grainier because the camera ISO was much higher. The wavyness of the second shot is not photo processing, it looks like that in real life when magnified. The font size was set to the same on both Kindles.

Consumer advocates are concerned the massive co-marketing and spectrum deal between Verizon and cable companies includes so-called gentlemen's agreements that FiOS will never be expanded into additional markets

From here

While the lawsuit is silly, there is zero evidence that this was their revenue plan.

Oh really!

"Ireland is a small country" explains part of the issue of why it costs so much here.

The U.S. is physically huge. Ireland is about the size of one of 50 of the states. Takes a lotta dough to to build a network across the U.S. That and our regulators aren't empowered to stop companies from ripping us off.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Nobodys-Doing-The-Math-On-Verizon-Mystery-Fee-Scandal-110725

SIP is end to end P-P once a connection is established.

If you need to hide your IP for a Skype session, use a SIP to Skype gateway.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26518054-SIP-to-Skype-Skype-to-SIP-new-method

If I Skype you, my IP will resolve to the gateway address. Skype me at skype2ipp, then enter my user name when prompted.

I don't know how Cox does it, but as a Comcast agent (and one of the few people there that actualy UNDERSTANDS CabeCards, know about the CCI, the 2 aspect of CableCards: Conditional Access and Copy Protection) here's how they do it (in digital areas):

Limited Basic: Copy freely
Expanded Basic (no longer an explicit tier, is now part of Digital Starter): Copy freely
Digital Starter: Copy freely
Digital Preferred: Mostly Copy freely except for Encore and Bravo, which are copy-once in at least some areas).
Premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, TMC): Copy once.
PPV: Copy never

I am certin on the above based on offical Comcast documentation and personal experience. As for the other stuff: The Sport and Entertainment Package, Multilatino/Selecto and international channels are probably copy-freely; Playboy and EPIX are probably copy-once.

Hate Comcast all you want, but at least as far as copy protection is pretty permissive - most content copy-freely; copy protection is only applied when Comcast is contractually required to apply it) . Comcast is actually one of the more clueful companies with CableCard, even if the reps aren't - but like most reps they are low-pay, low maintence ( just need to be provided plenty of sunlight and a twice-weekly watering).

Its entirely possible something configured wrong at the headend. Such a problem would be almost undetecable - only devices that participate in Conditional Access but not Copy Protection would notice this. Customer owned-CableCard devices are a very small subset of devices; Conditonal access-only CableCard device are a very small subset of THAT subset. You coudl call COX and explain, though i doubt the rep will know what you're talking about (or even if they do, what to do about it).

DSLreports has offically sactioned forums for customers of certain ISP's customer, and even in the unoffical forums many employees often stop either offical or unoffically, and may be able to resolve this issue.

TWC has a *near* monopoly on my area (Cincinnati), so it is what I use. The moment Cincinnati Bell Fioptics or Verizon FIOS is available on my street, I'm outs.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Verizon http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-FiOS-Expansion-is-Over-118949

Many businesses are receiving letters like this. It's a fraud.

You might want to read this article:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cisco-Motorola-Netgear-Aim-Cannons-At-WiFi-Patent-Troll-121594

And this:

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121009/01444620656/cisco-motorola-netgear-team-up-to-expose-wifi-patent-bully.shtml

"Last year, we wrote about a crazy patent troll, named Innovatio, who had sued a ton of restaurants and hotels, claiming that anyone who used WiFi was violating its patents. It was even claiming that individuals who use WiFi at home infringed too -- but that it wouldn't go after them "at this time." Instead, it preferred to focus on shaking down tons of small businesses, offering to settle for $2,500 to $3,000 -- which is cheaper than hiring a lawyer to fight it, no matter how bogus. We noted at the time that Motorola and Cisco had gone to court to try to get a declaratory judgment to protect its customers. "

You aren't liable and you'll probably get a successful good free lawyer (well free to you) if anyone gives you grief.

Worried about your door kicked in? I'd say it's your civic duty - and if my reasons aren't good enough for you, maybe you'd consider the optional counter-suits like winning the lottery

>If they simply say "well, we have no idea of who is using it for what", some clever lawyer will say they're facilitating this.

And it would be laughed out of the courtroom.

Show me one court case where someone was held criminally responsible for having open wireless and it was abused by a third party.

One. Case.

I double-dog-dare you.

-- BMO

This is kind of mixed. It appears that the MPAA will often back down if you run an open wifi defense. However, it might not work for a child porn defense. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/04/child-porn-case-shows-that-an-open-wifi-network-is-no-defense/ http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/WiFi-Network-Shuttered-By-MPAA-ReOpens-105492

>Food is a much more essential good than fiber optic internet service, and yet I never hear anyone calling for the municipalities to nationalize (city-ize?) all the food stores in town.

I see you know little about America and what is 'nationalized'.

You've not been reading much lately, ISP's have consolidated and are not profit taking at record levels after years of fights cities laying their own fiber, luckly in this case the city finally won and is laying their own fiber at much higher speeds. I worked for one of the ISPs that fought the city at the time. We offered them shitty low speed service and would not spend the capital to upgrade their system. Instead the company spend millions in lobbying and advertizing to keep the city from building its own network.

For comparison, Sonic.net, which Google partnered with to bring fiber to some Stanford residences in CA, is using Adtran GPONs for their fiber rollout in Sebastapol. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26685216-Is-GPON-Good-Enough-For-The-Future-

do you have a link with more information or anything?

• http://forums.opendns.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=226
• http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21284386
• http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136270
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS#Issues.2C_conflicts_and_Google_redirection

Charter isn't really a choice, it's more like a joke, except not as a funny.

Could you elaborate on why Charter Internet is a joke? This review (second Google result for [charter internet review]) says "HSI and Phone work great" but "Charter TV SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS".

I disagree. For $120 you are basically getting exactly what the OP described in one of his responses: a bunch of metal configured in a certain way.

Antennas are one of the easiest "geek projects" to do, and if the OP has access to the materials described, it should be a fairly simple (2-4 hours) project...

Actually, just googled "DIY LTE Antenna" and came across this . Apparently 4 hours to build, and cost all of $10.

Sure from a pure time/money perspective, you are only saving $27/hr, but IMHO it's time well spent.

How about posting some pictures of the milky way? I've only barely seen it once while on Hilton Head island.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27484816-DIY-3G-4G-LTE-Yagi

http://bcbj.org/antennae/lte_yagi_diy.htm

Meraki is mesh wifi that grew out of Roofnet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet. They sold 'open source' oriented mesh hardware for a while and then closed the infrastructure and raised prices. Declaration of interest, I got caught and remain mad with them, they're a good example of [what I call] 'open season', jackals who scavange on open-source. Here's some of the detail: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Meraki-Annoys-Partners-Customers-88249

Since there's been news of predatory and exaggerated pricing by Cisco recently: http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=cisco+pricing they'll make great partners. I'm not taking anything at all from either of them.

If DSL is so reliable as you claim, then what is this?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/184

And I'm not sure what lies you say I speak of. I already know that your 3ms claim is a lie. SDSL, which has the lowest latency, has a minimum 10ms latency. ADSL frequently relies upon interleaving in order to reliably deliver layer 2 data. That brings you a minimum of 35ms latency, sometimes up to 75ms, depending on how they tune it. They'll tune it to different amounts depending on your SNR.

Cable doesn't have to deal with any such issue.

Also, cable has hit 250Mbit to the last mile, whereas DSL has hit 80Mbit, but only to customers who live within a few hundred feet of the DSLAM. I've told you about channel bonding, among other things, which you simply can't do over DSL. Your voice lines are at their capacity. RG6 is nowhere near its capacity.

And actually the reason they got rid of coax for LANs was because at the time, orthogonal modulation didn't exist and it was easier to simply add more wires with more twists, so cat5 was born. Also, twisted wiring has hit its limit, as no form of twisted pair will exceed 100mbit without becoming an inductor or adding a ridiculous number of pairs.

Also, keep in mind that DSL relies upon using existing telephone wiring. That wiring will never come anywhere near what cat5 does, whereas coax can already exceed the theoretical limits of twisted pairs.

You might ask, why we don't go back to coax then? Well, because dark fiber is cheaper, and SM fiber is capable of retaining its signal at much greater distances with fewer raw materials.

By the way, I'm a network engineer. Knowing this technology is my business. From the sound of things, you're a fanboy angry that he won't see anything higher than 15mbit any time soon.

Callcentric apparently had a single datacenter in NYC with no backup power generator. Lots of discussion here.

There are a couple of ways to find a WISP. Most reputable WISPs are members of WISPA. WISPA search

The other way is to ask on DSLReports WISP section. DSL Reports WISP

Good Luck.

That should have read, Judging from history...