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AT&T Caps Bandwidth On Former @Home Users
graznar writes: "It seems that AT&T users have been limited to 1.5 megabits of bandwidth. According to AT&T (after calling and waiting for 30 minutes), the service my friend was originally on went bankrupt (@home maybe?) so they were transferred to an alternate network. AT&T claims they will be getting this back up to speed soon. What I would like to know is if this is a nation wide problem, or if this is just in California where he lives?" More generally, I wonder what type of experiences -- good or bad -- the people who've just gone through a forcible @home weaning are experiencing.
the shaw news server sucks (victoria bc), it keeps timing out on me... i use FotoVac to suck back lots o pictures
like we really have to ask?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Assuming the merger passes governmental muster (and I don't know if it will or not), what can the current ATTBI customers expect from Comcast? I'm one of the lucky ATTBI customers that was not on @home, because I am on the old MediaOne network. So I haven't experienced the latest round of changes. But, will something be in store soon? I do know that some Comcast markets had been prepared for the @home problems, before they pulled the plug. So maybe that's a good sign?
Then suddenly it got slower. And stayed slower. Finally, we confronted TWRR, and they admitted that they'd capped us at 2 Mbit/s down and 384 Kbit/s up. Well, at least they finally admitted it.
In any event, 1.5 Mbit/s down isn't too bad. Did they put a upstream cap on too? If so, what's it set at? Didn't @Home have a 128 Kbit/s cap on upstream?
i don't use the mail servers or anything like that, so i haven't really noticed a difference. except for the upload cap, but thats several months old. its still a better deal than Telus ADSL with its download limit at 4 GB a month. I can download 1 GB a day or more and shaw has no problems. PS: 56K sucks
Insight cable (one of the cable companies that paid a portion of the $355M deal (but they got a much better deal (40-50/user/mo as opposed to 92/user/mo that comcast and cox were getting)) announced that they would be transitioning to AT&T's backbone yesterday. (link).
I can not see how all of this sudden traffic onto ATT's network doesn't screw something up. I'm somewhat suprised that ATT agreed with Insight(or maybe even that insight agreed with ATT) with all of the news about unhappy customers and such.
Of course, I'm pretty sure that everyone was sold 1.5mbps/128kbps when they bought their @Home, but that @Home didn't bother capping the download speeds. It still sucks, but it's not like you were promised x and recieved y.
Just call me lpb.
Overall, the transfer and resulting service went fine here in Athens, GA. However, there is a little bit of complaint. I have a G4 set up as a NAT box (also my main computer) and my dad's G3 on a subnet. This is because our new provider, Charter, no longer supports multiple computers per cable modem. Instead of buying a router, I went with the software solution. Now, about once or twice a day, I lose the internet. DNS stops responding, but I have BIND set up to cache for 20 days and that doesn't solve the problem. Only recourse is to reboot. Even running /etc/rc again doesn't fix it. However, service-wise, everything seems to have been done right on the money.
-Shep
AT&T made its users aware that there would be a cap at 1.5MB -- there's a FAQ on their Website that says as much and (much more disturbing) they've made clear they plan to charge for speed in the future. How that's affected by the merger, who knows...
This is a non-issue, people on AT&T @Home are already aware of it if they've paid attention. It might suck, but it's not unreasonable.
I have AT&T@HOME(well, not @home anymore i guess) and have experienced no outages, or speed decreases, I live in Lakewood, CA. Hope this helps.
Is this really a limit? After two years with a cable modem (first Rogers, then Rogers@Home, then Shaw@Home, then Shaw), I never saw transfer rates of over 1.5Mbps. I generally considered myself lucky if I got half of that.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
this is OLD news. AT&T has been capping their bandwidth for a month now.
AT&T has been providing quality service for all your needs
I dropped at&t's sorry ass 5 months ago. they blow
When I signed up for Comcast@Home, I signed up for 1500 kilobits/s down, 128 kilobits/s up. And that's pretty much what I get, depending a bit on the network itself. Now if my contract said 1.5 Megabytes/sec, then I'd certainly have issues.
The can't really provide a T1's worth of downloads to each customer for $50/month.
Actually, my parents just got switched from MediaOne to @Home (They were bought out), and now are on ATTbi. The problem is that I'm home from college for winter break, and ATTbi's DHCPd doesn't want to cooperate with Linux, and they don't seem to take static IPs either. So what can I do to fix it?
Anyone else have similar problems?
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
Wow... sucks to be me... now I only have 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. Wait, I've never seen anything faster than that on this network (AT&T, Chicago area). I'm also assuming that means download speed... I've never seen upload that fast. So what's the big deal about download being limited to 1.5 Mbps?
Quite frankly, however, this isn't that big a deal (even if it was possible to get better speeds) as long as AT&T doesn't start doing nasty things like blocking incoming or outgoing ports or start rotating the IP address (like I've heard some cable providers do). For $50/month, I exect at least a little service from the ISP...
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Im not capped on my european ISP (i can get 1300 kbps inbound) :) and soon 10mbps flat rate :P
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
I'm in Richmond, VA, and my cable access provider is Comcast@Home. Our network has not been purchased by AT&T, however my speed has dropped (only slightly) since @Home went down. Comcast has been rolling commercials like nothing happened around here: deals if you subscribe to digital cable and cable modem access together.
I must hand it to Comcast. They've kept the network up with no outages that I'm aware of. They're not as fast as other cable access companies (my avg. speed is ~400kbps), but they have had killer uptimes while I've been on.
I wouldn't get to worried about AT&T limiting your bandwidth anyway. You have to expect something in a time of adjustment. If this becomes prolonged practice, then I might start bitchin', but sometimes you just need to let the industry figure itself out.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
There were a lot of threads about this back when slashdot was covering the changeover. But anyway, yes, the 1.5 mbit limit is across the board for AT&T customers, AFAIK. I am limited here in Sunnyvale, California. But while the limitation is noticable (no more insanely fast KaZaA downloads), the switch to AT&T's backbone was so fast (about 3 days, I think) that I really can't complain. Their service has been good. So I'm fairly happy with AT&T, although I would look at better deals.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
I wish my cap was 1.5Mb. Down here we have a 15KB upload cap. Granted this is not bi, but I believe that 15KB is kinda stingy. The d/l is about 760kb on a good day. I wish DSL was available in my location :(
For lots of useful information and experiences from ATTBI users, see the ATTBI forum on DSLReports.
AT&T has only had their new network up for a few weeks now, and while it seems reliable and reasonably fast, it is still not the greatest. Now I have heard ads for "AT&T Broadband" on the local radio station offering "great holiday values on lightning-fast internet access." I don't know what they're thinking. Do they want to start stacking customers onto a network that has just been erected recently and hastily?
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!
I'm on Comcast@home in NJ and according to http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ my speed is about 2.5 down and 384 up. Not bad. I don't know if this means the test is bad, they just haven't hit my subnet yet with the limits or the limits are only in Cali, but the speed is just fine for me. I'll kep paying the same fee if they keep this level of speed up no matter who runs things at the other end...
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
My mom has at&t cable access. I remember when I still lived at home speeds up to 6 megabits were not uncommon. However after the @home problems, she was switched to at&t's network. I ran some speed tests on the line and sure enough she was now capped at 1.5 megabit, the upload speeds have always been 128k so there is no change there.
Here in CO we have a 1.28MB cap down, and a 12.8K cap up. Before the @home disaster, I could get 5MB+ down.
Sucks, but @home said there would be 1.5 down cap, just never enforced it. Hopefully AT&T will up their cap here to 1.5 soon.
It's 1.5 MB in Jacksonville, Fla.
i used to have a static ip when i was with @home. They sent a letter to me a few months ago asking if i wanted to keep my static ip or switch to DHCP. I wanted to keep static because i was too lazy to change my linux router. They allowed this, but when they switched over to AT&T they switched me to DHCP. I did not want this, and now AT&T forces me to have a dynamic ip
Other than being up and down for a couple of days, service has been ok so far. I had to walk the CSR through rebuilding my mail account - it took a while for them to understand that "User has no maildrop" errors in POP are not the same as "Bad password"...
DNS was down on Thursday. I switched to the old Mediaone DNS server until AT&T fixed it.
Bandwidth does seem to be capped at 1.5Mb. This is a nuisance, but not a huge deal to me. The only time I can find servers that could reach the 3-4Mb max speed is when downloading Linux ISOs, which I always do overnight anyway. I am more concerned with low latency than peak bandwidth.
Comcast/AT&T intends to drop Usenet and introduce tiered service, so I'm taking a wait and see attitude. I don't mind paying more if I truly get more. (i.e. low latency, high bandwidth, no port blocking, minimal outages)
The big problem were the absolutely shitty AT&T nameservers which were also rigged to hijack whatever name you were trying to resolve at random moments and direct you to the attbi.com help page.
Thank god for OpenNIC.
Other than that, service has been reliable, though it is true that downloads are now limited to 1.5Mbps instead of ~8Mbps I was getting before.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
My biggest complaint is the speed cap. Mine was slower from the get-go: I've been capped all along. Me-thinks this is old news, though one wonders why the article I submitted didn't get posted...
... I'm basically stuck with cable modem.
Bottom line: I signed up for @Home's speed. To get less than half of what I'm paying for (price didn't go down by 65% when they capped my speed) really really sucks. If there was an alternative within $20 per month in price, I'd be on it in a jiffy. But alas, DSL and fixed wireless are all very pricey right now. Maybe I should start a fixed wireless ISP?
But unless I can convince my neighbors to let me split up a fractional T3 amongst us... (Where's my high-gain 802.11x antenna?)
Who did what now?
Yes, it's true, and it's national. I don't like it, but I'm no longer complaining. Yes, I used to be able to get ~400,000 bytes/sec.. but I can see how selling a $3000/mo connection for $45/mo might be a cause for bankrupcy.
The upload limit has been 12,800 bytes/s for the last year.
(I'm using bytes, because nobody seems to understand the diff between KB, Kb, Mbps, MB, etc).
The more important issue here, is DSL - some lucky people close to their CO can now get *slightly* faster speeds with DSL, and perhaps a better upstream rate. And run servers. And have a static IP. And get real tech support.
And - pay the same, or less, a month.
In short: The main reason I picked cable over DSL no longer exists. But I'm too lazy to make the switch.
The national carrier for ADSL and CABLE [bigfund.com] caps every user at 512down/128up and if you would like to pay they can generously provide more bandwidth at approx 10c$US/meg, with a small fee of 250$US/month connection.
Isnt it great to live in the worlds biggest island [and natural monopoly]
As a suffering Rogers@Home customer, I would love to be able to reach that kind of throughput. Unfortunately, during most of the evening hour, i.e. 7pm to midnight, we are seldom able to see speed exceeding 300 kbps. Give me AT&T please.
Ever since @home went under my AT&T broadband service has been sh*t. My pings to another local ISP went from ~14ms to ~400ms with roughly 25% packet loss because the AT&T routers were so overloaded. Limiting bandwidth is a good thing until they can beef up the network to cover the influx of people.
;)).
Hopefully, they can fix the network within a month or two because AT&T (at least were I live) provides excellent service (especially with my uncapped 10mb upstream
Best slashdot comment
From what I have heard we get it alright up in Canada. For high-speed we pay about $25 US for ADSL or cable, and get speeds of ~1200kb/s down and 400kb/s up. If you subscribe to DSL you also get decent uptime and constant service, Shaw has been less than accomidating with it's cable service in my opinion, so i _now_ use telus' ADSL. I assume telus has a full duplex connection, anyone know why we get better down then up?
My Karma ran over your Dogma....
I've been noticing for weeks now an ability to shut your whole connection off [only briefly enough] if they don't want you doing something.
:(]
I've only had this happen to me doing these things:
* Kazaa [one port, easy to detect]
* Gnutella [any client, only using 6346 port!]
* WinMX [anytime I connect to an opennap server]
* USENET [not all groups, but a general 'backup' of anything in the alt.binaries.* tree. No more playboy pics for me
* Uploading [When uploading to a private FTP... expect to get booted]
I thought this was a windows issue since I have just moved and as a consequence started a new account with new hardware. Since the move, I've gotten my boxen up and they get disconnected using even SCP! [if it takes more than one hour]
So I can't SSH to my boxen because what? There is no excuse for this. I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share.
The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?
I can't connect to my own PC for private toying around? I can't download a distro? I guess I can't even install over FTP?
Just when I was loving 'Broadband' and it's perks. You know, constant updates to anything. Even if it is for your slash.applett....
Get your Unix fortune now!
That's all I want for Christmas, who will help me get these items?
At the start of every localized broadband revolution, there's a lot of hyped up marketing speak. They talk about bandwidth being increased 'a hundred fold' over modem speeds, etc etc. Telcos say they can offer 10mbps connections to every customer for $X.99 per month, and a handful of content providers say they can provide 'movies on tap' yada yada.
The businesses in question generally can provide what they say.. but only to a small number of customers. Why is this? It's because any system only performs at the speed of its slowest component. In this case the slowest component is almost always the link between the telco and the content providers (or between the telco and the Internet, if you will).
Now, when the first customer signs up to XYZ Telco's ISP they might be given 10mpbs of bandwidth to play with. However, this doesn't mean that they're getting 10mbps of Internet bandwidth, but simply that data can be transferred between the telco and the user at 10 million bits per second.
After several thousand/million people have signed up, the telco realizes that its connection to the Internet isn't quite so hot. Demand shoots up and down throughout the day, and most ISPs simply have enough bandwidth on tap to satisfy most of the bandwidth requirements for most of the day.
Unlike electricity (a market most comparable to that of ISPs), you can't 'create' more bandwidth on tap. That is, at bandwidth heavy times you can't just turn on a generator and create more bandwidth for people to use. So what do ISPs do? They have two options.
1) Have enough bandwidth so that there's always enough available. So, if your customers have 1mbps connections and you have 100,000 customers, you'd need 100,000mbps of bandwidth between them and the Internet. Unpractical.
2) Get away with as little as possible and hope the bulk of your users stay. This will result in slow connections and low speeds at peak times, but will still seem fast off-peak. Many dialup ISPs shoot for this option as it's a great trade off between price and customer retention.
3) Cap your users. A lot of companies don't try this because it can foster illwill with customers, even though it's the best strategy bandwidth-wise. Simply limit your customers to a certain amount of time per day to be online, or in this case.. the amount of total bandwidth they can use. So, they might have a 10mbps line sitting there, but suddenly they can only use 1mbps. This solves the bandwidth problem.. but also creates great redundancy at off-peak times.
Therefore, I'd shoot for my own option. That is, 'intelligently' cap bandwidth based on overall use. So, at 5pm you might only allow every customer to use up to 2mbps, whereas at 5am, you allow the whole 10mbps.
The advantage of this system is that users who are using a lot of resources (P2P etc) don't 'suck up' half of the bandwidth leaving those who are doing other things to have pitiful modem-like amounts of bandwidth to use. That's the problem with scenario 2 above.
And why don't telcos/ISPs use my scenario number 1? Simply because they don't have the money, or would rather save it at the expense of illwill from customers.
The standards in the broadband market are not very high, so why should companies plough money into bandwidth when other companies aren't doing it either? If you had 100,000 customers paying $50 a month for Internet access and you could still be the best in your industry by providing as little bandwidth as possible, wouldn't you do it?
mogorific carpentry experiments
Really, is 1.5Mbits too slow for $50 a month? Perhaps you can do better with dsl? (Hint: you can't)
I have Charter Pipeline and I think it may be caped @ 1.5Mbits (I used to get 2-2.5Mbits max), do you see me complaining?
No, I think $34/month(1 year contract) is an excellent deal for 256kbit/1.5mbit cable that has about a 99.5% uptime.
Your friend should count himself lucky to still have cable in his situation.
I'm in Seattle. I'm capped at 1.5 mbps also. Have been since the switch. Complained to CS for the record, but obviously they could do nothing for me.
More annoying is the change in the way they handle DHCP. @Home used to assign each user a unique name that would be associated with a DNS entry for the IP address given to the machine by the DHCP. The result is that I could always find my machine through name resolution, regardless of my changing DHCP lease (they also gave static IPs if you wanted, but it wasn't necessary if you could resolve your name to an IP address). Now the Powers That Be at ATT have had the utter lack of foresight to assign dynamic names to the DHCP clients, which are in fact simply the TCP/IP address with slashes. For example if your IP address is
192.54.75.213
Then your name resolves to
192-54-75-213.client.attbi.com
I suggested to a tech to tell anyone who would listen that they should be using MAC IDs, but once again he had the obligatory complete lack of power that goes hand in hand with phone tech support, so he did nothing.
I think the key will be to not pay them for services, since they are not giving me the service I expect. They have avenues for diminished payment due to support failure. As far as I'm concerned, my service has been down since the switch.
-Rothfuss
Well, as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty much useless until midnight.
Since I am a responsible internet user who does not try to download gigabytes of stuff that I don't want to be 1337, I am getting more than my money's worth (especially that 20Mbps burst rate). And Time Warner is making a special effort to punish the jerks who just leech all day and waste bandwidth. The result? The network has been extremely responsive, and reliable to boot.
I will be sticking with TW for the forseeable future because this is one company that has finally figured out how to provide excellent cable modem service.
Bill
COX cable modem service claims to be capped at 1.5 megabits. To be honest I get closer to 2.0 megabits downstream. Can't Really complain even I was only getting 1.5 down. COX in my area is also independent of @home, might be slower than @home in some areas, but at least it isn't going bankrupt.
Here in Boston RCN caps us at 1.5 Mbps down and .8 Mbps up.
I suppose I should complain, but the $120/month bill includes premium catv, phone, and long distance in addition to the cable modem.
Anything to keep me away from ATT Comcast (nee ATT Broadband nee Cablevision) and Verizon (nee Bell Atlantic nee New England Telephone). My own experiences with both megacorps have been nothing short of hell.
As a bonus RCN gives me a pipe and a dynamic ip, but otherwise doesn't care about what I have running on the pipe.
-Eric
Here in Salt Lake, I noticed I was going a lot slower... I called AT&T and they told me the FCC made them go to 1.5 megabits, from the 4 or 5 that @Home ran. He told me that it was going to stay this way, for whatever thats worth.
We here in northern Indiana really notice the reduced speed because we are newsgroup junkies! Excite@home could shoot us download speeds of around 400-500k/sec on avarage, now it's much slower (relatively).
But like already mentioned in previous posts, this ain't news folks - we knew the speed would be lower.
My only complaint is that VCD's and Farscape episodes take that much longer to download now...
I'm still technically on @Home, since Comcast is still scurrying to set up their own network. So far, I (and others in my area using the service) have had zero interruptions or problems. Well, zero more than we usually have with @Home. :P
I just know that the Comcast network is going to suck, with all sorts of lame caps and new restrictions. Oh well, there's always modem... Bleh.
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
Here in Colorado things have been good. There was a few days of downtime and then magically one morning my service was turned back on. The only thing I had to do was pump the ethernet address and figure out what my new email address was.
The bandwidth cap isn't that restrictive, most places you won't pull more that about 425k/sec from anyway. The new email servers are much faster (with @Home it sometimes would take 30 seconds for a POP3 connection to authenticate). I wait and see who they shovel us all of to, I'm tired of mergers...
Hire me...
What about what they're doing to basic TV rates?
4 7_ STO66850,00.html
$30 a month for FOUR CHANNELS?
Saturday December 22 7:07 PM ET
ATT Comcast Announces Sweeping Cable TV Changes
NEW YORK (AP) - ATT Comcast today announced unprecedented changes to the cable television lineup that will gradually take effect as the merger between AT&T and Comcast is completed in 2002. Earlier this week they announced changes to the high-speed internet service that has users fuming in various forums online.
The proposed changes to the television lineup are sure to draw sharp responses from consumers across the nation. Basic cable will consist of local network channels only and one superstation, such as TBS. The pricing structure is still being constructed, but is expected to mirror the changes being made to the Internet services with limited viewing times and other 'tiered services' being offered.
"We have simply run out of bandwidth and can no longer offer cheap TV that people have been getting almost for free for the past twenty years. Customers will just have to face the facts that TV is no longer a cheap commodity and they will have to carefully adjust their viewing habits as well as their tier selection," an unnamed spokesperson said Saturday.
The sharply slimmed down basic package is expected to carry a hefty $29.95 per month ticket price that is sure create a flap among their customers who now receive three times that many channels for the same price.
In addition, however, is the most sweeping change ever attempted by any television provider. ATT Comcast will be announcing PVTS, or Personal Viewing Time Scheduling. In addition to selecting a particular tier, customers will also select the number of hours per month they will be watching television for the month.
"This gives the viewer a unique opportunity to have a direct effect on their cable bill," the spokesperson also commented, "We don't want our customers paying for TV they are not using. PVTS will become a new television standard to provide the customer better, more personal service." Evidently, the ATT Comcast engineers have devised a way to detect the number of hours that a particular home is accessing their cable TV service through a special set top box that all subscribers will have installed when available.
The spokesperson also commented that the customer will not be completely shut off should they exceed their allocated viewing time. They can simply go a special interactive channel and order more viewing time with a credit card. The actual price per hour for viweing time was not mentioned, but unlimited viewing is expected to be expensive.
Robert Priestly, a current ATT cable subscriber in Akron Ohio said, "This is absolutely ridiculous! I will be forced to install an antennae on my roof as will not be able to afford these prices." It has been estimated that a full digital package with premium channels and unlimited viewing time will be around $299 per month. Customers can sharply reduce this price, however, just by limiting their viewing time using PVTS.
Sally Brule, a neighbor of Priestly's likes the idea of PVTS. "I can adjust my budget, along with my viewing schedule. This is exciting to have this much control over my television viewing times. I won't be paying for TV coming into my home when I am not watching it. PVTS will change the way we watch television."
It certainly will. The elderly, and customers will limited income are expected to be the most effected in the next year as the changes are put into effect. This also has local cable commissions worried. "We originally thought the AT&T, Comcast merger would provide better services for our customers," commented a cable commissioner from Seattle, Washington, "but this announcement will shock our customers. We already have cancelled Christmas vacations of several customer service employees due to the expected calls that will be coming in on Monday morning. We have several meetings scheduled though the evening on Christmas Eve."
The Federal Communications Commission does not seem concerned by this shocking announcement. "We knew the bandwidth was slowly dwindling and there is simply no room for growth. Limiting CVPH times (channels viewed per hour) is the only way to keep providing the number of channels we currently have available." The spokesperson also said that the agency will take a wait and see approach as customers learn of the new changes.
The full tiering schedule and other details of ATT Comcast's Personal Viewing Time Scheduling will be released sometime in February.
Also check out this (not that anyone will read this post (if anyone is actually browsing at 0:X...):
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV
@home made a fatal flaw by trying to offer more than they could offer. 10Mbps access speeds. Having basically a T3 for every customer to the internet is business suicide and was purely moronic for them to ever have offered. (Example, they' failed.)
T-1 speeds are plenty fast enough, I just want the latency to drop. I dare anyone (other than in Chicago) to get a T-1 for 5 times the price they pay for a cable modem.. Ok I can already hear the "well I can run a server, bla bla waaaah,waaaah. Yes you can on a Real T-1 and you are paying through the budd mercilessly for it. A T-1 is from $700 - $1500 a month USD and this gives you nothing but a wire from A to B no net access at all. you need to pay another $400 - $800 a month for that. So you're paying $1100 to $2300 USD a month for a T-1 line... 1.5Mbps (MAX, you usually get much less) and the right to run servers, porn sites, warez sites. whatever...
You have a residental cable modem, you pay $40.0 - $60.00 a month for T-1 like speeds for download so you get the net effect that the guy being mercilessly raped by the phone company and ISP does for a miniscule fraction.
and now we bitch about it. Good grief, Us americans are a bunch of snotty spoiled brats. No wonder the rest of the world cant stand us.
I agree, that most of us signed up under the old advertising which promise things that were never possible, and we knew it. and now we are looking for a reason to complain about it... Just like how we get pissed when the police start enforcing the traffic laws on our stretch of highway to work. we are minorly inconvienced and that pisses us off.
My question? what are your alternatives? DSL isnt as fast as 1.5Mbps (some are but it's rare, very rare) sattelite? please dont mention that, I dont need to laugh that hard.. can we say 3sec ping times at the minimum? What have any of you done to create any free alternatives? 802.11b freenets are super easy to create and cost peanuts to build the hardware. (Granted you will never get your precious 10Mbps back. never ever unless you buy your own T-3)
It is about time that people quit whining and start acting. every one of the problems we face today can be solved without billions of dollars, and special laws or lawyers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't have any question that this is a good move. First of all, 1.5mb is hardly a strict cap ( I have never pulled that much on Cox@home). @home's big mistake (well, one of them) was to give unlimited bandwith - so those who downloaded gigs of warez every month payed just as much as my gradmother who checked her email once a week.
Used to be up to 3mbit/s down, always 400kbit/s up, fairly steady connection. Last few days, after they switched something in the network, it rarely reaches 1.5Mbit/s down (upload is still ok, though). Worst of all, I see a lot of packets dropped now. I am using both SSH and IPSEC to connect to my office, and both became terrible.
Traceroute shows that they have switched some parts of the network to 66.xxx.xxx.xxx IP addresses, but some hops are still going through 24.xxx.xxx.xxx.
That it was reduced, that I would no longer get 1.5mbps
I want to know wtf they're talking about, I never got 1.5mbps...
did I miss something?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
If you're an average user, this won't effect you. I do lots of downloading, so speed is important to me. But the fact of the matter is I've never seen download speeds over 375 kbps on my @Home cable line. The other reason it won't effect the average user is most users just surf, and when you surf the bottleneck is almost always the web site's server. There is no realistic difference between 5 mbps and 375 kbps when surfing normal sites. And even places with large images/video, 375 kbps is really VERY fast. The only people negitivly effected by this are those who were running ISO mirrors and the like.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Read it on their FAQ:
Why is AT&T Broadband Filtering HTTP Port 80?
My biggest probem with the AT&T outage was their total inability to give us, the poor customers up in Fort Collins, Colorado, any straight information. We heard that "Denver and the Rocky Mountain region" were going to be some of the fastest areas to be back up. We heard that they had to build the new network from scratch here in Fort Collins, and it would take "several weeks". The local paper reported two weeks. Of course, the tech guys took four hours (literally) to answer the phone and didn't know a thing. After attbi came back up, the DNS servers were so unreliable it was disgusting. It would fluctuate between unusually fast and nothing at all every five to ten minutes, until one of my friends called tech support twice, each time with the four hour wait, and got the IP's for some working DNS servers. I still don't know if the standard assigned servers are working properly for everyone who didn't call support.
~q of course
contre.org. fighting crime since 1985.
I'll tell you what, before Excite shit the bed, I really really liked my cable modem experience. I had plenty of bandwidth, no noticable peak hours, and they were reliable. After AT&T switched me to their new network I've had nothing but problems. DNS is always down or crippled, the lines seem oversold, DHCP server is down, etc. I often have outages in excess of 1 hour. But all in all, I am paying $40/mo for a connection that is much faster than my other alternative (dial-up), so I can't complain that much.. I guess I just miss the speed and stability of Excite's network.
Yes, it's true, and it's national. I don't like it, but I'm no longer complaining. Yes, I used to be able to get ~400,000 bytes/sec.. but I can see how selling a $3000/mo connection for $45/mo might be a cause for bankrupcy.
Same thing has happined with the local telco/isp (a rural telco co-op) in my hometown. Because the rather small city has two switchhouses, almost everyone within city limits could get a flavor of 2.1 Mbps SDSL. For $39 per month, no less. The telco tried hard to keep up with the bandwidth usage, but after their second T3 plus an OC3, they gave up and capped thruput to 1 Mbps for everyone on the $39 rate. Static IPs are now an additional $5 per IP and multiple computers per DSL "modem" are no longer supported (but they do continue to work). Still, $44 per month for 1Mbps SDSL with a static IP is a hell of a deal. Yet, folks continue to moan that they're no longer getting the world for $39.
The upload limit has been 12,800 bytes/s for the last year. (I'm using bytes, because nobody seems to understand the diff between KB, Kb, Mbps, MB, etc).
I hear you. Folks around town confuse them as well, and some will even toss MHz into the mix. Yikes!
All of you that are still getting 300+Kbps downloads are lucky. Here in Seattle I get a solid 136Kbps download, and some pitifully slow upload speed. Before the cap i got 300-600Kbps downloads.
I'm not here to complain about charter pipeline or anything, but I've got to say, it has been a major downgrade even from the @home service. I used to push somewhere around 300KB/sec even at peak times on @home, but now charter has decided to cap all users in my town at 512kpbs, only about 50KB/sec. At peak times, I can't even get this 50KB/sec and webpages load so slow that it seems like dialup would be faster. The service has also been really unstable, my connection dying once or twice a day so as to make me turn my modem off and back on. Also, though @home claimed to have dynamic ips, my ip never changed the entire time I had their service, but since I've had charter pipeline, my ip has been changing once or twice a day. Insanity.
"there is no truth, there is only you, and what you make the truth"
I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share. The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?
<sarcasm>AOL Time Warner Inc. defines "legitimate use" as HTTP GET and POST requests on port 80 to web sites operated by AOL Time Warner Inc.</sarcasm>
Will I retire or break 10K?
I went from 177k/sec on avg downloads to over 300k/sec which literally makes my jaw drop. However, the nntp (newsfeeds) is SLOW AS HECK. They're using www.supernews.com for their hosting and you get about 2k/sec if you're LUCKY. They need to start hosting their own because there is no point in having all this bandwidth to a slow news provider.
1.5M?? Wish mine was that high here in Connecticut. 384k/128k is tops here. If you can get 40k downstream you got something to cheer about. I have DSL that runs solid with unwavering 150-158k downloads. I keep asking myself why am I keeping cable?
-- Ted tsikora@powerusersbbs.com
That said, there is a speed cap, which is pretty annoying. I got really *stellar* downloads with @Home (sometimes as high as 4Mbps) and nearly as stellar uploads. The 1.5Mpbs download cap, while bothersome, is not nearly as troubling as the 128Kbps upload cap. I have a server co-located at an ISP (I used to work there) and I upload quite a bit. I am no running a server at home over the cable modem, but since I do use it to communicate both ways with my co-located server, the upload cap is a *real* pisser.
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
I signed up with @home/ATT as soon as it was available in my area (Silicon Valley), and that was almost 2 years ago. Here's what the progression has been in my bandwidth:
Date............Download.....Upload
Mar 2000.....4.5 Mb.........1.5 Mb
Sept 2000....4.5 Mb.........128 Kb
Dec 20001....1.5 Mb.........128 Kb
But I'm still paying the same price! If this continues, soon I'll be better off with IDSL, the only DSL service offered in my area.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Overall, it sucks pretty bad and it hasn't gotten any better in the past few weeks. If you have a choice between DSL & cable modem, I highly recommend DSL.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
Since last Wednesday, I've been getting no more than 128K down with no explanation from AT&T. What Sucks is that you call them on the support line, and you get some dude down in Florida with who balks at anything more than helping you run IPCONFIG (linux... what's that?) Back in the old days you could call someon in the same STATE as you and they might even know that there's a problem. At least they could tell you they've had a lot of people calling in with a particular issue. These losers won't tell you about it, I suspect, even when they know there's one. Ok, so they say we'll have to roll a truck to check your computer, and the line to the pole. Can you be home on Dec 26 between 8-10. Sure, I wasn't planing on using my day off from work for anything productive! So I've got a slower than a 56K modem connection that I'm paying $50 per month for. I thought at least they'd give me a break on my bill for the week. Big mistake... I
I have/had @Home through ComCast. I sometimes spiked at 2Mbps, but 1.5Mbps was pretty much the average top speed I got. What I'd like to see is an increase in uplink speed. Doubt I'll see it, but that's what I care more about. I'm stuck with a lousy 50kbps uplink which sucks since I have 3 computers at home, 1 at work, and I use them all from work or home.
Honestly, it's hard to find sites where I can download faster than 200kbps anyway, so a more than 1.5Mbps wouldn't do me much good anyway.
So, basically, you're complaining that for fifty dollars a month, you're *only* getting download speeds of a T1, which still go for a hell of a lot more?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Which brings me to my second point... bandwidth doesn't come cheap, y'know. Exactly what were you expecting for $35-$40 a month??!? In my area anyhow, the cable ISP I work for is EASILY the cheapest per meg per month on the download side. The alternatives are DSL, which usually only offers up to 1Mb download, and that's if you're damn close to their equipment, and it's around $120-$130 a month for that download speed, once you include your ISP fees. There's always a T1, but is anyone really up for $700 a month for the same download speed as a single cable modem? Cable modems are THE best "value" (much as I hate that word) for heavy downloaders available, but we still have to make money, too. You're not charged by the meg for your downloads, but WE ARE. If everyone ran uncapped, all the time, we'd probably pull an @Home too, and go bankrupt.
If you want something to bitch about, bitch about the ACL's that don't allow personal web servers, or the lack of the option for a static IP. Now there, you've got my sympathy. But as for the speed? Think of the uncapped speeds you got for years as a gift, not an expectation.
The Free desktop that Just Works
I really feel for them.
AT&T limiting to 1.5 Mbit incoming should be plenty for a home user. If you need a T3 or higher of incoming bandwidth, you have a more serious porn addiction and should seek help.
As for outbound, 256K, I'd wager. I was just about to put MRTG on my firewall machine and toss some files out to Exodus to see how I perform outbound.
I'm an AT&T customer, formerly MediaOne in NH, for the record, and off of fast sites, MS Downloads, or our servers at Exodus, I can push 1.8/2.0 Mbit coming down, but I wouldn't complain about only getting 1.5.
I see one maggot, it all gets thrown away -- My Fiancee
The 1.5 Mbit cap is for downstream, the upstream cap is 128kbits.
I'm trying really *really* hard to feel your pain, but here in auckland, NZ the fastest we can get at flat rate is 128k DSL. Anyone want to email me some bandwidth? (you can attach *anything* to a Eudora email :)
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Same here in the UK. USians moaning because they can't download their porn and warez as quickly...
According to this article, AT&T's broadband internet network is experiencing some problems (nationwide it sounds like) and "some customers are experiencing lengthy hold times" (explains the 30 minute hold).
To quote the article, "The company will automatically issue credits to any customers who experience an interruption of service. Credits will be issued at the rate of two days free service for every day of interruption. In cases where the temporary outage is a bit longer, customers will receive free dial-up service from AT&T Broadband until they are restored to a high-speed network. These customers will automatically receive the free dial-up service from AT&T Broadband."
"I don't trust goats," --To Catch a Spy
What you are referring to is entirely wrong.
A T1 is technically 1.533Mbps. That means that the 1.5Mbps cap is equivalent to a T1. The difference is that a T1 also gives you 1.533Mbps UP. Where as cable limits it to whatever.
For example, I'm on ADSL, and my plan is 1.5Mbps down, 512kbps up. And that's plenty.
Now if you were referring to a T3 (If I remember it is something like 6Mbps-12Mbps) then no, they can't realistically provide that.
I worked at an ISP this summer and talked a lot with a guy who used to work at the local cable ISP. He said that through experimentation, the cable company found that an upstream cap of 64kbps/128kbps limits the user to a downstream of 512kbps/1Mbps, because the user's system cannot send ACKs fast enough to keep the stream coming any faster. So even if you don't have an explicit downstream cap, an upstream cap approximately caps downstream at eight times that.
Since last Wednesday, I've been getting no more than 128K down with no explanation from AT&T. What Sucks is that you call them on the support line, and you get some dude down in Florida with who balks at anything more than helping you run IPCONFIG (linux... what's that?)
Back in the old days you could call someon in the same STATE as you and they might even know that there's a problem. At least they could tell you they've had a lot of people calling in with a particular issue.
These losers won't tell you about it, I suspect, even when they know there's one.
Ok, so they say we'll have to roll a truck to check your computer, and the line to the pole. Can you be home on Dec 26 between 8-10. Sure, I wasn't planing on using my day off from work for anything productive!
So I've got a slower than a 56K modem connection that I'm paying $50 per month for. I thought at least they'd give me a break on my bill for the week. Big mistake... Asking for that seems to have insulted them. I could swear I hear the drone lick his lips and enjoy the thought of my inability to do anything about his power over me. Can't get DSL, can't Satelite's too slow, they're my only option.
So I ofcourse being well trained, ask to speak to his supervisor, a nitwit named "Chip". He was even more insulent that the first phone jockey.
AT&T's "policy", if you're not down, if you have a connection they you pay full price. If I get a 68bit per second connection even though I'm paying for 1.56MBs service. I'm supposed to like it. So what's a guy to do? It seems like there's enough bandwidth to use VPN (bad me ;) to my office Terminal Server where the T3 let's me load the main /. page in about 3 seconds. At home it takes 4 minutes to load. That's not right.
Monopolies suck.
The software is supposed to be a VNC-Type program that helps Service Reps service computers. Basically I see this as a way for them to not only monitor, but have their way with your system. Along with this software also comes a real annoying Internet Explorer with Charter MSN crap everywhere, diabling network shares, and reformating TCP/IP to their network. Basically everything you can do yourself, but they won't tell you because they want you to install their software.
The whole thing stinks and the company is hiding behind lawyers and PR reps to try and get the whole situation worked out. Basically they released a new service, and the MadLUG guys were on them in 2 days when they noticed weird activity.
Moral of the story ... don't screw with geeks ... we'll find you ... we know who you are :-)
SuperDuG
Haven't noticed a huge speed difference though
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
C'mon. The caps were covered shortly after AT&T announced the network beginning to come online and it was covered on slashdot. Timothy is just about the WORST offender for reposting articles. At least Jon Katz only rolls around every other week or so, someone take this dork's access to post articles away. Really, I'm serious. Get rid of him.
Get a 56K modem ... and lug your computer to a friends house with broadband ... save yourself some money when ya wanna do them big downloads ... and leave the rest of us broadband users alone ...
DNS stopped responding every other day for me.
I finally said "screw it" and used Verizon's DNS servers. I haven't had any problems since.
The DNS servers are
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
Nice, simple, and easy to remember.
I recently went from Charter @ Home to Charter @ Pipeline. I had up to 3MB/s with @Home. Now that it's Charter, I get 'up to 500kilobits/s' and that's what they promise. Then somewhere else they say up too 1.5MB/s. I've yet to see anywhere near 1.5MB/s. I don't know if this is unique to Oregon or what not, but it sucks to say the least. Charter Pipeline seems to suck in general, I get disconnected completely atleast once a night, and every time I go back to using their DNS servers, I get killed off, so their DNS is fucked. On top of that, their DNS servers are on the same fscking class c. Lovely! Anyone else hate Charter?
Test running.......... ** Speed 8504(down)/883(up) kbps ** (At least 170 times faster than a 56k modem) Finish. thats the result of my speed test off of nyc.speakeasy.net I am an optimum online user paying $29.99 a month for that mmm gotta love speed although price is going up to $40 a month in february I am still happy
As an @home user, I rarely get higher than 600 kbps. But I still love it. I mean, it's not like one can find too many places where it's insufficient, since most people on, for instance, Morpheus upload too slow to flex my broadband muscles, and most webpages have nigh-idiosyncratic download speeds. For me, a 1.5 cap is no sweat.
AT&T@Home "traded" the cable system here (Boise, ID) for another near SanFran. The new company CableOne promptly capped download speeds to 400k. For an extra $15/month I am getting 800k (200k up), still about one quarter the speed of AT&T@Home. I used to regularly get 3.1 to 3.2Mbps. I don't know if this is a "trend" nationwide, but it appears that Comcast may also be headed in the same direction with their "new" network. Notice they say, "Faster than dial-up, faster than DSL*", not very encouraging for all you Comcast folks.
NULL
"It seems that AT&T users have been limited to 1.5 megabits of bandwidth."
Yeah, that's really funny. Limited to? No, no, AT&T increased our bandwidth to 1.5 megabits, according to them. Here is an excerpt from the e-mail everyone on my network was sent when the service came back online:
Additionally, your AT&T Broadband Internet connection has been optimized for all users through a maximum network setting of 1.5Mbps downstream. This speed setting is part of our continuous effort to provide you with the fastest, most consistent broadband service at the lowest possible price.
This was apparently an "upgrade" in network throughput, despite the fact that they continue to enforce the 128kbps upload cap. I originally had cable access through TCI (TeleCommunications, Inc.), and was granted about 3Mbps down and 480kbps up; as soon as AT&T bought TCI they capped our upload.
I can usually max out the 1.5Mbit download, but I might be coaxed to give some of it away for a slightly more speedy upload. It seems that all they've done is set their network throughput limitations slightly above comparably priced DSL offers in this area, thereby not losing any current customers to their competitors, and saving network resources.
I literally have no choice for other service providers unless I want to pay as much as $150 a month. Very clever.
--
The Bailiwick - DESIGNHUB2005
AT&T clearly warned all their customers that they would cap downloads to 1.5 MB as soon as they switched from @home into their own network. Any @home user that was hanging around the athome.* newsgroups during shutdown weekend knows this, since we were getting leaked info from some AT&T techs at least a week ahead. Comcast will probably follow suit.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Are AT&T Broadband customers who did not use @home affected by this? Or are we already capped? It seems like I always lose when comparing my speeds to other cable users...
I'm on Comcast@Home outside Philadelphia, and we've all had our lines capped at 1.5Mbps down and 128kbps up. I used to have about 1200kbps up, so as you can imagine I'm a little pissed. I'm still paying the same too.
Here in Sydney Australia I just went from 3 years of 512kb down 128kb up capped cable to 28.8 dialup thanks to my old apartment being sold from under us. Months of phone calls to Telstra to try to get them to take my phone line off the damn multiplexer so I can get DSL have finally paid off so I will soon be leaving the land of dialup again for speeds similar to the ones I had on cable.
But my time back in dialup hell has been enlightening - the one thing I have noticed is that for normal web-browsing, it's fine - it's by no means acceptable long term as it affects my ability to make a living; I have to transfer work-in-progress MPEGS to my clients almost daily - but general browing is surprisingly ok, especially since I setup my hosts file to kill off most advertising. I think for regular browsing there is a sweet spot after which more speed doesn't really make much of a difference - we have a 100mbit fibre link at my day-job and as I said my cable link was only 512kb down but I noticed very little difference in page loading speeds between them (downloading linux ISOs though - then I noticed!). Barring World War III ( I reckon we have a 40% chance of avoiding it) broadband WILL get cheap again, and this time it will be for good - I'm already planning in a few years to put a machine room into the first house we buy and intend to move all my personal and client websites there... not to mention running a few game servers - Counterstrike 2 and Tribes 3 anyone?
Everything went really smoothly. No dropped service except for a few hours, but I'm not entirely sure that wasn't just some random glitch completely unrelated to all the goings on. I think the only thing changing in my service is my email address, from @home.com to @home.net
:) pretty good speed all the time.
And I've been happy with the service just when it's operating as normal. I think part of it is not many people in my neighborhood are on cable
No sig for you.
On Shaw High Speed (Canada), formerly shaw@home, the transition has not been without problem, but given the circumstance I would say its gone well. The long-term plan for Shaw was to move away from @home in the first place.
Having moved DNS, modem provisioning and other @home based functions under the control of their own staff, the most important part of the transition has been email and webspace. The unfortunate side of this has been, strictly speaking, stability. Mail servers rolled out slightly prematurely are causing headaches for many customers. Webspace less so. The operation of quickly moving over 800000 users to new email server has gone fairly well, but the new servers do not currently have all the bugs worked out.
Customers are moving to alternative email providers such as hotmail and the like. Due to the legal issues of @home folding, Shaw was the ONLY ISP to still maintain @home serves, although that has no forseeable future. For those shortsighted enough to still be primarily reliant on soon-to-die @home email, they will get a rude awakening when it all goes to hell in a handbasket in the coming days.
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" -- Red Green
More generally, I wonder what type of experiences -- good or bad -- the people who've just gone through a forcible @home weaning are experiencing.
I recently tested the new software that Comcast sent me on my girlfriend's machine. It went through and set up all the regular stuff (pop and smtp servers, comcast logo browser, etc...).
I noticed that the USENET server was not set up in her newsreader. I tried testing the usual suspects like news.comcast.net but found that it didn't work. I then placed a phone call to their helpline.
I don't know how knowledgeable this person was but I was told that USENET is not part of the migration to their new network. They don't have any idea when this is going to come online (if at all).
That really sucks since I can get this from a $12/month dial-up connection but my $45/month cable connection can't. Which reminds me...there was a recent $5/month increase to our service charge.
I have my uplink capped at 15k/sec. It NEVER goes above that, it always maxes out at a crappy 15k. My service used to be fast, but I never get above 50k/sec. download and 15k/sec upload. Anyone else have this problem? (My service used to be AT&T @Home, then CableOne bought the service and speed went to hell, but reliably increased.)
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
1.5Mbits/s is worthless. too bad, i was just starting to get used to all this graphical eye candy
Why won't my 28k modem work with cable!!!!!!!!!! Man I hate at&t btw
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I'm on Comcast@Home in Philadelphia. According to a letter I received from Comcast, as part of the impending switchover to Comcast High-Speed Internet, I need to have my current 3 year-old cable modem replaced. I have to schedule an appointment for someone to come out and do this, though it is nothing more than unhooking the old cable modem, and replacing the new one, and probably changing from my beloved static IP to DHCP. So I'll have to waste a vacation day waiting for a tech who's probably less qualified than I am, to come out and do something I could do myself if they'd let me.
I put up with upload speed caps. I put up with @Home shutting down their IRC server because they were too incompetent to maintain it and keep assholes from abusing it. I put up with them restricting the Usenet groups I can read. I put up with some majorly spotty mail services. And now, Comcast states they have no plans to run their own Usenet servers once they are out from under the @Home umbrella. AT&T, who Comcast plans to merge with, is tightening the leash in other ways.
I have to ask myself, what the fuck am I paying for? Crappy mail, throttled speeds, no Usenet and no ISP-run IRC?
I've been pondering switching over to DSL, where I'll get 2 static IPs from SpeakEasy, and can do everything that I'm doing now and more, but without having to worry about Comcast putting their boot to my throat at some point for violating their sacred ToS. I'll run my own Goddamned mail server, web server, and DNS, and it'll be a hell of a sight more reliable than the ones I paid someone else to run.
So, Comcast, Excite@Home, and AT&T, thanks for helping me decide that I can find a better ISP than any of you.
~Philly
So at 20Mbps, but a 150MB cap, you get to use the internet for what, 30 seconds and then you're capped for the day? Or is it 90 minutes?
--Rule #2 Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
For @Home users, simply cancel service, wait a month or two, then resubscribe. Get tech installation second time around. When tech comes for appointment, slip him first $50 bill, asking if this is enough for guy on other end, while showing second $50 bill in hand for him, telling him it is for him. Unless the tech is greedy, the $100 should be enough. Getting 10Mb/s and laughing on every download!
If you need a static IP, Cloud 9 is the way to go http://www.cloud9.net from dsl reports, http://www.dslreports.com with the following rates: 768Kbps/128Kbps $50 1.5Mbps/384Kbps $100 7.1Mbps/768Kbps $190 and excellent custormer service. You get to run a server. More rates for different services, and symmetrical service also available. 768/128 is always on rate, not shared with neighbors like cable. When you need faster than 128 upload for your server, you'll have the bucks necessary for faster upload speed.
Yes, I went from more than 4mbs down to less than 1.5mbs, and attbi tried to tell me that this new downstream cap was a feature. I told them that if this is the kind of features I get from attbi, they just kissed any hope of me signing up for local phone service good by.
While 1.5mbs is pretty darn fast, it is not the service to which I have come to expect, and is incredibly annoying.
While it is possible that providing better service was financial suicide for @home, we will never know for sure since excite, blue mountain, etc were the cement boots which pulled them under.
3mpbs is not a "gift" if its in the contract, butthead.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
how exactly does capping download speeds "optimize" it for all users?
here in Billings Montana, myself and 200,000 other residents have not only a cap, but DNS problems and DHCP problems as well, our cap is supposed to be 1.5mb but i cant dl from anywhere faster than 120-130KBps, thats more like a 1mb cap, and my uploads are still limited to about 128kb.
I live in the Illinois region (Chicago-land area) and I know both personally and from other friends that there have been quite a few troubles with the DNS servers. Since the first day I got it back I've been using 4.2.2.1 as my DNS server and haven't had any troubles with it. On a side note this is one of Genuity/BBNs DNS servers NOT AT&Ts.
I have been with AT&T Broadband/@Home for about 3 years in Chicago area. The service transistion wa painless for me. I had to enable DHCP, since they won't give out static IP's anymore. That was a bit annoying, but after a reboot, it seems ok.
A lot of my IP tweaks I had done in my Windows 2000 box caused my service to slow down under AT&T Boadband though, and it wasn't until I set everything back to Windows defaults that I got decent download speed. It was a bit freaky.
I have had some problems with my NAT server, WinRoute Pro. It seems that HTTP requests are getting dropped on the machines not directly connected to the cable modem, so I have had to send everything through a proxy server and the cable modem box. I don't know if it is me, my network cards, cabling or a change in service, but it didn't happen all of a sudden, it is really wierd and seemed to get worse as time progressed. It doesn't effect other TCP traffic (like IRC), but it does seem to effect any HTTP traffic. Really strange.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
All everyone does is bitch. Be glad you even HAVE service! There was NOTHING keeping Cox, Comcast, or ATT from stopping service when @Home died. My poor cable company had just sold to @Home 2 months before death. 5000 subscribers. Right now, i get telephone modem speed. Unhappy? Yes. Disappointed? No. I had about a half hour of downtime, that was at 2AM on a Sunday. Email change was a breeze. Be happy with what you've got!
This is old news, I've been capped at 56Kbps for quite some time now.
I know it sucks for AT&T to cap your connection but then again, they are doing a pretty decent job trying to get everyone online after @home had decided to unplug your connection.
They only have that much bandwidth to go around, either you get a 400k/sec connection and someone else would get nothing or next to nothing connection. AT&T seems to doing a pretty good job by maintain a respectable speed for everone during this transisitional period.
But I doubt they will uncap the speed again (why give more if people ain't asking for it) if people don't bitch, so start bitching now!
kawai
Happily sucking down some Linux ISOs at 273 KB/sec, as reported by both my download manager and interface stats of my Netscreen firewall.
W00t!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I still don't understand why everyone is bitching. Would you all rather be stuck on 56k dialup at only a little less than half of what you are paying for broadband cable?
Broadband internet access still has a long way to go before its mature and there are going to be problems. Companies are still learning how to make it profitable for them while trying to build the needed infastructure.
Where else are you gonna get a T1 worth of download speed for $50/month?
And don't even try saying you can with DSL. You usually can't even get half that speed for the same price.
I realize some of you are upset about the changes with DHCP and such. Again atleast you don't get a new IP everytime you dial up.
Personally I have AT&T Broadband and since the switch from @home my IP address has never changed. The service has been just as good as what I recieved on the @home network and I only experienced about 12 hours of downtime during the switch over.
Be gratefull you have broadband access at all!
I'm stuck with and ISDN here because AT&T can't get off it's lazy butt and get the Cable Modem up and running..
And 1.5 Mbs it the speed of a Frickin T1..
So stop whining you got a better bandwith that most everyone else..
Here's a link to the services that AT&T promised as they were switching.
http://newuser.attbi.com/attbi_welcome_page.html#a bout
I have to say that I'm not that happy with this. One other thing they changed was the ability to use your own mail server for outgoing mail. With the problems that I previously had with @HOME mail (it NEVER worked) this is a huge change in service. I have no other alternatives for service in my area (other then paying about $1100/mo for a T1), thanks a lot AT&T!
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
I am not brilliant enough at Linux to help you, but it seems that AT&T have done something on their network that causes non standard Windows default MTU, MSS, RWIN and TTL settings to be severely dimished in service. I had tweaked mine for @Home speed, but since moving over to AT&T Broadband, I saw a progression to worse and worse service. Once I switched it back to its defaults, I started getting high speed access again.
The Windows settings I currently have are:
- MTU is 1500
- MSS is set to 0
- RWIN is set to 0
- TTL is set to 0
. I don't know how that directly applies to Linux or where to change it, but maybe some brilliant hacker can help.I tried setting it back after reading something on AT&T's site.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
Let me get this straight, you pay $40 or so a month for your cable access, right? Boo freaking hoo, poor you, only T-1 speeds. How'd you like to pay for that T-1 to the tune of over $1000/mo?
The unsig!
We have the same thing going here in Denver. Any resolution failures default to attbi.com.
This message composed using 100% recycled electrons.
Somebody mod this up!!! I would, but I'm out of moderator points. (this is only AC so I don't lose points when that one particular moderator sees my name and decides I'm offtopic :)
i was able to read a significant amount of threads in the 2001 topic while i was waiting for my excite email account to load. going on 15 minutes now.
Ah, bandwidth cap?
.80gb HD, wonder if I can make 40GB a month with a 1.5Mbp/s cap? Somebody care to do the math? :)
:)
FUCK!
I use ~2GB a week. Minimum.
Hell I use 2GB a week SURFING THE NET. That is not even downloading any files!!!
SHIT!
The BW cap was bad enough, but fuck, a DOWNLOAD cap? SHIT!!
Pardon me while I go and do my best to put ATTBI outa biz with a downloading spree.
Now, lets see, in the last month I have downloaded ~40GB, so, hmm. . . .
Gonna try at least, hehe.
::runs off to find a list of 'must see' movies::
Think I'll get some Opera CDs while I am at it. I damned well KNOW the RIAA doesn't control those.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Same here. Best I can do is satellite with all its problems and a lousy 400kbs. Sorry if I don't give a damn about your friends being limited to 1.5Mbits.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I was on AT&T @home in Denver area. When Excite pulled the plug, I was without service (AT&T had warned us) from Saturday morning through Tuesday evening. I received a phone call from AT&T on Wed. saying my service was now available, and giving instructions on how to reconfigure my network stuff.
I followed instructions, was back up in a few minutes, and it's been fine on attbi.com ever since.
I feel for you guys, really! In Quebec, Videotron cable charges $30/month for cable internet acccess, (anotehr $15 if you rent the modem). That's canadian dollars.. (Approx $20/month USD for net access). On top of the the download speed is insane. You get burts of 400-600 Kilobytes/sec and a steady transfer at 300-350 Kilobytes/sec. (thats bytes, not bits). The only thing that sucks is the 16 Kilobytes/sec upload speed.
How do they do this? In your contract it states you can only download 6 gigs, and upload 1 gig in a month. That's really limiting of course but it is only enforced on the first and second generation Motorola Cybersurfer modems). If you go over you pay 2 cents/meg. That quickly gets expensive. With the newer modems there are no limits. (although technically the limits still apply).
So to all you Americans down south, look north for a good example of how to do broadband internet. The funniest thing is that everyone hates Videotron for "poor service" etc. (Actually, this summer service was very slow and laggy, but they have fixed the problems they were having.)
Want to see the broadband market in the U.S. disappear overnight? Try actually doing that. The second there's a meter running, there go the subscribers (and as the subscribers go, so goes the revenue). There aren't too many more useless things than a fast connection with an aggregate bandwidth cap. But if they're too ignorant to realize that free music, movies, and warez drive their business, they'll figure it out soon enough.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I think the point is that speeds are relative, and if i was getting 4mb/s before, i can reasonably be unhappy when it gets capped at 1.5, and often is way slower. On top of the bandwidth problem, the dns servers seem to be really unreliable. I routinely get 'unknown host' errors when trying to go to frequently visited sites like google or slashdot. As somebody else mentioned, the news servers sometimes don't work, and lastly, sometimes I get 'dhcp server unreachable' for hours.
In short, AT&T has really managed to f&%k up what previously was a pretty awesome service. That's my experience in SF bay area.
The reason I went with DSL (ok, originally there wasn't cable in that area) and stayed with it is because the price isn't that different, I get multiple static IPs, my router is in bridge mode, they don't care if I run FreeBSD, outbound port 80 isn't blocked, and my upload speed is twice what cable's is, with the option to increase it dramatically for an increase of fees. Last time I checked, you can't upgrade your feature set on the cable lines.
:)
... I used to work for Excite@Home!
I've moved once since I got DSL, and purposely selected a location that would allow me to still have DSL access. (Might as well face it, I'm addicted to broadband)...
I have a really decent uptime record, and tight-vnc rocks over my connection, even with an only 30 kilobyte/sec upload stream (yes, I use ssh tunneling from work to get into my home boxen).
The kicker?
I get clueless salesmen coming to my door now telling me that I can now get cable internet access in my neigborhood. I tell them I'm not interested in switching from DSL, and they proceed to tell my how much slower DSL is than cable (not anymore buck-o). They end up leaving my porch confused, bewildered, looking sheepish and often feeling dumb after I set them straight on how their service actually works (they really don't like it when I tell them I used to work for @Home).
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup.
I've found that the speeds on the new AT&T network are pretty close to the same as those on the old @home network. The only problem my friends and I have been seeing is that on of the DNS's that AT&T is using namely 216.148.227.68 has been having some huge problems with resolving hosts. It seems to be able to resolve for about 20 min's then it crashes. Other than that everything seems to be working well. Best of luck
I work for att broadband and can access your config off the router, email me at cha0sad@yahoo.com with any of the following and i will email you your status screen.
Enter Modem MAC Address:
E.g. 0a:1b:2c:3d:4e:5f
Enter Phone Number:
E.g. 3035551234
Enter Account Number:
E.g. 8494930010000416
Enter Modem Serial Number:
E.g. 47165035 (Motorola Only)
Anyone on the attbi network that says they are getting better than 1.5 is full of crap, its capped at the router.(not including media one customers.)
Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community
Charter has capped connections lower than what they were and raised the price! I am getting considerably less speeds than when I was with @home. Newserver sucks. Ports are filtered and then the big kicker. They tell you, that you have to install thier software to get on thier network. They push like a 4 year old in a candy isle for you to install thier software. Thier software installs a remote control VNC type application on your PC to allow them access to your PC. Here is a story that was in this week's local newspaper the-rob.com/Charter.html This is legitimate. it's a VNC like software that runs on port 641. Charter says that thier software is not running, this is Bullshit. a scan of thier subnet on a random day 2 weeks ago while we were working on the story showed over 20,000 hosts responding to this port #. this is approximately 4.5 /16's. It's a bunch of bullshit. Anyone in the Charter area voice your concern.
Slashdot # 199661 the number that's the same upside down and right side up
Interesting that despite the age of this (the cap was put in before we were 'installed'), it is still a very active topic.
In our area, Seattle, we have indeed been capped to 1.5Mbps (192KB/sec) downstream and 128Kbps (16KB/sec) upstream. I have been stuck on 56k for the past few years, so I really can't complain about the speeds. Sure it would be nice to be getting 4Mbps (~525KB/sec) downstream, but the thing is, I was getting lousy 56Kbps downstream before, and am only paying 20$ a month until around May due to a promotion. Extra money I am paying now: 0$, extra I will pay when it goes back to 35$ a month: 15$. So much extra for so little is a boon.
Now to comment on Comcast buying AT&T, Comcast's site is currently advertising the exact same cap as AT&T: 1.5Mbps down, 128Kbps up. (Although your milage may vary, as usual) This should mean that AT&T users, no matter how pissed off so far, should not be losing any more bandwidth when AT&T Comcast is formed.
One of the reasons I think @Home failed: Morpheus users saturing the bandwidth 24/7 when Excite was dumb enough to not cap the cable when they said they would. Obviously not just Morpheus users, but when my friend was traffiking over 2GB of movies, mp3s, etc each day, Excite had to foot the bill. Multiply that buy a couple thousand and you get my point. Pathetic.
Cable modems can only handle 3 Mbit downstream and 1 Mbit upstream... max (that is, in two-way circuits).
The galling part of all of this is that AT&T has simply decided they will no longer uphold their end of the agreement.
You should probably dig up that so called 'agreement' that you signed and sift through it and locate the part that says something to the effect that they can change the terms of service anytime they want to, with or without notifying you of jack shit. It sucks, I'm not saying it's right, but that's the way it goes, get over it.
If you feel you've been lied to, cheated, screwed, or otherwise shit on, you always have the option of just cancelling your service. I'm sure there will be no hard feelings.
Go back to your dialup for a couple weeks with no static IP and barely getting 56kbps. See if your song and dance changes then.
Short but sweet:
With TCI@Home I had 1mbit up 4 mbit down
With ATT@Home I had 128 kb up 4 mbit down
With ATTBI I have 128 kb up and 1.5 mbit down.
1.5 MB down isn't that bad, but given that I had
more, its missed; What I would like is something a little more usable on the upstream speed; even though 1.5 mbit is 37% of what I had I would love to have more than
a one way street.
jmho
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Be grateful, here in the St. Louis area we were moved to Charter Pipeline and for the same price we were paying we now get 768up/128down. So I'd be happy with a 1.5 cap right now. :)
You are forgeting that of that $1000.00 only about half of that is for bandwidth. The other half usually goes to the telco for circuit charges.
I guess it still is a good deal.
-ted
I have had Comcast for over a year now and their service levels are not consistent across their service areas.
I've been hearing about how they provide 128 k/bs up but, in my area, they cap it at 15k/bs!!! Their rationale is that, since they don't allow servers on their network, you shouldn't need the upstream. Never mind the fact that uploading to an FTP server is always only for evil purposes, but you have to wonder if they've ever sent an attachment with their email.
Since we're too far from a central station to get DSL, we're left with no other options.
Must be nice to be the only game in town.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
I remember quite clearly that the contract I had with AT&T @Home didn't say a damn thing about bandwidth. Why don't you scan in a copy of your agreement and post it on a web page, with the parts that have been violated underlined.
(What I'm saying is, I don't believe your claim that the terms of your agreement have been violated.)
um, that 128 kiloBITS.... divide by 8 for you max k/bytes upstream
I presume that your ISP is using the G.Lite implementation of ADSL which dictates 1.5 Mbps downstream and 512Kbps upstream
Check these slides out for more info
Description of G.Lite
http://www.ieee-occs.org/dsl_lite/sld009.htm
Diagram
http://www.ieee-occs.org/dsl_lite/sld010.htm"
And contrary to what someone said earlier, some of us DO understand the difference between Mbps and KBps, etc, etc. It's all standard networking/ telecom terminology.
ok il'l bite, is it goatse.cx?
yESs!!!1 u r00l!!1!
Olympia, Wa Dec. 1 - Service cut off Dec. 2 - Went online to ATT's technical assistance chat. over 400 in the que, took 5 hours to get pre-type responses, cut and pasted in replies Dec. 2 - Got Message that we had been moved to a new network Dec. 3 - Waited on hold for 4 hours (got disconected twice )for technical support. After spending 30 minutes talking to their rep, he admitted it was a known DNS problem, and said it would be 2 days before it came online. Dec. 5 - No luck yet ...4 more hours on hold to get the same response. By that time though, i had figured out it was both a major router problem and a DNS problem among other things.
i figured through some extensive pinging that they had my whole network configuration F***d up. I was only able to see about 25% of the internet. and all of the DNS servers i knew were not in that 25%.
Dec 6 - find local DNS server - helps a little ... i can do a manual configuration of mynetwork ... and browse through AOl on their routers, but i am avaraging 75kbs down and 15kbs up.
Dec. 7 - Wait on hold for 4 hours Same response .. DNS issues 2 more days
Dec. 9 -
Wait on hold for 4 hours Same response .. DNS issues 2 more days
Dec. 12 - came home to find i had 1.5mbs down. reconfigured my modem .. and have full access.
Bottom Line:
Bad customer service
Bad Technical Support
Horrible Migration Attempt
No Information given to customers.
lack of concern from ATT in anything the customer had as his concern
I moved my home computer and couch to the office and spent most of the 12 days there.
WTF
Question:
Will it get better when Comcast takes over?
-BdreamerC
I work on satellite IP, and you can get 500ms-700ms ping times with a good system.
Its still more latency than you want with games or even ssh, but for web-surfing its fine. With the added bandwidth (right now I can go 4.5 mbit to a single remote, downstream) you dont even notice the latency.
Oh poor babies! Getting your bandwith capped at 1.5 MBit/sec. Over here, I've topped the damn thing out at just under .9Mbit/sec with road runner. I want it to go faster, after all, I am paying $50/month, but all I get is shitty service.
shaw@home and rogers@home up here in canada have always capped us
its so dumb
Next, they send a CD with all kinds of ominous warnings about how if I didn't run it by a certain date to install their new software, my access would be interrupted. I wasn't sure what software was necessary, since I currently use no special software, but I decided to go ahead anyway. Big mistake. It tried to update my email account to my new aol-luser account name and update the mail servers. But, I have both Outlook and outlook express (No comments that I should just use linux, I use multiple OSes, including windows thanks). So it didn't bother to ask, added the account to outlook express, even though I use outlook for mail.
Next, it completely fucked my browser over. It added a ton of bookmarks, it added a ton of links, and it changed my homepage to comcast's website. That was easy enough to reverse, but then it pulled an X10 on me: The little spinny icon that is animated when a page is loading was changed to comcast's logo. And they added "provided by comcast" to the name of the program that goes on the titlebar. I am dreading having to figure out which registry keys I will need to edit to change that back. At least it didn't change the icons for any file types like X10 does.
But overall I'm pissed. I can handle having my email address change, and having to change service. But did they really think that those email addresses were acceptable? A lot of people are going to want them changed (which is probably why their phone has been busy for 3 solid days). The rest will deal with it, but be pissed nonetheless. And I most certainely did not ask for them to fuck with my programs and settings. There is nothing more enraging than to have a program change your customized settings on things without so much as asking.
And did I mention the new support tool they isntalled? When I complained about my email address I discovered that it was sending all kinds of info to them about my system. Now this makes sense to help diagnose problems, but it was sending configurations, what programs were running, system info, and about a half dozen other categories of stuff. This is extremely intrusive and it is only vaguely alluded to.
When I got my cable modem, all they did was get my ethernet card's MAC address, plug in the cable modem, and active that MAC address at their headquarters. Now they think they have free access to my computer. I'm not pleased, but as usual there is no alternative for me to comcast.
Monopolies still suck, but you may be my hero today.
It looks like somehow the MTU in my router got set to 0. A mighty bad situation that seems to explain my situation. How it happened, dunno.
Had to be me though, I guess.
D'oh! I hate being wrong.
In my area, South West Atlanta, cable service has been dodgy at best. I live in a rural area with cows, chickens and goats up the street, so I was surprised when dsl came. The baby bell here has made a lot of progress bringing DSL service to the masses. I just recently signed up for it and have been getting around 1.47mb/s and about 250k upload. Not as fast as some of the cable stories I've been reading, but I have never been kicked off for using usenet or Morpheus/kazaa. The only thing that seems to be funny is that I can't seem to connect to any Open Nap or Gnutella servers.
As for the cable services, they really haven't been around too much. Smyrna cable up north has downloads only, and att has been having problems. I like the dsl its pretty reliable, but I wish it were faster. oh well, 49 is a decent price.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
>Well, as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty much useless until midnight.
Oh yeah, that strategy is a real winner.
Read that newsgroup, or search on deja for "leaky bucket" on the various direcpc newsgroups and enjoy how absolutely pathetic that solution really is.
If my provider did that to me I'd drop them so fast I'd ask for the other half of the day back. That and I'd avoid buying anything their company touches, ever. For the rest of my life. Period.
If I get internet I expect it to be at least reliable to the point that the provider doesn't purposely cause my connection to fail. Yuck!
>I will be sticking with TW for the forseeable future because this is one company that has finally figured out how to provide excellent cable modem service.
If alt.satellite.direcpc has anything to say, you may as well stick with them. Once all their real users drop off (you know, the ones that reccomend the service to the light users so the internet company can make more money) the speed will be ultra snappy.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Or is this just a sneaky underhanded way to make people buy the more expensive business plans just to run a teeny little bit of server apps?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Has anybody been able to get static ip's from AT&T?
I asked them right as the switch-over was happening and never got a straight answer.
What about extra ip's? Any body have luck getting more than one?
I don't see your e-mail address anywhere... I was going to send you something as a joke...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Here in Michigan, my household signed up for MediaOne RoadRunner Cable before @Home was even out on the market. And, as far as I understand it, we were completely on MediaOne networks. However, that was a couple years ago. Since all of the buy outs and such, I'm not entirely sure who owns and runs our cable, although we do pay bills to Comcast currently. With the latest happenings with @Home, Comcast/MediaOne/Etc has decided to do some sort of move with all of its customers, no matter where they are located. True, some of the newly acquired customers have been put on @Home networks, and the necessity for a switch can be seen there, but there are many users that are on existing non-@Home networks already. As well, the speeds are relatively fine, and the service is working fairly well. With the new switch though, every single Comcast/MediaOne/Etc customer will be moving, and I am deeply concerned about the reliability and speeds of the new service, as people who have already switched (mandatory switch date is Dec 31st 2001) have been complaining about poor service and un-comprable speeds. Anyone else have some light they can shine on the situation or who has already gone through the switch and can describe their experiences?
And just as a rant, every single Comcast/MediaOne/Etc user will lose their existing email addresses provided by the isp and will be provided new addresses. The old addresses will cease to work on Dec 31st 2001 - this has posed an extremely huge problem for many customers who have sent their email addresses out on resumes, business cards, christmas cards, etc.
I am on the Road Runner network and I get insanely fast downloads at times. I usually average 300-400k/s but I often hit 800k/s - 1 MB a second. It all started with a call to RR customer support when I complained about the spotty service I was getting, the tech I talked to said 'there you go that should fix it' and BAM I almost instantly had blazing speeds. I don't know what they did, but damn, its nice :).
Necrosis
we're getting half the speed for the same amount of money.
if their cable side dropped half the channels for the same amt, they'd be up against the wall in a matter of days.
the mystery of their dns is just silly - there used to be local dns at every cable system's town-level network.
dhcp runs into depleted pools every couple of mornings
and nat is now considered a high crime.
ain't much else left for them to screw up.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't hear that correctly. Are you implying that the rate was so tremendously greater than that.. so much that you're going to actually MISS the reduction in bandwidth?
Sorry. I might be overreacting here, but the fact of the matter is, you're still getting quite a nice chunk of bandwidth for a small fraction of what it would cost if you were to get the same speed T1 line. 1.5mbps is a CD each hour. Even if you're into somewhat less than legitimate file trasfering, you're still fighting the upstream caps of everyone else, so how critical is this anyways.
Ok.. I'm going to stop ranting now. Have a nice day.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The telco's stopped reliance on non packet switched networks.
First off you gotta understand how most of the telco copper is utilized. Whenever you make a phone call, the copper between you and the person on the other end is built on the spot. It connects your line, to the Central office, then the CO looks for some free copper to connect to the CO that is servicing the person recieving your call. To quote the book Nerds2.0.1 "It's like if you were taking a trip from LA to D.C., and just for your car alone you took up all the lanes until you finished your trip"
Now i'm pretty sure calls do hit a packet based network somewhere along the way, like on sprints fiber optic long distance network, but i'll get to that in a minute.
So locally, you have all this potential bandwidth that could be saved if we were all using IP phones and such. Unfortunately the equipment to upgrade this network still costs an arm and a leg (i.e. cable or dsl modems) So standard POTS service is still around for 1 good reason, the price of manufacturing the equipment hasn't become cheap enough for the cost to come from either the consumer or AT&T. Give fab technology a few years to catch up because eventually all telco's will need to force an upgrade to save on costs.
Back to the major backbone providers. As with any major telco they have extremely overpaid executives with salaries that would make a MLB player envy. Thats problem #1. Problem #2 is they are slow to adopt things like Internet2 and IPV6 because of the "prohibitivly high costs of upgrading" Well maybe if they didn't have 14 guys getting paid 10 million a year they could afford to have us "peons" perform the upgrades and do the support for the transition.
Change scares these people, but without change there is no progress, and without progress well, I can't really tell you the value of progress but sitting here in my centrally heated home with indoor plumbing and a computer is a helluva lot better than hunting animals with spears or foraging some bushes for berries. I think I'll go microwave me a burrito right now.
they cut the speed in half and are charging the same.
if an isp did that they'e be gored in no time.
if they did that with the cable channels they'd be in court.
the data side of the cables is unregulated, that's the worst part.
they got caught with their pants down - attbi can't do this - it's too hard for them - all they were was a pass thru for @home compared with what they had to learn to do dec 1.
dns is silly and sucks - we have to go elsewhere. nice. someone's not doing their job.
they can't keep up with the dhcp demands - near daily depleted pools. someone's not doing their job.
every problem is greeted with 'trash your tcp/ip prefs' from the reps - really? on a mac? in 7 years with 50 machines on a campus - never had to do that - they don't realize the much simpler fix that maintains all other connection profiles... 2nd most common response from cs - reinstall your system software. right.
can the cs scripted sessions and get people who know networking.
cable lost the per set license battle a long time ago - they think they can pull the same crap with their anti-nat attempts. they'll lose that one too, but the arrogance is so thick around the cable types...
btw they still advertise they're the fastest way to the internet. last i checked, 1.5 mbps didn't fit that bill.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I'm in a rather small commuter community and experience next to 24/7 fast speeds. I periodically run multiple servers and am actively engaged in large transfers. I have noticed no reduction in speed. As for companies requiring changes in email addresses and assigning their own, I have my own domain and a host that handles my mail service. Best thing ever. Cable co actually phoned me last week to inform me that I had not performed the required steps to convert my email to the new address. I had the privilege of telling them I had no need for anything but their bandwidth.
When I explain to people who ask that my DSL connection costs me about $200/month, they
look at me funny. (That's $109 to the ISP,
80-something to the telco, a voice line is included in that of course, with a pretty good
voice mail system).
Now, every time I hear about how cable users
are being screwed, I look at my 1.5 rate (both
directions), my static netblock, my own primary
dns server, and my http box, and I just laugh.
Of course, I'm typing this on the 49k modem line at my family's farmhouse since I'm on holiday,
trying to be grateful that we even have a PHONE out here, and that it isn't a PARTY LINE. It wasn't very long ago at all that you couldn't get
a private line, much less a data line.
Heck, I'm grateful that I don't have to haul water from a well. That wasn't very long ago either!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
After being without for a week we finally got service back but that first week sucked. I left my Laptop setup for DHCP but I kept losing my internet connection. I would renew it but then lose it again 5 minutes later, finally I just plugged in the numbers the DHCP server gave me into a static address-no more problems. Speed was a little down that first week too, especially on Usenet. As it stands right now it appears to be back up to normal. Be interesting to see what the next year brings ATT Broadband as far as tiered service is concerned. I hope the Comcast merger doesnt't screw it up to much.
I've got a few friends that used to NEVER see over 768.... but now they're seeing nearly 1.5 quite often. At least in this area, the "power users" (kids sucking down gigs of porn constantly, gnutella, etc..) are no longer soaking up all of the bandwidth. It's being shared. In a fairly nice way.
the only people that i know of that are complaining are the same folks that think getting 6mbit down for $40/mo is too expensive.. and they wanted it cheaper.
Come on, people. Be realistic here...
I only can get normal modem service where I live. You're complaining about 1.5 mbite lines. If you said this to my face, I'd have to hold back my aggression to to physically attack you.
God spoke to me
Location: Interior BC, Canada
Provider: Shaw High Speed
(Previously Shaw@Home)
Pre-Nov31:
- peak dl: 15kbps (yes, kilobits!)
- peak up: 53kbps
- latency: greater than 1000ms
Post-Nov31:
- peak dl: 5500kbps
- peak up: 550kbps
- latency: less than 40ms
- speedtest at this moment
Apparantly they just upgraded the backbone into my city. It used to be 2 T1's for the whole city. We're not a big place, but that was just stupid. Anyway, all is good now, and Shaw actually started they're upgrades a long way back so they were ahead of the game.
Typically, on the coast (around Vancouver) I get somewhere around 2-3000kbps downloads, but it's been a while since I've really been to put it thru it's paces out there.
the transition here in ontario canada was flawless, with no degredation of speed at all. much kudos to rogers communications. i am very pleased with their service.
I used DocsDiag - a Java DOCSIS SNMP query applet on my iBook, a partial report is below. This is given to my modem from a DOCSIS cable headend. Note, the TFTP path shows the configuration which ATT gives me - indicating 1.5M upstream, 300k downstream with 3 MAC addresses allowed.
QoS max upstream bandwidth = 300000 bps /DOCSIS/1500x300st-3
QoS max downstream bandwidth = 1500000 bps
Configuration filename =
Performance on ATT/MediaOne/RR's network has been quite acceptable - both peak and non-peak hours., with the exception of last Christmas when they announced cable Internet access and oversold it. They acquired additional capacity in late February and things have been fine since then.
Reliability, however is another story with ATT, as their customer service is quite brain-dead. I had an outage for almost 6 days and they wouldn't roll a truck to replace my fried USR CMX because of the @Home switchover. Lame asses. Never really had a problem with them until then.
Happy holidays.
-Pat
I'm posting for my friend who works in Antarctica. He wishes he had _any_ internet access! His current bandwidth is a flat 0bps, which is ridiculous; anywhere in the Western world, that would be considered a crime against humanity. So all of you should be peeing in your pants with excitement at having a connection, no matter what you pay, and no matter how slow it is! Be glad! Pee away!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
1.5MEGAbits?
AND YOU'RE WHINING?
for $40-50 per month?
SHUT UP, GET OVER IT, AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT USE THE COMPETITION. MY GOD.
The whining is insane, OH I AM ONLY GETTING 1.5 MEGABITS NOW, OH WHOA IS ME. Good grief if you dont' like it LEAVE their service.
MAYBE the reason @home went out of business is giving away too much for the money, maybe if you're lucky your NEW provider won't go out of business since they have sense enough to charge a rate that's fair for the service.
--- www.f-theocean.com
This is exactly what needs to be emphasized in any discussion about how people need to "wake up" and just accept whatever shit residential broadband providers serve up as "service".
We have always had that fucking 128 cap. A fucking bitch? Yes. But at least I used to get 800 kilobytes per second on my downloads. Now I can't even get that shit. AT&T cable fucking sucks. They better get their shit together.
...or maybe not. STFU!
-500 points to @Home's marketing for not allowing me to find out that they originally had >1.5mb/sec bandwidth (and I did try to find it).
Not that my subscription fees would have made a difference, but I might have went with them instead of DSL had I known. I wonder how many other customers they lost by not slapping stats like that on their marketing materials...
When I first got my cable modem about a year ago, I had roughly 4 megabits coming down, and 128k upstream PER IP Address.
The way this worked was that I'd pay an extra $5 a month per IP address, and the computer that went on it got a seperate download/upload stream. I loved this because I could do file xfers on one computer, and play Quake on the other without the ping times being affected.
However, since @Home went down things changed a bit. I have 3 computers on my network, 2 of them had IP addresses I was paying for. Now the 3rd one suddenly has an internet connection. (I found this out when Media Player suddenly asked me if I wanted to update.. yah right.)
So now all the computers on my network have an IP address, but the cost of that is all 3 of them share the 128k upstream. This is a bit of a pain because VNC doesn't work so well across them. Guess I'll have to set up a router if I want that to work, I was hoping to avoid doing that.
Anyway, I don't know if AT&T is going to continue charging me the $5 a month or not. I realy wish it'd go back to the way it was. The 1.5 megabit cap doesn't bother me for now, but the upstream limit is really bugging me.
Some might wonder why I don't just switch to DSL. I'll tell you why. I live very close to where I work, so I'd likely have the same DSL provider. My company pays a great deal of money per month to get a dedicated DSL line that is supposed to be up all the time. And why not? They have their web server and mailserver and so on running on it.
One day the DSL line went down. And you know what happend? The DSL provider pointed to the phone company, the phone company pointed to the ISP, and the ISP pointed to the DSL provider again. We were down for 7 (seven) days. 7 DAYS!!! In the times of dot-bombs, you do NOT want your webserver down for 7 days.
So I decided to stay with AT&T. If my internet connection goes down, I have one phone number to call. I just hope they get their act together.
"Derp de derp."
No, we were spoiled. We were sold y, and received x for quite a while. Economic downturn and the logisticals requre that we now receive only what they originally promised, not more as we've become accustomed.
On a side note... AT&T has been contemplating these very events for over 4 months now. They've had a very long time to set up for this. attbi's network is seperate and wholly new(afaik) from AT&T's WorldNet service. This should leave plenty of bandwidth for us all, seeing as they almost assuredly left some room for growth.
I'm thankful that AT&T was so forward-thinking in this entire ordeal. Had they not been so insightful, we(AT&T users) might all be up shit creek now.
Moderators: If you have to look up any of the terms I've used, don't moderate me. You're probably confused. Read the Moderator Guidlines before doing anything drastic.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I can get a 1.1mbps SDSL line for $129 where I live. Considering I pay nearly $60 a month for my, now capped, cable modem, SDSL is looking pretty good. (for you simple folk, SDSL = same upload rate as download)
It's 1.5mbps down, which isn't horrible. 128kbps up, which is plain out gay, but that's almost standard. You can't run any internet servers or they pull the plug on you. A bunch of ports are blocked, the mail system sucks ass, and for some reason my 'static' IP isn't static anymore, thanks to their crap DHCP. DSL has none of these limits! (Except the bandwidth caps, which are the same)
Well your friend (in psychology class we learned that usually a "friend" is but a sham, and a method of shifting guilt from ones' self) should get himself a Verizon DSL connection. Got one myself two years ago. And haven't payed for it already a year.
The story is like this.
I ordered Verizon DSL with a credit card which would expire while I was on summer vaction. Since I would be away, I wouldn't have need for the service. So I just ignored the "credit card" expiring notice from Verizon, and in the summer my account was deactivated. I was hoping on switching to Mindspring DSL because Verizon hiked up the prices to match Mindsprings', so I figured for the same 50 dollars I would rather have Mindsprings 1.5mb compared to Verizons' 768kb.
I signed up for Mindspring, and two weeks later I recieved a notice via snailmail that my line doesn't support DSL, and that they would notify me if DSL would become available in my local area.
After waiting one hour with Mindspring (terrible phone support!) just to ask an operator to route my call, I spoke with a tech (some underpaid pimple-faced kid on a summerjob) who told me that DSL wasn't available in my area, I told him two things. One; that I had Verizon from the same CO that they use on my line, and Two; that my next-door neighbor has Mindspring DSL.
So it turns out, that Verizon deactivated my account, but they still had their equipment attached to my line. In order for Mindspring to attach their equipment, I would have to request Verizon to disengage theirs. Of course I called Verizon immediately, and requested this, and they told me that it should be done within two weeks. But it never happened.
So what I did is ask a buddy for his login combo for Verizon (which amazingly allows multiple simultaneous logins, as long as you don't use more than one IP for phone line.) So basically I've been using Verizons service since that time without paying a cent, and without detriment to my buddy's account.
Listen, I asked nicely to be disconnected so that I could connect through Mindspring, and obviously I am willing to pay the 50 dollar service fee, but as long as Verizon holds reign on my line, I will leech their service!
I sig, therefore I was.
I'm getting 175Kb/sec while downloading OpenOffice.
IIRC I got 430Kb/sec while downloading a build last time, but admittedly that was a LONG time ago.
oh well, compared to dialup......
Comcast around here has the quickest speeds I have ever seen. I get 600k/sec downloads, they don't cap it what so ever. My friend in Michigan, used to get 450k/sec downloads. Either way, I hope they don't go capping my line. Not sure if I am affected, or its the other way around. I am tired, and shouldn't be writting this. Oh well, still intresting for me to note the d/l speeds. Oh, and I get 300k/sec upstream, which is pretty amazing :)
until (succeed) try { again(); }
I'LL BE DAMNED IF THEY GET ANYMORE OF MY MONEY!!!
1.5 Mbits is crap. I'm not paying for that when I used to get double. Actually my parents pay for it but I'm gonna tell them to switch.
You said that cable modems max at 1mb up.
Thats not true. I have BBNow (Broadband Now) and I have 1.5 up/down.
Later
Adam
Im paying $50 a month for Telocity, bought out by DirecTV in the middle of this year. I get 262k/14500k, and must say that even during their peak times, i get a full 160k/per-second download from kernel.org, which is my top speed. I run Web/Ftp/SMTP/DNS, all from my server there that uses NAT, with a static ip, and it has my domain pointed to it.
I can't complain at the moment, and I don't think they would cap the bandwidth because I know there would be a LOT of noise made about it. I can't go with an ISP that doesn't provide me with 2 things. Those 2 things are 1. A static ip, and 2. No less than 256k up/1500k down.
I get this for $50 a month under no contract. If they changed, then I would call them, shout, bitch, and complain, and then find their top competitor, and sign up with them (if they fit my requirements).
The only problem ive had with Telocity was the quality of service. Used to the connection would drop 1-3 times a day, and it would be every day, and sometimes I would get a weird packet loss for no reason from around 6:00-11:00pm. But now, I don't get that, and have had a strait 6 day uptime on my connection (Not counting a power outage in which the router isn't connected to my server's UPS). My connection hasn't dropped by itself in 2 weeks.
--------------------------
Is this a sig?
--------------------------
TCP has this wonderful technoligy called congestion control and slow start. Because of this wonderful technoligy that you are obviously unaware of, there is little need to cap users downstreams. All TCP sessions will expand to roughly get a fair share of the bandwidth. Noticable congestion problems will only occure if the provider is unable to handle the connection setup traffic (seriously underpervisioned to the point where no cap can help).
:)
One real reason for caps is to keep expectations down.. If it worked at 6mbit/sec today, then even if the contract doesn't say you are promised 6mbit/sec, people will be expecting it and screaming for it when it goes away.
The other real reason for caps is to create multiple service levels, so that you can extract all the monies from your users that they are able to pay.
I'm a little confused. What can the tech do about the cap? I thought it was a global solution on their end that the lowly tech people would have no choice about.
Here in Marin County, CA, I used to get anywhere from 4.2 to 4.5 Mbps downstream. In fact, I never saw it drop below 3.9 Mbps.
Upstream has never been better than 160 Kbps.
When AT&T resumed service, I was experiencing 1.03 Mbps downstream from some places and 28 Kbps from others, depending on the routing.
As of this moment, I'm seeing the following:
From MegaPath: 1432 Kbps down/103 Kbps up.
From LinkLine: 1453 Kbps down/ 123 Kbps up.
For those Charter customers who want to find out what your service will be like when you have a problem, here is my account of my 7 day outage. The final fix took 5 minutes once it was in the proper hands. 7 days to perform a 5 minute fix, and it was not for lack of letting them know about my problem :)
:00am and 10:00am as Eileen had scheduled the trouble ticket. I actually stayed home until 1:30pm and came back at 2:45. Charter came by at 2:39pm, but the
I called Charter (888-590-4694) on 11/29/2001 to find out how the transition was going. They gave me another phone number for the transition (888-843-0785) and I talked to Doug at that number the next day. Doug was completely unwilling to provide me with any information and told me he was only taking down names and numbers. I left my name and number and he told me someone would call me back with in 3 days. It is now 12/23 and I have not heard anything back from that phone call.
On 12/6 my service went down at 4:21pm. I was unable to ping my gateway (24.11.143.139) or DHCP server (24.0.0.70). Renewing DHCP got no response. At 4:29pm the modem reset itself and started getting an invalid and incomplete DHCP response (IP Address: 192.168.100.11, DHCP Server: 192.168.100.1, no DNS, no gateway).
I called 888-590-4694 and they said that I needed to call a technical support number in California and gave me the 888-852-2235 phone number. I talked to Shari at that number and she said that she was in Southern California and had no access to the information in Northern California. She told me I needed to call the local office and gave me the 831-724-1038 number (I live in Capitola, CA).
I called that number and talked to Stewuart. Stewuard gave me the http://chartersupport.com/ URL (not that I could access it at the time) and walked me through a few things on my computer to doulbe check things. Then told me that my modem was missing from the database and needed to be reprovisioned. I needed to go into my local office:
Charter Office
475 Airport Blvd.
Watsonville, CA 95076
He could not give me a phone number for that office.
I called the 866-837-3620 number and requested information for the Watsonville area.
The status number stated that they would be providing service to my area in the next 90 days.
I called 831-724-1038 and talked to Carrie. She said there was no phone number for the local office. She gave me a closer local office.
706 Capitola Ave. Suite G
Capitola, CA 95010
M-Th 8:30-5:30
F,S 9:30-5:30
Carrie said that I needed to bring my modem into the Capitola office, and either get a new one
or get it reprovisioned. The local office was closed for the day, so I had to go the next day.
I went to the local office in Capitola on 12/7. I am not sure I can classify it as an office, only one person, Eileen, works there. She was rude to the customer in front of me and from talking to him he said they were double billing him. Eileen told him it wasn't her job to help him. When I talked to Eileen about my problem she told me that she had no idea why anyone would refer me to her. She said that she did not know anything about cable modems and did not have any to replace mine with. Eileen scheduled a trouble call for them to come out on Monday, 12/10/2001 between 8:00am and 10:00am. She said that 80% of the customers in the database were moved over and about 20% were lost. I was one of the customers lost.
When I got home I called 1-866-413-9096 and talked to Bradley, after waiting on hold for approximately 50 minutes (It was entirely Christmas music. I think that whoever decides to choose Christmas music for people waiting on hold for an hour should be forced to listen to the music they hate the most for an hour). Bradley told me that the URL to set-up e-mail addresses was http://update.charter.net/, and that the cost for the service was the same. Customers can check their mail at http://mail.charter.net/. He gave me the pop server of pop.charter.net and the smtp server of smtp.charter.net. Bradley gave me the new username and password that I should have received in the mail. As of 12/23 I still have not received anything from Charter in the mail other than ads for their service sent out in bulk --- including a bill, and I have notified them of this. Bradley told me that they were having a DHCP issue in my area and that it would be fixed by the next morning. He opened Ticket #: st0685004 and told me that he would call me the next morning to make sure that I was back up. As of 12/23 I have not heard back from Bradley.
On 12/8 I still had not heard from Bradley by the afternoon and I was still down. I called 866-413-9096 and they hung up on me after being on hold for 56 minutes (at least I finished reading the book I was reading). I had to do things that day and decided it was not a good day to call Charter.
On 12/9 I was still down. I called 866-413-9096 and when I tried option 2 for technical support I got a busy signal and it hung up on me. I called back and did not choose any option, then got a busy signal and hung up on. I called again and chose 1 to set up e-mail/passwords/web. This got me through to Shari: she did not know anything technical. All, she could do is take down my contact information and have someone
call me. I am now quite familiar with that routine at Charter. She also gave me a 1-866-413-9097 number, stating that it was
the number for technical support in my area.
I called 1-866-413-9097. This number seemed more like customer support at first, but I got a technical support person, Chad. I gave Chad the ticket number, st0685004, and he reviewed it. He said that it was currently being worked on by Tier-3. When I asked when it was last updated, he paused and told me 12/7. I asked him if Tier-3 worked on weekends, and put me on hold to go ask. He told me that they do. He walked me through some tests on my machine and had me connect to the diagnostic Web server on my modem (the IP was the IP of the DHCP server responding):
http://192.168.100.1/
and
http://192.168.100.1/config.html
Signal to Noise: should be >25
Upstream: 22 to 56
Downstream: -15 to +15On 12/10 no one showed between
guy was still in the parking lot. He wouldn't give me contact information for the trouble call
group. He said that since my modem lights were on, he could not do anything. He said that people did not show up for work today, and it was him and one other guy covering the trouble calls. He could not get the guy who handles the software side to come out until tomorrow. He said he would have the guy call me tonight and schedule to come out tomorrow.
He did leave a message at 2:40pm and said to call them if I have further problems, but he
did not leave a phone number to call him back at. I did not have any phone number the trouble
call group. I now have the caller id from the number he called me from: (408) 422-9168.
I called 1-866-413-9097 and talked with Doug. Doug had me go to the Web page for my modem again. Under the Signal Page, Downstream: Network Access Control Object: OFF. According to Doug if this is OFF the modem is not authorized. Doug resubmitted the ticket and thought that my modem was not authorized. He said to give them a call
if I have not heard from them in a day or so.
On 12/11 I still had not heard back from the tech's co-worker who was supposed to call me back the night before. It seems very few people at Charter call back when they say they will.
I called 408-422-9168 and talked with the tech. He said that he talked to his co-worker that morning and that his co-worker would be comming out that morning. As of 12/23 no other tech actually showed up. I must be on some list of people not to show up on.
I called 1-866-413-9097 and talked with James. I gave James the ticket number, st0685004, and he reviewed it. He put me on hold to test my modem.
James asked me if I have talked to 1-888-590-4694; I said that I started off with that group and they never called me back.
I had James transfer me to his supervisor, Howie. I talked with Howie and he is based at the Louisville Call Center. Howie was one of the better people I worked with at Charter. He actually called me back every day to update me on how he was working on my ticket and the phone number and names of those people he had talked to if I wanted to check up on it myself. He ended up not being the one to resolve the issue, but I am confident that he would have eventually and was on top of it.
On 12/12, I called 831-724-1038 and talked with Heidi. Heidi is based in Vancouver, WA and said that the call center for my area is based in Vancouver, WA. I told her a lot about my problem. I mentioned I had a ticket open with the Louisville Call Center. She had information about the billing call I made and about the trouble call Eileen made for the 10th. She did not seem interested in looking the ticket number up. After talking to her about my problems, she started working with her supervisor, James. She entered another trouble ticket for 12/17, but we both agreed that that was too long to be down and that was unacceptable with me. I asked her to transfer me to her supervisor, James.
She ended up transferring me to the escalation team and I talked with Carol. Carol said that she was going to try and get ahold of someone at the Santa Cruz office. This is the first I had
heard of the Santa Cruz office. She ended up talking with Dave, from the Gilroy office. Carol said "he runs the Internet."
I know that is not true, so I will assume she meant for that office. Carol said that Dave is going to call me sometime today. I told her that I did not really want to stay home all day waiting for a phone call if no one was going to be out that day. I asked to speak to her supervisor, but she quickly responded that her suprvisor was not available. I asked who her supervisor was and when her supervisor would be in. Her supervisor's name is Charlotte and comes in at 10:00am, she responded.
I called back (866-731-5420) at 10:06 and spoke with Tamra. Tamra looked over my ticket and put me on hold for Charlotte. She came back and said that Charlotte does not come in until noon. Tamra told me that she was going to put me on hold and get me to one of the supervisors. She transferred me to another number that put me on hold.
Apparently Tamra transferred me to the escalation team (not a supervisor). I spoke with Jeremy. Jeremy gave Dave a call to see if he could have Dave call me back immediately. Jeremy came back and said that Dave would call me back sometime that day. I can not seem to get across to Charter that I do not want to sit around all day waiting for a phone call. If where I wanted to go got cell phone reception I would give them my cell phone.
At 11:25am, Dave called back to make sure I was up. Yeah! Dave fixed my problem. He had reentered my modem into the database. It worked, my ordeal with Charter was over.
If only Charter could have given me a phone number for someone who actually could fix my problem.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
The way to calculate this is based on having to send one upstream TCP ACK for every downstream TCP data packet. Assuming a 1500 byte MTU (i.e. packet size = max) for the downstream packets, and a 40 byte TCP/IP ACK packet, you end up with the key ratio being 37.5 - if your upstream is >= 37.5 times faster than your downstream, TCP download sessions are limited to 37.5 * the upstream bandwidth, because you need 1/37.5 times the downstream bandwidth just to send the TCP ACKs fast enough to keep up.
So a 128 Kbps upstream limits you to at most 4.8 Mbps downstream, not 1 Mbps (latter would hold only if your MTU was 320 bytes). And if you are doing anything else in the upstream direction, you'll end up reducing download speed further.
For a canned Linux QoS/shaping setup that will work for most broadband connections, and solve the upstream ACK issue, see the Linux 2.4 Advanced Routing HOWTO. For the truly geeky, there are potential solutions to the asymmetric bandwidth issue - do a Google search for TCP ACK filtering, sender adaptation and ACK reconstruction. However, these all involve modified TCP stacks on sender and receiver, so you'd have to use some sort of proxy located upstream of the constrained link, or get the servers of the world to modify their TCP stacks...
Just installed their CD software on a test machine and sure enough, what do I see being installed but vnchooks.dll. With what they have their software doing I wonder how long till their is a DOS or exploit (their File Locker is one that comes to mind). Wonder how long till they tell me to turn off the Quake3 server.
I've been at AT&T BB (formerly MediaOne) user for about 3 years now and it's no surprise to me that they're instituting a cap. Bandwidth isn't unlimited, as much as we'd like it to be. I've had a 1.5mb down / 300 kb up cap on my modem for some time now...and considering my distance from my CO, I have no interest in DSL, and T1 is just abit out of my price range.
/var/log/security on my system and my fourth friend (who also got a nice call from the security folks) checked his /var/log/messages. Guess what? The logs revealed a super-heavy portscan coming from a machine at:
The biggest problem now is that the new AT&T BB AUP forbids running all servers of any kind. Previous to December 5, all servers that were run on boxen on their network were okay as long as they didn't interfere with the overall performance of the network. This was cool since I'm not a super huge user of upstream bandwidth as it is.
I received a rather kind call from a fellow in their security department a couple days ago, reportedly becasue one of my whois records showed a DNS server running on their network and asked me to change the IP. I told him I'd investagate and make sure the machine was "server-free." Seems that they were concerned someone else was going to get my IP and get pounded with rogue traffic.
What the tech failed to grasp was that as long as my computer remains on, the IP doesn't change and my DHCP lease gets constantly renewed. Naturally, static IP addresses are not on AT&T's list of features.
After that call, I decided to do some investagation. Seem that a subscriber complained that they were getting killed with DNS and mail traffic. A further look revealed that one of my friends had kept his box off for a month or two, and someone else was assigned his IP. Regardless, someone did some packet captures, found some names, then found the DNS servers. Another one of my friends got shutdown because, like a complete idiot, he left his server wide open and wasn't properly running any kind of IDS.
That aside, I ran a check through my
securityscan.ne.mediaone.net
Fortunately, I had portsentry set to trip on a few well-known services that i run, so just about all scans get sent to the shitter. As such, they didn't start accusing me of anything as a subscriber, but rather as an outside party that might be impacting their network.
That said, be careful what you run on AT&T...and set up some kind of IDS (e.g. portsentry) so that if they do start scanning your system that you can toss their packets before they nail you with an AUP violation.
-A.G.-
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
I know a t-3 is 45 Mbps. but you cant buy a 10Mbps pipe so you have to buy the next step which is cheaper than 10 T-1's and the equipment to multiplex them. also for the many of you whining about the prices I quote. thoseare real world prices from my last round with the telcos and ISP AT&T was the cheapest for the T-1's (I have 5 of them, 4 go to sattelite offices 1 to the net) and net access. yes we sign multi year contracts, but the companies legal department is really good at breaking them when we want to, so I have to shop T-1 and Net access prices yearly. (management likes to tourment me as we changed all the T-1 circuts from MCI to AT&T last year... oh yeah I loved working 17 hour days for 3 days in a row to switch all offices over to the new circuits.)
again I issue my challenge... Get a T-1 in your house with Net access for 5 times the cost of your Cable modem. it cant be done.
Also I manage a Heughes sattelite link to corperate. No "shared" bandwidth like drect PC and I get on a really good day 700ms pings, most of the time we get 3-4 second pings. and corperate went with this to get decent bandwidth and it was cheaper than a T-1 from here to Colorado. (we move about 3gb of video daily and usually only during the hours from 4-7pm.. some spill off to later happens often. I am glad we dont have to move more video like that than we already do.) but I still hate the sattelite link. (espically during snowstorms and heavy rain.. and I get a call from the NOC wanting me to fix the link... Ahem, ok I'll stop it from snowing/raining.... why cant they look at the weather chanel before they call us?
Oh well..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
i live in york pa, our provider is suscom used be @home, we've been capped at 128K since the bankruptcy.
=(
As an Insight customer, I was curious to see that Insight wants to bring more than one ISP to it's internet market. Mmmm. Choice? Interesting.
Read more here
http://www.insight-com.com/net/UPDATES/
No this is not only happening to your friends in California. I am in Colorado and a very disgruntled user of AT&T. I have had AT&T broadband for almost 2 years now and this is the worst thing to have gone through. The switch over after the bankruptcy of @home caused me to be down for over a week. Trying to call in for assistance and information, even after I was supposed to be back up was futile. I would wait as long as 4 hours only to be hung up on or disconnected after finally getting a person that might be able to answer my questions and actually help me. Now I have service, if that is what you can call it. I have less than half the speed I had previously. I still can't get help on the phone and I lost my static IP. My concern, other than the speed, which I understand will never be restored in an attempt to evenly distribute load and requests, is the coming of the new comcast. Will we be down again? Will we ever have full service again? For that matter, what about the pricing? It is going up and the services are becoming less. They are looking less and less attractive, but with no where else to go for service what can a person do?
I have att in Chicago here, and I had been judging my speed based on what I considered a local fast debian mirror (~500 kpbs). Someone recommended bandwidthplace to get a better measurement. I've tried this at different times of the day, and the best I ever get is 1.2Mbps
There are a couple other sites I've found that do a test like this, and they give similar results.
here's a site that links to a whole bunch:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/eaa/Bandwidth.htm
First... A T1 Is 1.544Mbps full-duplex.
Cable is not, as you said.
A T3 is 45Mbps, or 28 T1's. (44.376Mbps)
And even the rates you specify cannot realistically be supported.. not if people actually start USING the bandwidth they bought. If everyone were to max out their bandwidth, the network would grind to a halt.... and these companies will further restrict what you can use. Remember... what they can offer is entirely based on how people use it as much as it is their network capacity.
C'mon... 20,000 people with 1Mbps? That's 20Gbps... or 2 OC-192's... that's some serious, serious bandwidth.
1544000 bps is *exactly* 1.544 Mbps.
When you deal in bits, you deal in K=1000. Always. Especially with regards to data transmission rates.
A kilobit is 1000 bits, just like a kilogram is 1000 grams. A megabit is 1000 kilobits. Etc.
K=1024 is used always to refer to memory, and usually to refer to storage, and always in bytes, not bits. It's the exception to the rule.
but isn't cable modem service at 1.5 mbits per second? That's what was advertised, that's what's I see in all the technology press, and I've never gotten more than 1.5 or 1.6 out of my cable modem.
I currently have Comcast@home in Indianapolis
I know a t-3 is 45 Mbps. but you cant buy a 10Mbps pipe so you have to buy the next step which is cheaper than 10 T-1's and the equipment to multiplex them. also for the many of you whining about the prices I quote.
Actually, depending on provider, you can get a 10MB SMDS circuit but they are pretty pricy (~$5K-10K). I believe PSINet used to offer 10MB ATM circuits too.
Your prices are largely accurate. I know since I own an ISP. However, if you can provide your own bandwidth and connect into someones channelized T-3, you can backhaul a T-1 for the cost of one side of the loop, e.g. a T-1 for about $200-$500. Granted, most folks can't pull this number off. Also, generally, within the same CO you can run point-to-point and provide the equipment on each end. But you need bandwidth from somewhere like an employer, a friend, something. But this pushes up the price considerable given how much the comm gear can cost.
again I issue my challenge... Get a T-1 in your house with Net access for 5 times the cost of your Cable modem. it cant be done.
I can, for exactly 5 times the cost of the cable modem here. But again, I'm unusual in that I can meet the conditions I state above. The fact of the matter is that your contention is largely accurate. Not totally but pretty darn close. I'd guess there are maybe 1 in 1000 /.'ers that know how to pull this off and have access to the resources to do it.
For some time, I've been one of only 4 DSL users connected to one of SBC's CO DSLAMs, this in an office surrounded by a low income neighborhood with no high-speed access penetration.
To date, I've only found four or five websites that actually have outbound pipes fat enough to stream downloads to me at my max download speed,
1.5 Mbps - Sun.com and Openwave.com among them.
Many sites that I KNOW have huge pipes - Micro$oft for instance (please, no flames, if you have to support end-users you MUST download patches and TSBs for their shitty software from this site to keep them up and running....)- seem to LIMIT the amount of bandwidth available for downloads per IP connection.
While in a perfect world everything would work a lot differently, if you can consistantly get 256-512K REAL download speeds from your ISP, be it DSL or cable you've got more capacity than 80% of the available websites, and could be among the less fortunate MAJORITY that to date doesn't have access to high speed alternatives and is stuck with a V.90 dialup.......
The 1.5mbps cap bothers me because the service continues to get worse, but the price stays the same. I'm now paying the same amount of money for a dynamic IP, with slower speeds, and continued outages. Our area has had severe problems with outages since August - the cable modem loses signal and resets itself every 5 minutes. Despite repeated calls, emails, and chats to complain AT&T, they continue to not deal with the problem, they continue to charge us full price for the service, and it continues to get worse.
The 1.5mbps cap is just another straw on the camel's back.
AT&T@Home has been capped with a 128k/s upload speed for over a year. But like others have mentioned download speeds were superb. "Always-on" was never a problem either. According to everybody in the house it has only gone down once since we've had it. (Over a year)
:)
I would be more then satisfied with a 1.5Mpbs download cap if they would in turn raise the upload cap to 384 or something a little bit more reasonable.
Or raise the cap for people who do not "abuse" the network
forced my local cablemodem ISP out of business. With the original, I got 512K both directions. Not wanting to be a comcast customer, nor have my service interrupted while they figured out how to change the infrastructure, I stayed with my old ISP who now offers DSL instead. Unfortunately, being governed by sprint, I am now paying the same amount, but being capped outbound at 128K. I still get 512 down, however. I haven't had the chance to test my servers much yet, but it seems to be OK. I hate that I'm paying the same amount for less bandwidth though.
Anyone who was an ATT@home customer is now an ATTbi customer and faces the 1.5 Meg cap. I hate it, coming from the nice 7 Megabit @home netowrk, but oh well, it's better than dialup... More info here.
My service has always been capped at 1.5M down, 30M up. (Or so they claim. In practice, I get about 100kbps down, and 15kbps up... sometimes more on the down, but never more on the up. Dishonest bastards.)
:) )
On top of that, the price is probably more than anyone is used to - 40$/month. Granted, they don't monitor the network worth jack, so I can do whatever I want with that connection, and run all my systems behind it. (Like most geeks don't, right?
I honestly can't see what people would do with that much downward bandwidth. I could definately use an extra 10kbps up, simply due to the fact that I share the bandwidth with my brother as well, but also because I tend to upload a substantial amount to various servers as well. I'd happily take a 25-40kbps downward bandwidth cut if I could have an extra 10kbps up.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Even setting aside for the moment the fact that Comcast prohibits you from running VPNs over residential cable modem service ... the one thing that a T1 line gives you big time over a cable modem is upstream speed.
A T1 line is 1.5 mbps both ways, full duplex. An AT&T cable modem is 1.5 mbps downstream and only 128 kbps upstream. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can't get 1.5 mbps upstream service through cable at any price.
We currently have a T1 line in the Boston area for under $500 per month. I don't know about Chicago area prices, but I would assume they are similar.
Well, 3 weeks ago yesterday they pulled the plug on us. 2 weeks ago today -- after disingenuously telling us that our city is "on the transition plan, we're just not sure how many more days" -- they finally tell us "Good News! It's not going to be 12-16 weeks! We got a deal and we've connected your town!!"
Except my old TCI@home modem won't connect. The first trouble ticket got "lost"
Now it seems that my "SAS record" -- what I'm taking to be "Service Acquisition System" or some such -- well, that record is required for me to be activated, but it's not there. My BILLING record is intact. They know how much to bill me for and where to send the bill and how many lines and everything ... But I can't connect except to their "modem registration" screen which reports that "Registration Failed -- Please try again"
Well, after being escaleted to Tier-2 support, one would expect some action .. "If you're not on line by Saturday morning, check back..."
Today I find out that it's "up to 72 business hours" to add an SAS record. I even checked back to make sure that I was understanding this correctly. Their 24/7 support is ham-strung by a 9-5 business unit! They can't service the ticket because they don't have authority to change the SAS database. And since Monday is a holiday, that means Wednesday is the earliest that the unit will be "on the job." But since the ticket didn't actually identify the problem correctly until after close of business on Thursday, there's only 8 hours logged (Friday) against the "escalated" ticket. If they really meant 72 business hours, I'm not going to get connected again this year!!
Right now a line capped at 1.5 megs seems pretty attractive after three weeks+ of being offline.
Heck, right now, a simple straight answer and an apology other that "Sorry for the inconvenience" would go a long way. I understand database glitches and service problems. If it weren't the ONLY broadband option in my neighborhood, I think I'd be pricing a new provider. Not because the service hasn't been re-established yet, but because I'm tired of getting the run around.
Is the new ATTbi bandwidth cap 1.5 Megabits or 1.5 Mebibits? I really want to know.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
I am an ATT Broadband customer. And I just tested my connection speed and found that it is better than 3 mega-bits per second. It is always above 2 mega-bits per second -- even when I am downloading several isos at the same time. Even though capping is the official line of ATT, I haven't experienced it yet. (NOTE: My connection was in sub-ISDN speeds for about a week after switching to the new network, but that was the exception not the rule)
Come on guys, like 1.5megabit is a sin!
You pay $40 a month, sometimes much less, and still get amazingly fast speeds.
Cable modem users can hardly complain, even when they get 30K a sec downloads.
You pay for a dirt cheap service, and get quite a lot of bandwidth.
This isnt a story.
Brent Jones
Comcast also is screwing the pooch. They bought out my ISP, MediaOne, among others, and are cutting bandwidth as well as increasing rates. I posted a lengthy article about it on my site here. Really sucks. Article I posted conveniently reproduced below, to prevent my site from getting \.'d, although I think it should be able to handle it.
ell, I typically don't do things like this, but I'm really pissed off. Comcast bought out my current ISP, MediaOne. They are changing my email address with one week's notice... and I absolutely *love* my new email address. It is being changed from xxxx@mediaone.net to xxxxxx(six totally random numbers here)MI@comcast.net.... what fun. I just found out my new email address today. That means I have a week to give everybody my new email address, to get my domains moved over, to change all my accounts everywhere, and so forth.... the old email is getting de-activated in a week.... what would it cost them to keep the old servers running for another year? Probably a few hundred dollars... thousands of users getting screwed.... less than a dollar a person... and what do I pay for this new and improved service? Well, first let's take a look at this service. My current upstream speed is 384kbps with 3mpbs downstream. Comcast@Home has a speed of 128kbps upstream and 1.5mbps downstream. Do I get a price break? No, my price is getting increased $10/mo. Not only this, but I used to have 3 email addresses, now I'm only going to have 1 for the next two months.... So... decreased speeds, randomly generated email address ala AOL, fewer email addresses, change of address with a week's notice, and a $10/mo rate hike.... gee, I feel like I'm getting such wonderful service. I'm so glad that "As you may already know, your Road Runner service is changing to Comcast High-Speed Internet. In order to provide you with reliable and high-quality service, Comcast is transitioning all customers to an improved, all-Comcast managed Internet service." I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.Comcast Sucks.
AT&T's Broadband unit will be purchased by Comcast who will impose much stricter limitations and caps. AT&T's residential long distance and wireless divisions will be sold off to one of the Baby Bell's.. probably SBC. And then the final legacy of AT&T, their coveted business division will be devoured by another Baby Bell.. probably Verizon. Thus we will witness the end of the oldest telephone company in the world. Sad isn't it? All because of stupid US anti-monopoly policies. If we hadn't been smart this could well have been Microsoft in 15 years. Raped, lost, pummeled into a shapeless mass whose only hope at reducing its massive debt is to self off piecemeal to the vultures. Thank god for the Bush administration. We were able to prevent such a travesty and nip this right in the bud. We've guarenteed that Microsoft will lead the United States well into the 21st century as the preeminent software monopoly of the entire world. GO MICROSOFT!
The major Telco's and Cable companies (which in many cases are becomming the same entity*)feel that they have now pushed enough of the smaller ISP's out of the market (by making the conditions for small ISP's unreasonable enough so they can't do business) that they can begin to raise prices. As an incentive to extort more money from their customers they downgrade existing service and sell the same service back to you for a higher fee. This trend happens in any market where monopoly powers exist. Be it operating systems, cable TV, and broadband.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Well, then permit me to say that it still sucks. =D
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
well, I had @home service for a little less than a year. and yes, this is nation wide, here in washington it's the same thing. at&t claims it's becuase a small number of users were using all the bandwidth, but my guess is it's just so they can cram more users on they're allready overloaded network.
We've tried many times to get through to ATT by phone, with little success. ("Due to high call volume, you may be inadvertently disconnected [CLICK] [dial tone]...). Gee, inadvertent phenomena aren't usually so reliable and repeatable.
Lies: check this one...
ATT support: "What kind of cable modem are you using?
"um, it's RCA model blah blah ..."
Support: "Oh, that's why. We've had a lot of problems with that model." [which worked flawlessly till the switchover]
"Ok, well, we'd be happy to run out and buy a different cable modem. Which model do you suggest?"
Support: "Um [long pause]... actually, that wouldn't solve your problem. Our ... our technicians are working on the problem. We'll get back to you as soon as we've solved it."
"So the problem is the cable modem, but a different cable modem won't help?"
Support: "Our technicians are working on it."
Note for Cox@Home and Comcast@Home customers: if you haven't had problems, it's because Cox and Comcast signed continuing (3 mo.) deals with @Home, so you still have @Home service. ATT didn't sign such a deal, apparently because it thought they could do it all without @Home. Guess what? They were wrong.
--Timboy
You'd better believe we're complaining about it.... I live in the north dallas area and I used to be able to get 900k/sec steady (read: _steady_, not bursting). So for me its quite a dramatic decrease to go from 900k/sec to 180k/sec :((
I used to have pacbell dsl that had a d/l cap of 1.5Mbits, w/ 128Kbit uplink, then @home arrived in the area (San Francisco). My friend got it and got sustained d/l of 5-7Mbits. That was pretty dope. So I switched to @home and got the same service as my friend. Now ATTbi takes over and the service suXXX like mad. Not only are my downloads capped at 1.5Mbits, but the service is intermittent as well. The 1st week of service of the @home to attbi switch-over was painful to use. Now a month later, the service is much more tolerable, though I still seemingly get DNS problems and horrendous speed fluctuations. Sure, ATTbi has been building a network to replace @home's in case @home folds, and apparently they've done that in accord to their claim, but the QoS of ATTbi is a pale comparison to @home's.
One question, what's the advantage of capping users at 1.5Mbits/s? If downstream is uncapped, wouldn't the users just use up the available bandwidth? How does that cost the broadband companies any money? The promise is 1.5Mbps, but I'm ecstatic to get 5-7Mbps, yet I realize I'm only guaranteed 1.5Mbps. If I'm getting way above my downstream bandwidth floor, then I'm going to advertise their service to everyone I know. It's free advertising and customer happiness at no cost to the company. Now that I know that ATTbi is being a bastard and artificially capping at 1.5Mbps, I might as well go back to Pacbell, or anyone else that might provide a more mature/consistent service if there is no speed differentiation. What is ATTbi doing w/ that extra unused bandwidth?
Is anyone noticing that reverse dns is not working on the new attbi network. At least for me and all my buddies in Spokane it's not.
Price:
:-/
:)
$55/month (8 GB capped -- $15/extra GB)
$45/month (3 GB capped -- no extra GB)
The card will run you at least $200 unless you get a deal on a used one (check ebay, or the nebulink Buy & Sell forum).
[Note: Prices may have changed -- I haven't checked my bill for a while]
>A dedicated (not unlimited) modem link will cost about $50 a month on top of the satellite costs.
I know, its a bit of a bummer.
The benefit, however, is that getting a a big C & Ku-band combo dish will cost you nearly nothing -- people are throwing them away all the time now.
The only investment will be in the DVB card. Nebulink will authorize any card that can pick up their signal. I'd suggest you find a DVB card that can pick up both digital data and FTA MPEG2 (that way you can get free TV -- bonus!).
>You might want to look into the tsocks module for linux, it's good for when you want to socksify non-socks apps with just an LD_PRELOAD
Thanks! I will add that to the howto.
BTW: Nebulink also proxies mail, and seems to proxy NNTP (didn't work for me, though -- didn't bother me cuz SOCKS is fine for that).
I wrote a howto on it that goes into excruciating detail how to set their Telemann card up in Linux.
One nice thing that Nebulink offers that Starband (and any other two way satellite service) can't is reliability in bad weather. Disregarding any problems on their side, a 10 ft. BUD will get you good reception of their signal through just about any weather. Barring your phone lines going down, or your power going out, you can surf the web while it snows/rains/hails.
Nebulink actually once offered a non-proxy service. They set up a VPN through their satellite using IPSEC. It was compliant to the standard. Unfortunately, the freeswan author isn't interesting in adding in the less secure, way faster method of data transfer which is really necessary for IPSEC over satellite, and I'm not up to the task. I prefer their proxy service, anyhow.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The switch over was darn painless here, I was down for almost 3 days but came home one night to find everything working again.
The 1.5Mb cap is in effect here. I had been getting up to 4Mb downstream. The upstream behavior is terrible, I rarely get even 128Kb. Sending anything large by mail stinks.
But I recall the etiology of the upstream cap with @Home. All the jerks in the world, ignoring the subscription agreements, started running servers, bringing some areas to a crawl. So we should say thanks to you jerks for screwing it up for the rest of us.
Cable in edmonton, rarely noticed a difference.
I'm home at my parents for the holidays tho, shaw@home in red deer, god damn!!!! =(
from 800-900K/s down before, seems to be limited to ~300k/s now.
from 110-115K/s up before, seems to be limited to ~45K/s...
I am NOT amuzed. =( Tho, been a few months since I've been down here. Could just have gotten really bogged down like all other cable services? Oh well. Back to edmonton in the new year. It's always sucked there. =)