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Cox Promises National Gigabit Rollout; Starting With Phoenix, Las Vegas, Omaha

Posted by timothy on from the faster-is-better dept.

As reported by the (variably paywalled) Wall Street Journal, Cox Communications is joining AT&T (and, of course, Google) in building out more gigabit connections to U.S. households. The company "became the biggest U.S. cable operator to commit to rolling out a gigabit-speed broadband offering to all its residential customers, starting this year, the latest sign that the push for ultrafast broadband speeds sparked by Google Inc. is gaining traction throughout the industry. ... [Cox president Pat Esser] said Cox's plan isn't contingent on whether towns and cities offer any sweeteners to Cox to make the rollout easier. Two years ago, Google's ability to get discounted and free services from Kansas City as it constructed its fiber service raised the hackles of local incumbent operators, including Time Warner Cable and AT&T. AT&T has indicated it is interested in getting similar concessions from towns as it rolls out its gigabit speeds." After the three Western and Mid-Western initial cities (Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Omaha) next year, other cities served by Cox should start getting the speed upgrades in 2016. (Similar but briefer story at Light Reading.)

129 comments

  1. non-paywalled link by soundguy · · Score: 2, Informative

    For those who don't want to support the scumbags at newscorp

    http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/blog/techflash/2014/05/cox-communications-plans-1gigabit-speed-for.html

    --
    Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
  2. In addition to rolling out... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... google fiber's gigabit speeds, Cox should also commit to rolling out google fiber's reasonable prices.

    1. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Charliemopps · · Score: 1, Insightful

      ... google fiber's gigabit speeds, Cox should also commit to rolling out google fiber's reasonable prices.

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but:
      The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live. Google is only installing fiber in very dense areas. As a result it's very very cheap for them to do this. Cable and telco companies have to provide service to a wider array of customers. Cable companies do so in somewhat less dense areas and telcos provide it in fairly remote areas. It costs you about the same to install a remote and provide service when theres 100 houses in the area as it does when there's 5. The difference is how many people are paying you when you're done. Googles only installing in areas where their equipment can serve thousands of people.

      What you're really asking for here is tiered services. Those that live outside of city centers should pay for living there. And you, living in an urban area should get very fast service and low rates. To get what you want, rural folks... people in older neighborhoods, are going to pay more for much slower speeds... if they can get internet at all. I personally think we'll all be worse off if that happened.

    2. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but: The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live.

      For large providers such as Cox and (maybe someday) Comcast, the cost is spread out over their entire customer base. I know, for you Tea Baggers (I'm sorry, "Libertarians"), that's tantamount - gasp - "Socialism". I know, I know, farmers in Bum-Fuck-Nebraska should be paying $1000 a month for their dial-up...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    3. Re:In addition to rolling out... by davester666 · · Score: 1

      What we have now is service AND prices as if everybody lives in the middle of nowhere.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >directly proportional ... [describes inversely proportional]

      FYI, the word you were looking for is inversely proportional.

    5. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad you put quotes around libertarians because tea baggers are as much libertarians as communists are democrats.

      Anyways, now that's over, libertarians wouldn't allow a single company to simply write an agreement with your masters... ahem... politicians that you may only receive service from just one company. You know, unlike what you have been getting for the past few decades under non-libertarian governments.

      Enjoy the status quo, you made it.

    6. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but:
      The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live. Google is only installing fiber in very dense areas.

      Kansas City isn't dense. It's like a larger version of Omaha. Google made it work.

      I don't know what your point was. I don't want to live in a dense urban area. I like living in a suburban or rural areas. I don't expect top tier network speeds. I understand this a tradeoff of my preferred locale, but I also know these companies never want to spend another dime on their infrastructure. If your comment about us "all being worse off if that happens" implies that we should be coerced to submit to living in urban areas, then I vehemently disagree.

      I live in Omaha and CenturyLink (nee Qwest, nee USWest) came by last summer and told us they had installed gigabit fiber in my neighborhood. They were trying to sell us on their package deal... it was something like $200+ a month for TV, gigabit internet, and phone service. It was over $100/month for internet alone.

      Pass. Netflix streams just fine at 30 Mbps for $30/month. I understand I can download ISOs faster with gigabit, but if the company won't let me run a server then it's not worth 4x the price. I don't want to pay any more for internet.

    7. Re:In addition to rolling out... by diamondmagic · · Score: 1

      There's this thing in economics called marginal profit. If the cost of deploying service to another customer would exceed the revenue, that means you're taking scarce, valuable resources, and making them less valuable. That's a bad thing.

      A lack of price signals and economic calculation like this is why socialism and communism always, always fails. All "socialist" societies today have some form of price system for this reason.

      --
      Wonder what the public key field is for?
    8. Re:In addition to rolling out... by overshoot · · Score: 1

      There's a reason that we who are serviced by Cox have established the unofficial motto, "Cox sucks."

      Pay more here for megabit speeds (no, that's not as in "50 megabit," that's as in "one, on a good day) at prices higher than Google charges for gigabit. And for the "it's all about density" set: that's central Phoenix, which sure has more density than Kansas City.

      The speeds keep dropping, and they use "we need to invest in more capacity" as an excuse. The charges go up, but the speeds go down anyway.

      The only thing Cox has going for it is that it's not CenturyLink -- which advertises that they'll keep charges from rising, but doesn't tell you that it's because they make the older services stop working so that you have to sign up for the new service at higher prices (plus buy new hardware) even though the speeds are no faster.

      --
      Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
    9. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live.

      I have made the same argument many times before. BUT...

      The fact is that even in the denser cities, U.S. customers pay far more on average for less service than in most "Western" countries.

      That isn't just due to lower densities, because as I say it's true across the U.S. What it is due to is simple lack of real competition, or failing that, adequate regulation.

    10. Re: In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah the dense urban jungle of Provo,UT. That for 1/3 the year rent drops to under $100/month or free in some complexes while students are out.Think again and stop defending bad practices

    11. Re:In addition to rolling out... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Pardon my ignorance, but what does public ownership of productive capital have to do with this issue?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:In addition to rolling out... by diamondmagic · · Score: 1

      I don't know, what do you mean?

      --
      Wonder what the public key field is for?
    13. Re:In addition to rolling out... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but:

      I'm sick of replying to this, but... Your apology for high ISP prices would carry a whole lot more water if the ISPs did not have very much lower prices in areas where they have competition than in those areas (more densely populated, btw) where they do not have competition.

    14. Re:In addition to rolling out... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      You've said that "this is why socialism always fails", which strikes me as a non sequitur, if I've ever seen one.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    15. Re:In addition to rolling out... by diamondmagic · · Score: 1

      The parent was suggesting that Cox could just eat the costs because they profit elsewhere.

      It's the same thing. You can't actually do that, because you're taking marginal losses. In socialism the phenomenon is well understood by economists, fewer people seem to understand it's relevance to massive corporations and that they can fail for the same reason. It's bad for the owning entity, and it's bad for the public at large because you're wasting scarce, valuable resources.

      I didn't understand the "public ownership" part because that doesn't really make sense. And "public ownership" is something of a contradiction of terms within economics anyways.

      --
      Wonder what the public key field is for?
    16. Re:In addition to rolling out... by sjames · · Score: 1

      When did Kansas become densely populated? And why haven't the other ISPs managed to deploy gig fiber in metro areas? Are you claiming NYC is too rural?

    17. Re:In addition to rolling out... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Except that I lived in a socialist country and I don't think anyone was doing there anything of the kind. Certainly not when it comes to services like this. Your boondocks phone line simply wouldn't get installed. And when it comes to spreading costs, does Comcast actually itemize the expenses to individual subscribers? Somehow I haven't heard of any company practicing this.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    18. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      That would be all nice and good if the providers had fiber rolled out at Google's speeds and prices in dense urban areas. Hint: they haven't. The fact they have to support other areas doesn't affect their ability to provide a competitive service to Google's own offering in the same or similar areas.

    19. Re:In addition to rolling out... by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      The cost to provide you internet is inversely proportional to the density of the population where you live. Google is only installing fiber in very dense areas. As a result it's very very cheap for them to do this.

      FTFY.

    20. Re:In addition to rolling out... by NotSanguine · · Score: 2

      What you're really asking for here is tiered services. Those that live outside of city centers should pay for living there. And you, living in an urban area should get very fast service and low rates.

      That's funny. I live in one of the largest cities in the US and Internet speeds are low, prices are high and just about all the choices I have include restrictive (to the point of abusive) contract terms. Perhaps you should get your facts straight before spouting off like that.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    21. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but: The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live. Google is only installing fiber in very dense areas.

      Of course, Cox is talking about installing fiber in the dense areas of Las Vegas, Omaha, and Phoenix. Not in any of the rural areas they serve.

      So tell me again, what keeps the existing cable monopolies from installing gigabit in their high-density markets?

    22. Re:In addition to rolling out... by citizenr · · Score: 2

      ... google fiber's gigabit speeds, Cox should also commit to rolling out google fiber's reasonable prices.

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but:
      The cost to provide you internet is directly proportional to the density of the population where you live.

      oh, so this is why I can get 1Gbit (with 100Mbit upload) at $30 in RURAL FUCKING ROMANIA.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    23. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Logic+Bomb · · Score: 1

      I've had Cox, probably in the same city as you (given your reference to CenturyLink), for over a decade. Performance has always been as advertised, often better. Service interruptions have been rareâ"less than one per year. I've never heard different from anyone else.

      They recently replaced my modem with one meeting a newer DOCSIS standard, presumably anticipating the upcoming service upgrades.

    24. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cost of maintaining their copper networks is greater than the cost of upgrading to fiber, even when you look at rural areas. Fiber is always cheaper.

      I can get better faster cheaper fiber Internet in bum-fuck midwest in a town of 800 from a small private ISP than New York City or LA. Stop spreading lies.

    25. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a reason that we who are serviced by Cox have established the unofficial motto, "Cox sucks."

      Pay more here for megabit speeds (no, that's not as in "50 megabit," that's as in "one, on a good day) at prices higher than Google charges for gigabit. And for the "it's all about density" set: that's central Phoenix, which sure has more density than Kansas City.

      The speeds keep dropping, and they use "we need to invest in more capacity" as an excuse. The charges go up, but the speeds go down anyway.

      The only thing Cox has going for it is that it's not CenturyLink -- which advertises that they'll keep charges from rising, but doesn't tell you that it's because they make the older services stop working so that you have to sign up for the new service at higher prices (plus buy new hardware) even though the speeds are no faster.

      Density is indeed a primary factor, but it's not the only one. Age of existing infrastructure is another big piece of the puzzle- it's more expensive to build out to homes in an older, historic district than in a new subdivision, for example. Income levels are also a major factor; if most subs in an area can only afford a basic plan then it's not going to be nearly as profitable as an area of similar density where people can generally afford a mid-tier or top-tier plan. Crime rate is another big issue which is seldom talked about- areas which have high rates of vandalism and/or are dangerous to work in cause ongoing maintenance costs to really shoot through the roof.

      But when you really get down to the heart of the issue, in most places the "last-mile" is not usually the problem any more. Mostly because new technologies and infrastructure upgrades make it common to be able to deliver 30 - 50 megs over that last stretch reliably, and in most places within the next few years anything other than DSL will be capable of easily hitting 300megs or more. But while the big companies have spent a lot to improve last-mile access, core/backbone capacity has not kept pace. Many of these providers are promising "gigabit" speeds to individual homes in cities with tens of thousands of active subscribers, yet still only have 100gigs (or less) of backbone leaving that same city. Smaller ISP's are even worse off in terms of backbone and edge bandwidth resources.
      So you end up with an advertised "gig" service that is not likely to actually give you more than 20 or 30 meg that you have already. But the general public are idiots and suckers, and if I advertise 1 gig and deliver 10 megs for $40, I'll take all the business away from the other guy who advertises 300megs and delivers all 300 of it for $45.

    26. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can't. I get sick of posting this but:

      I'm sick of replying to this, but...
      Your apology for high ISP prices would carry a whole lot more water if the ISPs did not have very much lower prices in areas where they have competition than in those areas (more densely populated, btw) where they do not have competition.

      You need to look up what they call a "loss leader" in the retail world. Put simply, it's the practice of selling product under costs to take business away from the competition, and making up for the loss with the profits in areas where you've already driven the competition out of business. It's what Wal-Mart does as standard practice- after all the competition in a small town dries up, prices slowly increase until eventually you're paying just as much (or more) than you were paying at the other, smaller stores.

      The reason they offer lower prices than the competition is because people will flock to the company advertising a lower price even if the service is slower. If you advertise 100megs for $20 and only actually deliver 5 megs, you'll drive the other guy out of business even if he was advertising 30 megs and delivering 30 megs for $30. People see the lower price and the higher number, and go to that provider. Most of them have no idea how much bandwidth they are actually using or need to use, they only get upset when shit stops working or their movies don't stream smoothly. So even if they would be perfectly fine with a 10meg package they'll still leave for a package which is advertised as more for less because they perceive it as a better value.

      To use a car analogy, if people purchased cars with the same attitude towards maximum speed, everyone would try to purchase a car that can go 200 mph even if they only ever drove it on 35mph roads.

      The biggest problem is that it's very tricky to try and regulate how they can advertise the "speed" of their internet service. You have both latency and bandwidth to consider, and bandwidth usage varies drastically by time of day. If you run bandwidth tests at 3 AM you can almost always get your fully advertised "speeds", but if you run them at 3 PM you'll be lucky to hit anywhere close.

      But frankly speaking, density is only a small part of what really matters for an area. What people often fail to realize is that a very large part of infrastructure costs come from challenges of working with existing areas. Some very dense areas were built with modern communications in mind and are relatively cheap and easy to add/increase services within. Some very dense areas were planned/built in the pre-electrical revolution era, or were simply poorly planned, and can have extremely high build costs due to the challenges presented by working around that infrastructure.
      Vandalism is another big problem in many areas, it can cause your ongoing maintenance costs to skyrocket when people are constantly wrecking lines, junction boxes, etc. And those areas tend to also be lower income, which means fewer actual subscribers, and most subscribers will be paying for only basic level service tiers. There are actually a LOT of areas which are a monopoly not because nobody else is allowed to compete... but because nobody wants to compete- and in fact the company serving that part of town is only doing it because it was a requirement by the City in order to get the license to service the rest of the town.

    27. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Paul+Carver · · Score: 1

      No, NYC is too corrupt and too union. It doesn't help that everything in NYC is expensive, but don't imagine for a minute that running high speed fiber in NYC is just a matter of buying the fiber and paying a competitive hourly wage for somebody to run it through a conduit. There's definitely a reason why no little startup is just buying some cheap datacenter grade GigE switches and running new fiber building to building in NYC.

    28. Re:In addition to rolling out... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's an incredibly short sighted view, but one which many companies seem to take. If you lay in fibre it will be serviceable for at least the next 50 years, probably a lot longer. Rural phone lines cost a lot to put in, but amortized over 100+ years it's not so bad.

      In reality they probably already have fibre and conduit most of the way, it's just the last mile that is costly. The government could offer them a cheap or interest free loan just to do that bit, if they are unwilling to invest in the long term. Unfortunately that sounds a bit socialist and un-American so I suppose everyone will just have to pay higher prices.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    29. Re:In addition to rolling out... by sjames · · Score: 1

      So why not Atlanta? Very little union activity there, still a reasonable density. Miami?

    30. Re:In addition to rolling out... by flyneye · · Score: 1

      I suggested to Cox that they eat sh*t; as the last thing I said to their billing dept about 8 years ago.
      Disconnected my cable AND internet from them and havent looked back since.
      Gigabit or not, Id use sneakernet before I EVER use COX again.

      Everywhere Ive ever seen socialism, it is in undesirable living conditions, under complete assholes. That would indicate a major FAIL for all those splitting red hairs out there... nuff said.

      --
      *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
    31. Re:In addition to rolling out... by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Not only do you not know the difference between far right wing conservatives and libertarians but you also don't know what socialism is either. You are impressively ignorant.

    32. Re:In addition to rolling out... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that be "Sucks Cox"?

    33. Re:In addition to rolling out... by DedTV · · Score: 1

      Not to interrupt your rambling Limbaugh fellating, but Cox doesn't spread costs across their entire customer base.
      They use regional pricing based on the cost of serving that area, in theory anyway. I'm sure that in reality, they charge whatever they think they can get from the people in that area. But areas with more densely packed residential areas do tend to have lower prices and don't seem to significantly subsidize service offerings in less densely packed areas which usually have higher prices.

    34. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, regarding the costs, the cost of interconnecting everyone just has to do with buying a bunch of routers and those things have gotten reasonably cheap.

      As far as laying out the infrastructure, the electric companies lay out their infrastructure for much cheaper and so do water companies and gas companies and, if anything, their infrastructure is much more expensive to lay out and maintain (ie: water leaks must be addressed quickly or they can flood streets and water pipes are bigger and more expensive than wires because they must be robust and require strict safety and other standards so they don't flood streets, gas pipes can also be a hazard and so gas leaks need strict standards as well. In the case of the sewer system sewage can seep into the streets creating an unsanitary environment that needs to be quickly addressed or it can lead to the spread of disease yet the government seems to be doing a decent job handling that for the most part though maybe not always). So their job is arguably much harder in terms of just laying out the infrastructure.

      The electric, gas, and water companies charge much less yet they still have to lay out and maintain equivalently expensive, if not much more expensive, infrastructure. Yet my cable/Internet bill is more than my gas, water, and power bills combined. and lets not forget all the high fixed costs of running a water plant to clean tap water and make it meet high enough standards so that it can be safe to distribute. ISP's have it easy and I don't want to hear their complaints.

      Again, the one factor that seems to be common among higher prices vs lower prices is the degree of competition offered. In countries/areas with more competition (or a government that regulates the market or runs the service) customers see better service for a cheaper price. In areas with less competition those regional monopolies charge more for worse service and they do nothing but complain about everything. The solution? Yes, this won't be popular among monopolists but the solution is to either abolish those monopolies or have the government set prices to something reasonable and regulate profits to something much much lower. and if the current monopolists don't like it they can find another job. No one wants to hear their baseless complaining. and if politicians want to negotiate back door deals with these monopolists they should find themselves in jail.

      https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140521/16423627316/google-fiber-you-know-how-comcast-is-making-netflix-pay-extra-we-dont-do-that-kind-crap.shtml#c603

    35. Re:In addition to rolling out... by pepty · · Score: 1

      But areas with more densely packed residential areas do tend to have lower prices and don't seem to significantly subsidize service offerings in less densely packed areas which usually have higher prices.

      Is that due to density or neighborhoods that are actually served by multiple providers?

    36. Re:In addition to rolling out... by pepty · · Score: 1

      More than density I think Google looks at existing fiber networks they can buy.

    37. Re:In addition to rolling out... by macpacheco · · Score: 1

      However you ignore that rolling fiber to suburban america is only unprofitable if you use a short return window.
      Rolling fiber based on a 10-15 year payback is a profitable investment for any suburban residential area as long as you plan to migrate all customers to fiber.
      Fiber gets rid of all mid of the way active amplification systems, that fail every few years and that require power supply (either solar+battery or an utility electricity bill).
      GEPON can be rolled with up to 20 km from the GEPON base to the subscriber with nothing but fiber and passive splitters along the way.
      Fiber allows a reduction and concentration of powered equipment by an order of magnitude, nothing to sneeze at.
      The real issue here is maximizing profits, Fiber is just far less profitable in the short run. In the long run it could be even cheaper to operate.
      But per the usual, people go on telling lies to the public to justify their extreme short term profiteering approach to business.

    38. Re:In addition to rolling out... by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Better than that, rolling fiber is profitable after 3-5 years, and in more optimal areas like a high density suburb, 2 years.

    39. Re:In addition to rolling out... by DedTV · · Score: 1

      It seems to be "density of neighborhoods". Places with lots of multistory apartment buildings, subdivisions, etc tend to be cheaper than places where you'll commonly see a residential house flanked by a warehouse and a 7-11.

      Local competition of course drives prices down. The price per Mb in Omaha and Vegas are over $3 where the only real competition is wireless carriers but it's well under $3 in Phoenix where Cox has competition from Cable One. Of course there's numerous other factors, from easement restrictions to local infrastructure to geography, that can also affect the price or offerings.

    40. Re:In addition to rolling out... by macpacheco · · Score: 1

      Rolling new fiber perhaps, replacing a functional HFC network, using added savings as the profitability criteria, utterly different economical parameters.
      There is no question that it no longer makes ANY SENSE to roll out new copper networks, none whatsoever. But for existing networks, replacing the old coax one with a fiber one, the economics aren't quite as sweet.

  3. about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shame I moved from Phoenix like 6 years ago. Great real estate prices now too... only downside is it's like living on Mercury anymore.

    1. Re:about time by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      shame I moved from Phoenix like 6 years ago. Great real estate prices now too... only downside is it's like living on Mercury anymore.

      Plus, it's in Arizona.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:about time by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Being in Arizona is never a plus. (other than flagstaff perhaps.)

    3. Re:about time by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      So you would rather be in California ? Or New York? Or Indiana?

      Ps- for 4 months we bake in Arizona. In Maine I froze for 4 months, with another 2 months of rough sledding. I'll take heat.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    4. Re:about time by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Ah, I'm from Oregon. But lived for 18 months in AZ. By my reckoning it was baking 10 months out of the year :)

      Flagstaff seemed nice though since it has 4 seasons, and not nearly the sprawl and traffic of PHX.

  4. 1Gb with conditions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    - if you torrent[even over encryption] they will send >=90 sec RSTs every 5 minutes forever...
    - SMTP in/out will be blocked so no email servers without ugly hacks and middleware.
    - it will almost certainly be capped, unless the price is >$100 per month...and even then it might be anyway.

    Having said all that Cox is still among the best of the worst. But competition to stagnate and wring the customer for every penny is fierce in the ISP business.

    1. Re:1Gb with conditions... by ncc74656 · · Score: 2

      SMTP in/out will be blocked so no email servers without ugly hacks and middleware.

      Have your SMTP server respond on a non-standard port (such as 588) as well as the standard ports, and you can connect to it from within Cox's network. Auto-configuration in some mail clients makes this a little bit of a pain, but you only have to set it up once.

      If you're talking about running a server on their network, they want you to fork over the extra $$$ for business-grade service. I did that for a while, but residential service and a VPS are faster and cheaper.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    2. Re:1Gb with conditions... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      Not just that, but of the crappy, scummy things ISPs do, this is one I support. Not having their service be a source of spam is sort of in their interests.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    3. Re:1Gb with conditions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they can pick out and throttle encrytped/VPN'd torrent traffic...they can find some other way to prevent spam than blocking these ports altogether...

    4. Re:1Gb with conditions... by rickb928 · · Score: 0

      It doesn't actually work like that. Plenty of spam being sent on port 110.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    5. Re:1Gb with conditions... by skovnymfe · · Score: 1

      You have no clue and yet you express completely non-true information as fact. You're truly American. Good job guy.

    6. Re:1Gb with conditions... by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, you win the non-sequitur of the day award.

    7. Re:1Gb with conditions... by skovnymfe · · Score: 1

      It's good right?

  5. Also FiOS by colfer · · Score: 2

    Cox also competes with Verizon FiOS in several markets. This article says only 9%, last year: http://www.telecompetitor.com/...

  6. It's Cox, they're lying by rossz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And even if they weren't lying and actually made the service available, they'll put a 5Gig cap on your data and charge a small fortune for more.

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
    1. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

      They aren't doing this yet. I get the occasional notice from them about going over my bandwidth, however according to them they have no policy for charging a fee for going over. They do ask me to call to setup a business account.

      --
      Chewbacon
      The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
    2. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      And it will can't handle Netflix too. lol. For that to be unthrottled you need to buy a tier with HBO and +400 channels that you will never watch for $200 a month.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    3. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. Even the AT&T Wireless executives pale in comparison to the COX executives on the douche-o-meter.

    4. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by buddyglass · · Score: 1

      Doubt it would be that low.

    5. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Right now in my market Cox offers a 150Mb/s (with Speedboost, I have seen 177Mb/s) with a 400GB/mo cap. That's about 85 720p Bluray downloads per month or 640 hours (26 days, 24 hours a day!) per month of Netflix HD video streaming. I'm sure there are corner cases where people need more than that, but we've got to be talking a fraction of 1%. And in those cases, they can just opt for business service with no data cap. It's really not THAT unreasonable. Of all the Cable companies, Cox is probably the least awful.

    6. Re:It's Cox, they're lying by jon3k · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about, I watch Netflix via Cox every day. We have 150Mb/s for $87/mo.

  7. att by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No AT&T, you don't get any perks, at least not until you actually compete with your rivals on price/performance in the same market.

  8. Don't trust the Wall Street Journal by knightar · · Score: 1

    One again the press is hyping up the news a bit much. What's left out of the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press is that they will "BEGIN market-wide deployment of gigabit speeds by the end of 2016", and that they will "start with new residential construction projects and new and existing neighborhoods in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha." Not existing properties. Thanks for the extra hype in the so called "fiber to the press".

    1. Re:Don't trust the Wall Street Journal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fiber to the Press Release

      Meanwhile Chattanooga has ~50,000 homes with fiber (either 100mbps at ~$50 or 1gbps at $70), no caps and no google snooping to worry about. It so profitable that the revenue is subsidizing the electric side of the business. AT&T and Comcast are scared shitless too, offering $20/month guaranteed for a year for their fastest service (still with caps though).

    2. Re:Don't trust the Wall Street Journal by knightar · · Score: 1

      One of the first successful, but sadly one of the few success stories of new ISP's, I would welcome the Electric Company in every area get into Fiber and do the same thing that Chattanooga has done, but sadly not every company has the passion to try.

    3. Re:Don't trust the Wall Street Journal by Dahan · · Score: 1

      Are there any of the major companies that aren't doing Fiber to the Press Release? Karl Bode has a hateboner for AT&T, but if you look at it objectively, Google's doing the same thing. Fiber in Austin! But where and when? Not here, and not right now--probably not for another year. Unlike AT&T's so-called FTTPR, which is currently available in the Austin suburb I live in.

  9. And according to the EULA ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    ... 5 gig cap which can be reached in 5 seconds. $50 extra for each gig over a month etc. 64kb max streaming Netflix allowed. However no caps and full 1 gb/sec speed for Cox crapola vision in 3D service etc.

    Yes post was a sense of sarcasm but I hope I am far off with this due to watching what happened with net neutrality being a thing of the past now.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:And according to the EULA ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mr gates, please review the differences between gigabit and gigabyte

    2. Re:And according to the EULA ... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      They have a 5 gigabyte monthly cap? Are you serious?

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    3. Re:And according to the EULA ... by PRMan · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure he said right in the post that he was being sarcastic.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    4. Re:And according to the EULA ... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Hard to know these days, since my own monthly cap, download+upload, is 35GB.

      And don't tell me to switch ISP, there's two choices where I live. Expensive cable with 35GB monthly cap or extremely expensive satellite with 5GB monthly cap.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    5. Re:And according to the EULA ... by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Never did for me.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    6. Re:And according to the EULA ... by confused+one · · Score: 1

      I use Cox and subscribe to the "preferred plan", 25 Mbit down / 5 Mbit up. Monthly limit for that plan is 250GB. They currently offer two plans with higher bandwidth and monthly limits to homeowners in my region.

    7. Re:And according to the EULA ... by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Cox already offers 150Mb/s service with a 400GB monthly cap in many, many markets. That's over 26 straight days, 24 hours a day, of streaming Netflix in HD. If for some bizarre reason you need more than that, you can purchase business class service with no cap.

  10. I love Cox. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't get enough of Cox. I love their big fat pipes.

    1. Re:I love Cox. by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 1

      It's not the size of the Cox, it's how you manage your input/ouput.

    2. Re:I love Cox. by ewieling · · Score: 1

      People who are suckered into believing anything Cox says are called "Cox Suckers".

      --
      I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
  11. Ah no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When it comes to fixed costs - especially capital expenditures and investment - all businesses apportion those costs to their products.

    How it's done and the amounts is up to management and GAAP rules if any are pertinent. And of course the IRS has their set of rules.

    For example building a factory to make cars. Whether it's a luxury car or the econo model coming off the line, the (indireect) cost of the plant is the same for all cars. OTOH, management can apportion a different percentage or amount to different car models. So, you can apportion some to a model and make it look like it's really profitable or a money loser.

    THEN there are the costs that the PR people use.

    The old adage stands: figures don't lie but liars can figure.

    So, whenever some company states how much something costs and poor poor them and the hardships they have to endure to provide their service; always think "BULLSHIT" - show me the books and THEN and ONLY then will I believe it.

    The same goes for folks who want to sell you an investment - they'll say how much money they're making.

  12. Gigabit! Whoohoo! by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    With a shrinking bandwidth cap before they start charging.. No thanks.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  13. Gigabit by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    UP TO 1 Gigibit.

    1. Re:Gigabit by confused+one · · Score: 1

      Cox is pretty good at meeting the end user's expectations where I am (Hampton Roads). I'm paying for 25 down and 5 up. I just ran a speed test twice using two different services and got 34 down and 3.5 up the first time and 33 down and 4.2 up the second time. I have no complaints about that.

    2. Re:Gigabit by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Right now I have up to 150Mb/s in my service area (with SpeedBoost) and I've seen 177Mb/s sustained for several minutes before dropping down to 150Mb/s. Routinely see 150Mb/s, no problem. This is Cox, not Comcast. Cox is actually pretty good.

    3. Re:Gigabit by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Now queue up a 1TB download starting at 6pm and let us know what your average is. Screw burst, what's your sustained?

  14. You don't have Cox, do you? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have yet to see them lie about their service. They advertised 150/20mbit Internet here and I took them up on it. It's great, fast downloads abound. It gets the promised speed, even during fairly peak times. They do not slow any services I can see, and indeed have Netflix cache engines in their data centers so Netflix streaming is great.

    They have a bandwidth cap, but it is fairly reasonable, 400GB/month, which I've yet to get anywhere near. I'd prefer a little higher, but this is high enough that even with regular Netflix/Youtube streaming, downloading from Steam, etc, it is still enough. The cap is stated in their literature clearly, and you have a meter you can use to see your usage.

    If you go over? No charge, no slowdown. If it is a little and not that often, they'll send you a message, nothing more (I have friends with lower tier accounts that have gone over). Enough over and they'll call you about it and bitch at you. I don't know anyone who's been shut off, though Cox says they can do that in extreme cases.

    So I'm gonna say you don't know what you are talking about. Cox are not saints or anything, but their service is fast and operates as promised, they don't seem to pull any BS, and they keep upgrading it.

    1. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have yet to see them lie about their service. ... It gets the promised speed, even during fairly peak times.

      Wow, even for a paid Cox promoter you are laying it on a bit thick. Even a good, reasonable provider, can be expected to oversell their connection to some degree on residential service. So I don't believe you.

      They have a bandwidth cap, but it is fairly reasonable, 400GB/month, which I've yet to get anywhere near.

      This one is also difficult to believe, since most providers tend to prefer to advertise "UNLIMITED internet, come and get it!". So even when they have a cap, they wouldn't explicitly announce it, preferring to cut off anyone who uses too much unofficially.

      Seriously, if you get paid to do this, maybe you want to post more realistic shilling.

    2. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      You're welcome to disbelieve the poster, but I was getting all 25mb I was promised. 'Was' because Cox finally guessed the magic number, and i canceled it all. Doing Prism now, but if Cox brings this to my neighborhood in the PHX valley, I'll sign back up. Just for internet tho. By then we will be ready to go cable free.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    3. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cox+data+...

      It takes one Google search, and the first result, to find their policies on this shit. Perhaps if you can't be bothered to do that, you shouldn't bother to type up a Slashdot post.

      In terms of speeds, of course ti is oversubscribed. That doesn't mean that it'll be slow. Outside of torrent heads who feel the need to download anything they can find, most people use their connection in a bursty fashion, meaning infrequently and for small periods. Hence you can oversubscribe a line and still get good speed.

      I'm not sure how much total bandwidth they have per segment, but it is at least 300mbps since they use 8 channel modems. Could be more, the CMTS can have more channels per segment, each modem can just only use 8 at one time.

      Regardless, it is enough I've never had speed issues.

    4. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by oldhack · · Score: 1

      Same experience for me. They are expensive, but they deliver what they promise.

      --
      Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
    5. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Bengie · · Score: 1

      A single DOCSIS segment can support a maximum of around 160, but I hear the recommendation is about 64 and soon 32 for the 3.1 if you want 1gb. Several segments can share the same node and a node can support upwards of 5,000 people. A node typically has 1-2 10gb uplinks, giving the max 5,000 people around 2mb/s-4mb/s each.

      Google Fiber on the other hand, does not have a "middle mile" of nodes. It was described as "you plug directly into the core router". Based on blogs and interviews with Google Fiber engineers, it seems each customer gets a dedicated fiber from their house to a fiber hut, where they splice up to 32 customer together into the same fiber, but uses WDM-PON to give each customer 1.25gb/1.25gb to a fiber consolidator at the CA. The consolidator can handle between 400 and 500 customers and has 400gb-500gb of uplink.

      This means Google Fiber gives each customer dedicated bandwidth directly into their core, all the while costing less than DOCSIS.

      Google Fiber s design is actually very close to the recommend design that I've read for a GPON deployment. The only real difference is that Google used WDM-PON, which technically was not ratified yet. But following industry standard fora fiber deployment to give dedicated bandwidth into the core, it costs about $2k-$3k per customer to install the fiber. Comcast, on the other hand, spend $10k/customer configuring the above DOCSIS design. DOCSIS is about 5x more expensive and a few magnitudes slower when it comes to sustained bandwidth.

      It comes down to this. DOCSIS: $10k and 4mb/s per customer Fiber: $2.5k and 1gb per customer

      That's just the up-front cost different. Fiber is about 20% cheaper to operate and operations consume about 60% of an ISP's revenue. That's like converting 12% of your revenue directly into net profit.

      Forgot to mention, that $10k/customer was to UPGRADE from DOCSIS2 to DOCSIS3. The $2.5k/customer for fiber was if you were installing a brand-new network with absolutely no existing infrastructure.

      Enjoy your overpriced crap. It's like paying $1k to upgrade a 586 to 100mhz and 32MB of memory when you can just purchase a Raspberry Pi for $40. Cheaper and faster.

      The only believable reason Comcast sticks with DOCSIS is that they would have to retool and retrain their entire work force, while also changing up their distribution system. Most fiber deployments use IPTV, which Comcast does not. Comcast is so entrenched with old crap that they have a logistics and planning issue. They'd almost be better abandoning their DOCSIS and just starting over. Fiber is not a drop in replacement for TV distribution, it's a whole new way to manage TV. While it would be fine for Internet users, Comcast has a lot of TV users. If they just went IPTV in the first place, it would have been relatively simple.

    6. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      I have yet to see them lie about their service.

      You're just full of shit. In San Diego I pay business rates for 80 Mbps and get 32 Mbps if I'm lucky. Over five years of logs available to anyone at Cox that cares.

    7. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because they simply can't be worried to give me what I freaking pay for because some ass like you acribes it all to torrent heads. Seriously, you're full of shit.

    8. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you actually used your 150 Mbit connection you would hit the bandwidth cap in less than 6 hours. Think about that, this is to last you a whole month.

    9. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      If you want absolutely guaranteed bandwidth, go buy it. You can buy lines that have committed information rates, where they guarantee, by contract, that you'll get a certain speed. You'll find many companies willing to sell them to you (Cox included).

      Just don't bitch about the price.

      Internet can be cheap because we share. Normal Internet usage doesn't require all of the bandwidth all of the time, so having it committed to one person is wasteful. Hence we oversubscribe and share.

      This happens with everything, yes even Google Fiber. Look up GPON to find out how it works. Everyone on a segment is sharing a 1 gbit laser. So if one user is slamming all that, then the rest don't get any. For it to be fast, people have to share. If that doesn't work for you, you don't want a PON, you want a traditional active fiber connection which you can have, it just costs more.

    10. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by fafalone · · Score: 1

      400GB a month is already unreasonable for some, and it's rapidly becoming unreasonable for higher percentages. Not only is online video here, but people want it in HD. 400GB is only 10-20 full Blurays. It's only 10 TV seasons at 1080p for 1hr shows with full length seasons. At least 1 of every 3 months I'll exceed 400, sometimes hitting 600GB+. And I'm just one person... imagine a family with a few teenage kids, or college students living together?

      People who exclusively stream don't get full bitrate, but they will soon. In the meantime, people who like to download full quality video, because 4-6Mbps is simply not good enough (or because connection quality can't handle it smoothly despite available throughput), are already over the line of just about every capped provider. I'm not downloading things I never watch just to collect them either.
      Even streaming alone... 5Mbps is 2.3GB/hr, or 400GB in 174hours: 3 people streaming Netflix HD for 2 hours a day average, and bam. That's not even considering all other internet activity. Hardly unreasonable, and becoming far more common as more and more people forego cable tv.

      And even beyond that, capping total bandwidth has no justification other than to eventually move to metered usage (don't be fooled into thinking that means light users paying less-- the bottom 10% will pay what they're paying now, everyone else will pay more). Throttling connections temporarily if the network is congested is reasonable; but capping overall usage is not, since ISP-level connections are priced by link speed- it doesn't cost the ISP anything else extra. Fortunately my two ISP options are Cablevision (Optimum), and FiOS, and neither of them have usage caps.

    11. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      I did buy it! I have a business contract with Cox that guarantees 80 Mbps down and they have not once complied. BTW, Cox had a monopoly in my suburb until AT&T U-Verse came along. AT&T promptly broke the damn network throughout most of must suburb; Cox blamed them; and then nothing worked correctly for three months while they supposedly fixed in (three years ago) and we still have crap service. I'm working in England and I barely get 1 Mpbs from my Cox business network when I'm trying to transfer anything from home to here because of the crap network Cox has forced on us through bribing politicians in the San Diego area. In Cambridgeshire England, Virgin Media is operating at 162 Mbps down/30Mbps up at $50 a month on a residential account with no caps. While I have no caps on the Cox business account, it's because I pay $140 a month. Cox is shit, and you're a shill for supporting the monopoly. Let Virgin Media move into town, or Google. We'll see what the costs are then. In the meantime, it's just more corruption that we've come to expect from the monopolies in the top ISPs. I fully expect someone to try and explain next that 640K of memory is all I should ever need.

    12. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Bengie · · Score: 1

      If you want absolutely guaranteed bandwidth, go buy it.

      That's the only option my ISP offers all customer. Every data plan my ISP offers, guarantees bandwidth. And my bill is less than what I had with Charter. Stop spreading FUD about "guaranteed bandwidth" being expensive, it's damn cheap.

    13. Re:You don't have Cox, do you? by Bengie · · Score: 1

      This happens with everything, yes even Google Fiber. Look up GPON to find out how it works. Everyone on a segment is sharing a 1 gbit laser.

      Google Fiber uses WDM-PON, which is supports 32 lambdas at 1.25gb/1.25gb each, for a total of 40gb. Google Fiber has 32 customers per fiber, each with their own SEPERATE 1.25gb/1.25gb of bandwidth to the multi-terabit chassis.

      It is by every definition of the word, "dedicated" bandwidth.

  15. but no IPv6 support by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

    they have a v6 block assigned to them but the asshats are clueless on how to provide it to their customers. Their salesdroids and technical people are completely ignorant of the concept, they dont have a deployment timeline or any mention on their website and frankly I dont beleive they have an inkling of a plan on how to accomplish it.

    --
    There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    1. Re:but no IPv6 support by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

      Your expertise in evaluating dickishness is unsurprising given the source

      --
      There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    2. Re:but no IPv6 support by confused+one · · Score: 1

      You do realize a lot of customer endpoint equipment, like the Motorola Surfboard and Linksys WRT54GL I use, do not support IPV6.

    3. Re:but no IPv6 support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so this means that those of us that are not fettered by a choice of using crippled equipment are denied the option?
      Transition will probably be via a dual-stack approach and I doubt that ipv6 will be forced on anyone who's happy with their current v4 infrastructure.

    4. Re:but no IPv6 support by Bengie · · Score: 1

      You do realize that if you get a 1gb Internet connection, you're going to need to upgrade your router and then it will support IPv6. You're going to have a hard time finding a retail grade router that supports 1gb WAN-LAN while not having IPv6 support. I'm not sure if there is one.

    5. Re:but no IPv6 support by confused+one · · Score: 1

      point was that they're not in a hurry... A large fraction of their current customer base does not have ipv6 compatible equipment.

    6. Re:but no IPv6 support by confused+one · · Score: 1

      No, point was that their IPV4 stack is currently meeting the needs of their customer base on the home service side of the business. They're not in a hurry because they have a working solution. On the customer side, there's no need to upgrade the "crippled" hardware unless you move to the highest consumer tier or move to a business account.

    7. Re:but no IPv6 support by Bengie · · Score: 1

      The customer base that cares about getting more than 20mb/s from an old router will eventually upgrade their router and will be nearly forced to have IPv6 support. That's my point.

      I'm not sure I'm too worried that people who pay $150/month for the fastest internet package don't realize they're only getting a fraction of their speed. Kind of like purchasing a Prius and not noticing you're only getting 10mpg.

  16. Mid-Western by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Phoenix is not a "Mid-Western" city.

  17. Data Cap by Jumunquo · · Score: 1

    As speeds have increased, data caps have decreased. What good does gigabit do you on a 250GB/month data cap? You'll just blow your data cap streaming 4k.

    1. Re:Data Cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Comcast even openly claims that only 1% of their bandwidth is transit, which means the other 99% is pretty much "free". Why are data caps important if the bandwidth virtually free?

  18. Neither is Austin by billstewart · · Score: 1

    I don't use Netflix, but here in Silicon Valley my 3 Mbps DSL is perfectly capable of playing standardish-definition TV from TV network websites, as well as playing YouTube. If I were a sports fan I might care about getting HDTV sports over the net instead of cable TV, since I assume Comcast's sports channel selections are as lame as their non-sports TV channel selections and sports actually does benefit from the higher resolution.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  19. ISP Email Blocking by billstewart · · Score: 1

    Blocking inbound SMTP isn't going to prevent any spam; it's just going to force people to use commercial email services to get their mail. No excuse for it.

    There are three kinds of users who send outbound SMTP

    • Legitimate home email users.
    • Infected zombies sending spam.
    • Spammers using home systems.

    Many ISPs have a policy of "block SMTP by default, but allow it if the user requests", which keeps out the zombies. It does force them to deal with occasional spam complaints because of customers who spam on purpose, but they're blockable.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  20. Bandwidth Caps == Slow by billstewart · · Score: 1

    1 Mbps =~= 10 GB/day = 300GB/month. If your cable company puts a bandwidth cap on your service, it's effectively slowing you down to less than DSL speeds.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    1. Re:Bandwidth Caps == Slow by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      Cox so far has not limited customers, but does send out nastygrams when you hit 250 GB. If they roll out gigabit, you will be able to receive your nastygram in record time, about 40 minutes into your monthly billing cycle.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  21. your POP3 client reads in 110, sends on 25 or 587 by raymorris · · Score: 1

    POP3 (port 110) does not have a "send" command. See the protocol definition:
    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc193...

    You MUA uses POP3 on port 110 to retrieve messages. It sends via smtp on port 25 or port 587, often using a completely different server.

  22. They will soon - they have no choice by raymorris · · Score: 1

    It's too bad their level-one tech support isn't trained in it yet. You can bet their higher level techs are working on deploying it right now. If they don't get it done soon, they'll be out of business. Globally speaking, we're out if IPv4 addresses.

  23. Communities offering concessions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should be conditional on providers guaranteeing net neutrality in writing.

  24. Cable companies make me sick by statemachine · · Score: 1

    [Cox president Pat Esser] said Cox's plan isn't contingent on whether towns and cities offer any sweeteners to Cox to make the rollout easier. Two years ago, Google's ability to get discounted and free services from Kansas City as it constructed its fiber service raised the hackles of local incumbent operators, including Time Warner Cable and AT&T. AT&T has indicated it is interested in getting similar concessions from towns as it rolls out its gigabit speeds.

    All of you ALREADY GET CONCESSIONS! You get a monopoly ffs.

    AND, you already have the fiber and the coax buried or strung to each business/home. While it's not cheap, all you need to do is send the subscriber a new modem and beef up your headend with new equipment, but that IS the cheapest part.

    AND FINALLY, you need to upgrade your peering point with Level 3!

    Bunch of lazy, greedy jerks.

    Sorry, I'm a bit on the foul side of my mood today.

    1. Re:Cable companies make me sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're assuming all of their CMTS are DOCSIS 3.1 capable. That would be an incorrect assumption.

  25. Technology? by thehfctech · · Score: 0

    Is this going to be a DOCSIS or PON or what? Any mention of the specific technology they are planning to use?

  26. Hampton Roads by confused+one · · Score: 1

    is waiting.... Unfortunately, even though they compete with Verizon FIOS in Hampton Roads, when they add gigabit to their existing tiered plans it will probably be too expensive.

  27. Thing with Cox.... by iamwhoiamtoday · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just moved, and Cox was my only option for internet. Currently paying about $100/month, at 150mbps down / 25mbps up. While I absolutely love the bandwidth.... I'm on the same 400GB cap that all of their residential service is stuck at. Takes next to no time at all to burn through that. (Yes, legally. What a shock. Steam / Netflix / Streaming.)

    I hope that they bump up their data cap along with the gigabit rollout!!

    1. Re:Thing with Cox.... by drew870mitchell · · Score: 1

      The data cap appears to be an old, unloved corporate policy. Apparently it did get bumped to 400gb according to other posts here, but for years (including through multiple speed increases) I remember that it had been stuck on 250gb. That said I have never heard of anyone's account getting shut off for going over the "cap". I think they just auto-send you a whiny email.

  28. Cox is different by davide+marney · · Score: 1

    I've had Cox business service to my home for nearly a decade now. They have not raised the price one penny in all that time. The service is rock-solid, and the speed is exactly what they advertised; I have never experienced any bandwidth throttling that I can detect. There are no blocked ports or other shennigans, and their tech support staff answer the phone in person when you call for help.

    My experience with other vendors was pretty miserable in comparison. YMMV, but Cox has earned my business.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  29. All "political labels" = bullshit/facade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Merely illusions: They're ALL BOUGHT & PAID FOR by the wealthy concerns out there (be they, e.g. AIPAC or Corporations usually). Get THAT thru your heads!

  30. Why do they bother paywalling the WSJ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any real, substantive news reported behind the WSJ paywall is automatically echoed all over the Internet, from The Consumerist to tech sites. No reason to pay for the WSJ if you get the few substantive things they report for free, and can skip the other filler. So why bother paywalling the articles? They ought to be trying to find a way to attract eyeballs that are scattered all over the other sites echoing the WSJ's reporting.