Comcast Continuing Problem

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 30, 2006 Posts: 5

I'm having Problems With Comcast Internet Service and have had them for an extended length of time. Has anyone else had problems with Comcast providing flaky service. It's great when it works. It could be deadly if it doesn't work and the home is reliant upon Voip service.

BellSouth seemed to have 99.9999% uptime. Perhaps Comcast has 97% uptime. That is a huge difference. I simply find that unacceptable. I would find 99% unacceptable since an outtage in a Voip world means that perhaps I must move back to BellSouth for telephone service.

Why doesn't SunRocket, Vonage, AT&T and other Voip providers demand Comcast and all cable providers provide a higher level of reliability?

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

Why would cable companies listen to their competitors? Cable companies don't care if an application that uses their bandwidth/network works or not, especially if they provide their own service, in this case Voip.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 30, 2006 Posts: 5

navydavy2001 wrote:

Why would cable companies listen to their competitors? Cable companies don't care if an application that uses their bandwidth/network works or not, especially if they provide their own service, in this case Voip.

Then perhaps what you are saying is that Comcast should not be allowed to compete on applications? Fat chance of that happening! No, I think it is a matter of competition. The FCC needs to insure competition exists - yet they have proven time and time again they are incapable. Neither DSL, Hughes Satellites or the future WiMAX (whatever that turns out to be) is not cable-modem service.

If I want a competitive solution I can choose DishNetwork or DirecTV. In the cable-modem world I can only choose Comcast.

Besides, no one from Comcast has ever tried to sell me on their Voip service. I suspect they have not done so simply because their Internet service is not reliable - and that is required for Voip service whether I buy it from Comcast or other sources.

So, now that I'm thinking about it - perhaps your argument does not hold water? Because, if Comcast Voip service worked - Vonage or other Voip service would work at the same time. If Comcast actually tuned it so that their Voip service worked and others didn't then you could smell the lawyers!

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

First of all, Comcast has a HUGE develepoment into Voip, and they are rolling it out nationwide. Many of us on here were contacted when we had Comcast, because it was being offered only in select areas. As for their Voip working and Vonage's not, I fail to see how you compare an apllication running through ones network, ot one that is native to that network. There are so many pieces that can make that happen. The conspiract theorists have left this forum because it was proved, at least to me, that Comcast just had issues with their own network upgrades, not blocking applications.

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2005 Posts: 44

The subject that's being discussed here is called "Network Neutrality" and is the subject of a bill currently before congress. At issue is precisely whether a cable or DSL provider can favor traffic from/to one endpoint, and clearly Voip is first in line to be affected. It's unclear if the FCC has the authority to issue regulations regarding this stuff, so further legislation may be needed.

Many organizations on the left and right have mobilized to back this bill.

http://news.com.com/House+panel+votes+for+Net+neutrality/2100-1028_3-6077007.html

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 30, 2006 Posts: 5

navydavy2001 wrote:

First of all, Comcast has a HUGE develepoment into Voip, and they are rolling it out nationwide. Many of us on here were contacted when we had Comcast, because it was being offered only in select areas. As for their Voip working and Vonage's not, I fail to see how you compare an apllication running through ones network, ot one that is native to that network. There are so many pieces that can make that happen. The conspiract theorists have left this forum because it was proved, at least to me, that Comcast just had issues with their own network upgrades, not blocking applications.

enodo wrote:

The subject that's being discussed here is called "Network Neutrality" and is the subject of a bill currently before congress.

Yes, the subject is essentially "Network Neutrality" but perhaps a technical-smidgen deeper. I don't know what the Comcast Voip deliverable is (if you have the details please note them here), but, if Comcast delivers an adaptor that connects in the same manner as a Vonage, SunRocket, AT&T or other Voip adaptor then the playing field is approximately the same.

If Comcast does not provide an adaptor but instead provides service some other way I have no idea how a connection could be made. So, assuming for the moment that a Comcast adaptor is provided then it would be difficult, legally, for Comcast to justify their adaptor working when adaptors from other companies did not work. If that were the case it would be obvious that Comcast was not providing Voip service.

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2005 Posts: 44

magnets wrote:

So, assuming for the moment that a Comcast adaptor is provided then it would be difficult, legally, for Comcast to justify their adaptor working when adaptors from other companies did not work.

It's not clear right now that Comcast would be breaking any laws if it decided to favor packets headed to its own Voip server over those destined for Vonage. The point of view taken by AT&T is essentially - they're *my* pipes the data is travelling through, I'll do with them what I want. The point of the network neutrality legislation is to resolve precisely that issue.

And, to get technical again, it's not necessarily simply a question of whether Vonage (or Skype or whatever) works. It might work, but not work well. Comcast could add latency or network jitter, or simply reduce the QOS for Vonage packets.

Posts: 72 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 21, 2006 Posts: 72

magnets wrote:

BellSouth seemed to have 99.9999% uptime. Perhaps Comcast has 97% uptime. That is a huge difference. I simply find that unacceptable. I would find 99% unacceptable since an outtage in a Voip world means that perhaps I must move back to BellSouth for telephone service.

No telco provides 99.9999% reliability. They currently target 99.999% for individual components in the system, which means that the actual availability for the subscriber is likely to be an order of magnitude less at 99.99%, which equates to being out of service for less than an hour a year.

You have to appreciate that one of the reasons that POTS is relatively expensive is because of the cost of achieving a high availability. Cable providers give no guarantee on availability, and would not be able to without considerable investement, which would equate to considerable extra cost to the end user.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 30, 2006 Posts: 5

[quote="DMS1"]

magnets wrote:

You have to appreciate that one of the reasons that POTS is relatively expensive is because of the cost of achieving a high availability. Cable providers give no guarantee on availability, and would not be able to without considerable investement, which would equate to considerable extra cost to the end user.

Well, in my opinion cable providers will need to make the investment and improve availability by a considerable amount. And, if telephone companies ever did, I never heard of a telephone company providing any guarantee either - nevertheless they were likely in the 99.999% area you mentioned.

Either the cable providers improve or Congress, in its infinite wisdom, will eventually require that cable operators label the service they provide much as the tobacco industry labels their product. It might read something like "our service is only 95% reliable and could easily be fatal if you rely upon our service to contact medical, police or other emergency personnel".

As far as POTS being expensive, cable service is far more expensive. When cable can spread its expenses over a broad customer base it seems like POTS would become more expensive and cable less expensive. As new POTS infrastructure is built it seems to be more fiber-optics than anything else I read about. Eventually the recently new Ma Bell lookalikes will all move towards competition with cable speeds or they will lose.

DSL is a loser as far as I am concerned. BellSouth blew their chance when they were 5 years late introducing DSL to the broad metro-Atlanta area after their Birmingham experiment. The BellSouth marketing people lied to me more than any company that ever existed. I used to have 4 BellSouth lines and now I have ZERO. I might need to get that last line back if Comcast can't improve their service.

Posts: 533 · Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:51 am Post subject: Re: Comcast Continuing Problem

magnets wrote:

I'm having Problems With Comcast Internet Service and have had them for an extended length of time. Has anyone else had problems with Comcast providing flaky service. It's great when it works. It could be deadly if it doesn't work and the home is reliant upon Voip service.

BellSouth seemed to have 99.9999% uptime. Perhaps Comcast has 97% uptime. That is a huge difference. I simply find that unacceptable. I would find 99% unacceptable since an outtage in a Voip world means that perhaps I must move back to BellSouth for telephone service.

Why doesn't SunRocket, Vonage, AT&T and other Voip providers demand Comcast and all cable providers provide a higher level of reliability?

This isn't the correct forum to even be discussing this. Dan should probably move this over to the Cafeteria.