Had a Road Runner tech out yesterday. He told me in conversation that the changes going on in the Road Runner network are going to change our connections - for the worse. Whats going to happen is that Road Runner is going to cap the connections even further than they are already in favor of on-line gaming. What they plan to do is cap the connections for everyone, then sell you a Premium service for gaming. This means that they will probably cap your service to about half of what it is right now, charge you the same amount monthly, then offer to sell the same bandwidth you just had before the cap back to you as a premium service for an additional $30-$40 a month. All this in preperation of the AOL - Time Warner thing.
Now I don't know how true this is but Road Runner in my part of the world has been doing some work on the system to "Fine Tune" it as they put it via email to customers. However I have heard from friends in different parts of the city that their speed has dropped to half of what it was a few weeks ago. One person was told when he called the cable company that they are "changing" the services offered.
I knew that eventually friggin AOL would ruin something else. The promise of broadband has never really been realized. Now they want to degrade it further. If this keeps up ,pretty soon we will not need any registry patches because the basic installed TCP/IP stack in windows will be more than adaquate for the speeds we will be allowed.
Interesting information about Road Runner
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jimt
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christophe
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JerryT
Am I missing something here? How would lowering a DL/UL cap affect online gaming? Online games require low DL/UP bandwidth, about 3-4K for quake II. What they do require is low latency and zero tolerance of packet loss. Line quality is more important than than max download speed. We would all still be gaming on 56k modems if they could provide low latency.
Just my 2 cent! JT.
Just my 2 cent! JT.
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Mystic
JerryT:Originally posted by JerryT:
Am I missing something here? How would lowering a DL/UL cap affect online gaming? Online games require low DL/UP bandwidth, about 3-4K for quake II. What they do require is low latency and zero tolerance of packet loss. Line quality is more important than than max download speed. We would all still be gaming on 56k modems if they could provide low latency.
Just my 2 cent! JT.
Allow me to interpet the info a little more. What they are going to do is remove some of the bandwidth you already have - lowering your speeds- then offer to sell the same bandwidth back to you that they just removed. In other words the thousands of people out there who do not know the difference (that they are going to get screwed) will accept the explaination that "we are going to make your service better - but if you want to be "more" better then we have a little package to sell you" without blinking an eye. The un-initiated will not know enough to realize that they are getting shafted. You will essentially be paying for the same bandwidth twice. All this so some kid can play a $20 game on line while your $1000.00 application suffers when on line. Doing this will also allow them to put more people on a node, which I have no doubt they will oversell, thus hindering your connection a little more.
To everyone: Allow me to say that this so far falls into the roumor catagory. I just thought it was interesting information. However in my area people ahve told me that their speeds have suddenly dropped to less than half of what it was a few weeks ago and that their connections are running slower during peak hours than they used to a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago is when RoadRunner in my area started this "system fine tuning". This makes me think that its started, the reduced bandwidth and more people on a node that is. We will see.
[This message has been edited by Mystic (edited 11-19-2000).]
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Kip Patterson
The "typical" Roadrunner customer is something like 50 years old, and doesn't use the system for games. Gamers, and others who use the system for massive downloads, cost Roadrunner more than then get in revenue. I can't imagine that RR will do anything to facilitate usage for them.
The number of users on a node is irrelevant. This is an urban legend that got started somewhere, and has no basis id fact. All a fiber node does is translate the signals from optical on a fiber to electrical on a coax. It doesn't have a digital bone in its body. Unless and until the number of users on a node approaches the number that are on a CMTS serving group, usually over 1000, it doesn't matter.
The number of users on a node is irrelevant. This is an urban legend that got started somewhere, and has no basis id fact. All a fiber node does is translate the signals from optical on a fiber to electrical on a coax. It doesn't have a digital bone in its body. Unless and until the number of users on a node approaches the number that are on a CMTS serving group, usually over 1000, it doesn't matter.
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Kip Patterson
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Kip Patterson
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wee96
Couldnt have said it better myself. I have 400 people on my node, yet there is NO performance decrease, whatsoever.
Originally posted by Kip Patterson:
The "typical" Roadrunner customer is something like 50 years old, and doesn't use the system for games. Gamers, and others who use the system for massive downloads, cost Roadrunner more than then get in revenue. I can't imagine that RR will do anything to facilitate usage for them.
The number of users on a node is irrelevant. This is an urban legend that got started somewhere, and has no basis id fact. All a fiber node does is translate the signals from optical on a fiber to electrical on a coax. It doesn't have a digital bone in its body. Unless and until the number of users on a node approaches the number that are on a CMTS serving group, usually over 1000, it doesn't matter.
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johnnywop
Hey Kip, can you explain in a bit more detail what a node is and does? You said a fiber node translates the signals from optical on a fiber to electrical on a coax...
What is a coax? I think it would be interesting to others too. While im writing, i may as well say I think it would be good to have like a weekly lesson sort of. Pick different parts of cable line, modems, or nodes, or whatever subject you want, and go into some detail about it. I just thought it would be interesting, if you dont wanna, fine.
Thanks.
L8er
What is a coax? I think it would be interesting to others too. While im writing, i may as well say I think it would be good to have like a weekly lesson sort of. Pick different parts of cable line, modems, or nodes, or whatever subject you want, and go into some detail about it. I just thought it would be interesting, if you dont wanna, fine.
Thanks.
L8er
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Kip Patterson
Interesting question, in that I am trying to write that for a book. I appreciate your suggestion that I clarify what coax is.
Coax is short for coaxial cable, which, with some exceptions that don't apply in to cable TV, consists of a single inner conductor, whcih may be solid wire, stranded wire, or tubing, surrounded by a dielectric (insulating medium), surrounded by an outside conductor. The outside conductor can be braided wire, braided wire plus a foil covering, or tubing.
The coax used overhead in cable systems uses aluminum tubing for the outside conductor, and varies in size from about 1/2" to 1" in diameter. It used to be that cable systems used nothing but coax, amplifiers every so often, splitters where the coax branched, and taps to connect the drops to the individual houses. In Columbus I'm told there were 65 amplifiers in the Time Warner system between TW and Muirfield village, of golfing fame.
In a cable system, amplifiers are analog devices, and every one degrades the signal somewhat. This is opposed to repeaters for digital circuits like T-1's. Repeaters recreate the signal and do not normally allow any degradation.
Along came HFC, or Hybrid Fiber Cable. The cable companies went out into the neighborhoods and literally cut the existing cable at various points, leaving neighborhoods of several hundred houses connected as before up to a point. At that point they inserted a fibre node. (I'll find a good URL that shows one and post it) From there back to the headend the coax was replaced with optical fiber. The node contains the electronics necessary to convert the upstream signal from the electrical signal on the coax to a light signal on the fiber. In the downstream direction, it contains electronics to convert the light signal from the fiber to electrical on the coax. nodes actually get involved in a lot of other issues including thermal compensation, etc, that are not directly relevant to what we're covering here.
The coax still has amplifiers. They amplify upstream signals in the range of 6 to 42 Mhz, and downstream signals in the range of 54 to 900 Mhz, give or take. But there are only two or thre or four, not 65.
The Fiber has no amplifiers. It is not subject to ingress, so the signal that the node puts on the coax is essentially as it left the headend.
That's a lot of words. If folks like, I will deal with the headend, etc, later.
Coax is short for coaxial cable, which, with some exceptions that don't apply in to cable TV, consists of a single inner conductor, whcih may be solid wire, stranded wire, or tubing, surrounded by a dielectric (insulating medium), surrounded by an outside conductor. The outside conductor can be braided wire, braided wire plus a foil covering, or tubing.
The coax used overhead in cable systems uses aluminum tubing for the outside conductor, and varies in size from about 1/2" to 1" in diameter. It used to be that cable systems used nothing but coax, amplifiers every so often, splitters where the coax branched, and taps to connect the drops to the individual houses. In Columbus I'm told there were 65 amplifiers in the Time Warner system between TW and Muirfield village, of golfing fame.
In a cable system, amplifiers are analog devices, and every one degrades the signal somewhat. This is opposed to repeaters for digital circuits like T-1's. Repeaters recreate the signal and do not normally allow any degradation.
Along came HFC, or Hybrid Fiber Cable. The cable companies went out into the neighborhoods and literally cut the existing cable at various points, leaving neighborhoods of several hundred houses connected as before up to a point. At that point they inserted a fibre node. (I'll find a good URL that shows one and post it) From there back to the headend the coax was replaced with optical fiber. The node contains the electronics necessary to convert the upstream signal from the electrical signal on the coax to a light signal on the fiber. In the downstream direction, it contains electronics to convert the light signal from the fiber to electrical on the coax. nodes actually get involved in a lot of other issues including thermal compensation, etc, that are not directly relevant to what we're covering here.
The coax still has amplifiers. They amplify upstream signals in the range of 6 to 42 Mhz, and downstream signals in the range of 54 to 900 Mhz, give or take. But there are only two or thre or four, not 65.
The Fiber has no amplifiers. It is not subject to ingress, so the signal that the node puts on the coax is essentially as it left the headend.
That's a lot of words. If folks like, I will deal with the headend, etc, later.
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Mystic
Kip:Originally posted by Kip Patterson:
The "typical" Roadrunner customer is something like 50 years old, and doesn't use the system for games. Gamers, and others who use the system for massive downloads, cost Roadrunner more than then get in revenue. I can't imagine that RR will do anything to facilitate usage for them.
The number of users on a node is irrelevant. This is an urban legend that got started somewhere, and has no basis id fact. All a fiber node does is translate the signals from optical on a fiber to electrical on a coax. It doesn't have a digital bone in its body. Unless and until the number of users on a node approaches the number that are on a CMTS serving group, usually over 1000, it doesn't matter.
we dont have fiber here for most of our network. Or at least very little fiber. 90% of whats in my section of our node is still hardline cable,,,very long, messed up runs of hardline cable.
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Kip Patterson
One day for the heck of it I walked the cable all the way back to the headend, about 2 miles. I'm at one of the ends of my node, I should have counted the amps, but didn't think to. I suppose I went most of a mile before I got to the fibre node.
Sorry to hear it's not good where you are. We were rebuilt to HFC several years ago. Before that, we were the original Qube installation. We had pay per view, two-way cable 25 years ago, with interactive classes produced locally, even a Browns-Bengals game where the audience called each play by majority vote, real time. We had a choice of 4 plays as I recall. Gives new meaning to the term, "Armchair Quarterback"
Sorry to hear it's not good where you are. We were rebuilt to HFC several years ago. Before that, we were the original Qube installation. We had pay per view, two-way cable 25 years ago, with interactive classes produced locally, even a Browns-Bengals game where the audience called each play by majority vote, real time. We had a choice of 4 plays as I recall. Gives new meaning to the term, "Armchair Quarterback"
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Storm90
I called Roadrunner to find out if they were going to offer us two different package deals in are area. They told me no and wanted to know where I heard if from. We are slow here. But as the tec said we will speed up by the end of the week. They are in the process of upgrading all there routers right now. We use RoadRunner of TimeWarner. They said two package in my area wouldn't be worth it. Due as kip said most of there custmers are older people and due not game.