Re: [TCLUG:1152] cable modems from mediaone

[sos@skypoint.com (Steve Siegfried)]

Yeah, I've had it since Friday.  If you're an AOL customer, you can
connect to AOL via the cable modem (using a TCP/IP connection).  My
wife's eyes bugged out at how fast the three boxes they throw up for
"connecting" went by.  The rest of AOL was equally fast.

The MediaOne Express service works pretty well with W95.  But _NOT_ with
Linux.  Supposedly the cable-modem faq for Linux can get you through
hooking up a Linux box to their service, but I've yet to get that to
work.

I have no knowledge about how the service works with a Mac.

MediaOne's cable modem service in the TC is commonly called "one-way",
in that bits come _in_ from the cable and out go _out_ via a V34 modem
built into the cable-modem.   Speed appears consistently to be 30-50
times faster than a modem for downloading.  Uploading is what you see
with a modem (because it _is_ a modem).

Cost is $49/month ($39 if you already have MediaOne's cable TV service).
They own the modem, so the only up-front costs is the cost associated
with getting the cable run to your 'puter (possibly from the street if
you don't already have cable).

So the upside is: it's _fast_ downloading and cheaper then 128KB ISDN.

Downsides are as follows:

	-Only W95, W98, NT and Mac are supported.  Linux users <sigh>
	 are out of luck (or more properly, on their own.. there's a FAQ
	 in most Linux distributions for cable-modems).

	-It's only fast in one direction.  Upload speed is at V.34 modem
	 speeds (ie: 33.6 _BITS_ per second, roughly 1/30'th of download
	 speed).  Because of what I do for a living (I'm a Unix jock
	 working out of a home office), upload speed is important to me.
	 It'll be <sigh> at least 6-18 months before "two way" service
	 is available area wide.  I'd really like to personally thank
	 whomever made _that_ decision!

	-You need netscape just to wake-up/shut-down the modem and the
	 connection hand-shake is _very_ slow (around 30 seconds, more
	 if you count loading netscape from disk).

	-Their network seems slow to respond.  Ping times to the server
	 from my regular ISP are in the 200ms range.  Ping times from my
	 PC to the cable-modem server, while faster, vary widely..
	 almost like I have trouble getting the server's attention.

	-Their telephone order people are pretty clue impaired.  It took
	 over an hour and a half just to get the service ordered over the
	 phone...  and I already had MediaOne cable for TV.  On the up
	 side, the installation people were very fast and knowledgeable,
	 installing the service in less time than it took just to order
	 it over the phone.

	-DNS Name service is unreliable outside of office hours, making
	 web browsing a hit or miss deal late at night.

	-News goes back 2 days or less.

	-Technical support is almost nonexistant.

Given some of the constraints that MediaOne is putting on their users
(no static IP available, they don't want you connecting your puter to
both their service and a local network, poor new server article
retention, et al), I'm probably gonna drop it and go with ISDN until I
can get DSL.

In the end DSL (if you can get it) is probably faster, cheaper and more
reliable.

Hope this helps,

============================================================================
     /|   |   H E Y   K I D S !!              |
  \'o.O'  |    Make BIG $$$ on the Internet   |  Steve Siegfried
  =(___)= |    from home in your spare time.  |  sos@skypoint.com
     U    |    Mail $5 and SASE to:           |
============================================================================

UserCx@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Hi, 
> Is there anybody here who is using this  service ?
> I do not have cable and so it will
> cost me ~ $49.00 per month and an $99.00 installation fee. 
> 
> I am not sure if it is as good as it sounds. 
> 
> I couldnot get one thing answered which is if it was possible for me
> to host a web server from home and be permanently connected to the
> net which US West claims is possible with their ADSL.
> 
> But ADSL is  more expensive ~$400 of installation charges.
> 
> If you are interested on how to get it to work with Linux there is a 
> HOW-TO at:
> http://velociraptor.mni.fh-giessen.de/ldp/mini/Cable-Modem.html
> 
> Thanks,
> sandipan
> 
> 
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