Is this claim true, or not?

[Dustin Decker]

On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Seth Dimbert wrote:

> You see, if you call a DSL provider, they will tell you that cable slows
> down as more and more people in a neighborhood get it. I've heard that for a
> long time. TWC counters this, on their website, with the information I
> quoted about how "the scalable features of Time Warner Cable's hybrid fiber
> coax (HFC) design" yields "nearly-infinite growth capacity."

Well, for the most part the split opinion here is based on partial
truths... and both sides will feel that they are "right" because they
aren't really lying about anything.  Obviously the DSL folks will tell you
what they need to in order to market their product - and so will the cable
folks.  I don't have the time at the moment, but some time this week I'll
_try_ get some of the technical info you need to place any value on my 
opinion, which follows.

First off, my qualifications:
I live 4629 copper feet from my telco central office.  I've had just about 
every service worth having in my home at one time or another.  It began 
with Southwestern Bell aDSL the moment it became available.  I purchased 
the enhanced service package which at the time was 5.99Mbps in and 384Kbps 
out with 5 IP addresses.

Later, I made use of Sprint ION - which provided 8Mbps in and 1Mbps out, 
four telephone lines with sequential numbers in hunt, a personal 800 
number and 500 minutes of long distance per month.  Two IP addresses.

TWC RoadRunner is my current provider - and I've had them since they were 
available as well.  It's worth noting that I've had them in conjunction 
with the other services, not as a replacement or anything.

The Experience:
SWBell was great... fabulous speeds inbound, although the outbound cap 
really sucked.  Most folks don't realize that near end crosstalk as you 
approach the central office is the primary reason aDSL operates this way.  
It's not the phone companies choice to make it slow, it's the technology.  
The significant issues I had with Bell were entirely political - I did not 
receive a bill from them for a solid 9 months after subscribing to their 
$159.00 per month services, despite calling them every couple of weeks to 
explain the situation.  A full year and a half after install, I got 
hammered for $1500.00, and to make a long story short simply won't do 
business with that company again... ever.

During all of this, Sprint ION became available.  (I should have prayed 
for them, the service was great, but with Bell owing the last mile they 
were doomed I guess.)  For the same $160.00 per month, I got everything 
above that I mentioned, and it worked flawlessly until they decided to 
throw in the towel.  The only significant issue I had with them was a 
web cache server that serviced all clients transparently, like it or not.  
Wasn't a real big deal.

TWC Roadrunner was everything they promised it to be when it arrived.  I 
was the only guy on my block with it for a while, and a lot of my 
neighborhood is comprised of folks who don't need high speed Internet.  It 
was fun while it lasted.  Over the past 18 months I've frequently seen 
empty computer boxes next to the trash all over the neighborhood, 
indicative of new computers and new customers for Roadrunner it would 
seem.  My speeds now just plain suck.  I ssh to the office, and frequently 
(in text mode no less) suffer lag.  The office is on a T1 that is at most 
30% utilized.

My opinion:
Time warner may very well have more capacity out there to offer - but they 
don't appear from my seat to be making use of it beyond a sales pitch.  
DSL has always felt better, mostly because even if the CO is loaded up 
with clients, the backbone supporting the CO is rarely using large volumes 
of traffic for more than the time required to download something - and 
nobody leaves things pegged forever.  In nearly any case of downloading 
stuff I found that the outbound connection of the source was the 
bottleneck for me - I _tried_ to use a full 5.00Mbps, unsuccessfully.

Other things that folks like to spout about cable modems is that the 
shared media access leaves you vulnerable to sniffing.  This simply isn't 
true either.  Read up on the DOCIS standard - in nearly all cases modems 
which are DOCIS compliant are participants in a PKI infrastructure which 
encrypts data.  Unless you have access to the head end, I don't care what 
sort of device you tap the cable with, the stuff you see (other than 
broadcasts) is worthless to the sniffer.

Anyway, that's my $.02 on the matter.  Yeah, opinion heavy, but given the 
time I can probably provide you with links to papers to support them as 
well.  (If I weren't so damned busy, I guess I'd write one or two myself.)
Dustin

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| Dustin Decker                     |
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