[Discuss] data caps

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Rich Pieri)]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:35:26 -0500
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:

> Both Comcast and FIOS are on the same outside poles. Comcast is mostly

We have no poles in my neighborhood. It's all buried. Comcast and
Verizon share the same tunnels under the streets. The ways are owned by
either Verizon (New England Telephone) or NSTAR (Mass. Electric); I'm
not sure which off-hand.

> fibre. It does not really matter today. For one, remember that you are

Comcast runs a coaxial tree network with many signal splitters in
junction boxes. These boxes are cheap plastic affairs that literally
sit on the ground outside a group of units.

Verizon runs a fibre star network with every unit having a private loop
and jack plate. These jack plates are located inside of each unit's
storage closet.

Coax vs. fibre doesn't matter until weather gets into the exterior
junction boxes. This is bad for Comcast since their coax connectors are
cheap and they corrode. This is a non-issue for FiOS since nothing is
exposed to the weather.

YMMV, but my limited experience with Verizon's exterior ONTs is much
better than what I've seen from Comcast.

> on a packet network. And while a large number of subscribers in a
> neighborhood are all downloading at the same time might affect your
> server, it mostly does not. The real issue is is that both FIOS and

My experience with Continental, MediaOne and Comcast vs. DSL and FiOS
differs greatly from your description. Comcast has NEVER delivered
advertised throughput. Not in Holbrook, not in Easton, and not in
Natick. Verizon has consistently delivered in Holbrook (DSL) and Natick
(FiOS).

-- 
Rich P.