Too bad you don’t have one of the old surfboard modems Al, you could do some neat stuff with those…
Al - your upstream is the 53.8dBmV. Thats a little on the high-end, especially for the winter time. Typically, the manufacture range for upstream tops out at 55dBmV. Any flucuations, especially when it heats up, could cause you some problems. However, you have an RCA modem, which in my experience seems to be much more robust than some other manufactures. I dont have any evidence other than anecdotal, but i thing the RCA is by far the best modem you can own.
Craig nailed the upstream issue on the head, sort of. Majority of modem connectivity issues are because of a high upstream, and majority of high upstream problems are related to interior wiring. There is no such thing as a “zero loss” splitter, but it doesnt suprise me that a tech told him there was. Although our splitters are of a higher quality than most store bought splitters, the loss is ALWAYS the same. The theory behind it is hardcore, but regardless of how you split a signal, the theoretical loss is always the same. Probably what they were referring to are directional couplers. These allow you to transfer the loss to one leg of splitter so that you can have only insertion loss on the other leg, which is close to zero. Unfortunately, using directional couples in a home is a lazy mans fix and is only going to cause more problems in the future. The “right way”, is what they eventually did for you, running a home run or dedicated line to your modem. Although using a larger diameter cable is ideal(comcast uses RG56 quad shield), splitter configuartion is far more important.
Ken - You need to toss that USB adapter. I cant believe that they even told you to use one. I can know for sure without knowing the model of your pc, but i can almost guarentee that its not a USB 2.0 port. Your USB is only rated for a throughput of around 11mb/s(i think) but in reality, its much lower since USB is given low priority by your computer. Toss the adapter and throw in a PCI NIC card, i can get you one for free. Not only will you reduce a bottle neck, but you will reduce a potential problem. Having an adapter is just one more thing that can give you problems.
[quote=“IanH, post:21, topic:1264”]
Too bad you don’t have one of the old surfboard modems Al, you could do some neat stuff with those…[/quote]
Oh yeah …
Unfortunately, that hasnt worked since the rollout of docsis 1.1. The old motorolas arent even capable of handling the speeds that are available today. Ironically, when HSI was first rolled out, ALL modems could run wide open. Heck, you didnt even need an account. I know some clever individuals that had free HSI for well over a year when comcast was still piggybacking @home.
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:17, topic:1264”]
The upload issue that Ian talked about is kind of a dirty word with comcast. I dont even want to bring up the topics of comcast, fcc, and net neutrality but suffice it to say i would guess that the majority of people that are concerned with upload speed tiers are not the kinds of subscribers that comcast holds in high regards. Myself included. With that said, comcast does offer symmetrical speed tiers, but as far as i know the are typically marketed as business class tiers.[/quote]
I’ll just assume that I fit into the minority, then. Uploading a 30 (well, 28.5) minute weekly radio show that you’ve just spent a few days working on shouldn’t have any fcc, net-neutrality, or Comcast (or FiOS) issues.
I asssume you’re talking, primarily, about bit-torrent/limewire and that ilk?
[quote=“ronert, post:25, topic:1264”]
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:17, topic:1264”]
The upload issue that Ian talked about is kind of a dirty word with comcast. I dont even want to bring up the topics of comcast, fcc, and net neutrality but suffice it to say i would guess that the majority of people that are concerned with upload speed tiers are not the kinds of subscribers that comcast holds in high regards. Myself included. With that said, comcast does offer symmetrical speed tiers, but as far as i know the are typically marketed as business class tiers.[/quote]
I’ll just assume that I fit into the minority, then. Uploading a 30 (well, 28.5) minute weekly radio show that you’ve just spent a few days working on shouldn’t have any fcc, net-neutrality, or Comcast (or FiOS) issues.
I asssume you’re talking, primarily, about bit-torrent/limewire and that ilk?[/quote]
Not that small of a minority… if you want to host game servers you also need quit a large upload speed capability.
bit-torrent/limewire and that ilk?
Bingo!
Because im a very happy and loyal Comcaster(<-completely sincere, no sarcasm) i wont go into my opinons on the matter, but yes, generally comcast is of the mind that significant uploading on residental accounts usually inidcate a violation of TOS. After our spanking by the FCC last year, Comcast rolled out a bandwidth “cap” of 250Gb/month/suscriber account. Uploading single files peridocally, like yourself Ted, isnt the problem. Having dozens of torrent trackers on your hardrive that allow you to share pieces of files to thousands of users around the clock can be. Im kind of on the fence with this issue, but i do believe that having a cap is a reasonable solution to the problem. Especially considering the alternative methods used before the cap.
hosting a game server(or pretty much any server for that matter) would be a violation of TOS. And it should be. That is at least where i completely agree with Comcast!
Or at least it would have been, i believe that the cap supercedes any previous rules regarding account usage.
Why would it be a beach of TOS? To be honest I have never really read them, but I own the games and they are set up to allow people to host their own games. I’m not doing anything illegal, so I dont see why it should be a breach of TOS?
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:27, topic:1264”]
After our spanking by the FCC last year, Comcast rolled out a bandwidth “cap” of 250Gb/month/suscriber account.[/quote]
For those of you playing along at home, to put that number into perspective, this entire site only uses about 5.5Gb/month.
Here is the problem. If you look at Al’s screenshot, you can see that Tx and Rx use two different modulation schemes. The forward uses a 256QAM while the return uses a 16QAM. I want bore everyone with the reasons why, but what it means is that the return doesnt having anywhere near the bandwidth capabilities of the forward. It has to do with system design and frequency allocation, but it makes perfect sense since bandwidth usage is very assymetrical. No one said that hosting a server is illegal, but it can violate TOS depending on usage.
Why would it be fair for one or two users to bog down an entire node so that they can play games? I believe John talked about it previously. Comcast must manage their network to provide quality service to all of our suscribers, not to cater to a select few. I believe that their should be more residential tiers available to people that fall into these catagories, but i beleive it wouldnt make market sense. The traditioanl approach was to offer these uesers a business class account. :TWOCENTS, the few people that fall into this category are very quick to whine about “their rights” and things not being fair, but are typically unwilling to pay for additonal bandwidth. This isnt something that only applies to internet providers. If someone decided to use there residential garbage service to unload large amounts of waste from another source(i.e. business, etc) im sure it wouldnt be long before you were approached about a breach of TOS by the garbage company. Even the water company charges you more per gallon once you go over a certain amount per month.
Dont get me wrong. I might have hit my cap once or twice, and i might have received one or more cease and desisit emails from comcast for copyright infringement, but i also see things from the other side as well.
For those of you playing along at home, to put that number into perspective, this entire site only uses about 5.5Gb/month.
Thanks Ted! That really should put things into perspective. Although a lot of people complain about the cap, its will only affect a very TINY amount of subscribers. Most of us couldnt begin to approach 250Gb/month if we tried.
In general, the Policy prohibits uses and activities involving the Service that are illegal, infringe the rights of others, or interfere with or diminish the use and enjoyment of the Service by others. For example, these prohibited uses and activities include, but are not limited to, using the Service, Customer Equipment, or the Comcast Equipment, either individually or in combination with one another, to:[ul][li]
use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;[/li]
[li]use or run programs from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN, except for personal and non-commercial residential use;[/li][/ul]
Essentially, the first bullet would preclude servers of any type. Including game servers.
I have absolutely no experience with running one (publicly), but I’d imagine even then a “normal” person would have trouble bucking into the 250Gb limit. I might be wrong, though. But that limit is what will get you on the radar.
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:28, topic:1264”]
hosting a game server(or pretty much any server for that matter) would be a violation of TOS. And it should be. That is at least where i completely agree with Comcast![/quote]
Pretty much every XP, Vista, Mac, *nix server computer is a server, as it is running some sort of serving process. I’ve read over some terms and I’m pretty sure hosting a game doesn’t fall into violation. An e-mail/web/ect. server on the other hand does. I can certainly see Comcast’s (or any ISP) position on this and would agree. The volume that I ‘serve’ is lower than most people consume uploading files to photobucket. I think a cap is the way to do it.
I have had comcast send me the cease and desist email/call, even if you dont hit the 250 limit. I havent hit it once yet, but I still get bothered about every 6 months because they dont actually like people using what they pay for.
Ted, actually I would fall under the 2nd bullet… it isnt anything commercial, its personal non-commerical use. They are free play games that I run off of my home computer. Not stand alone servers, just something that is running in the backround.
You can more or less ignore me, I just am PO’d because I got an email about a month ago, even though I havent hit the 250 limit.
Thats why i said
No one said that hosting a server is illegal, but it can violate TOS depending on usage
For the most part, there is no way for the ISP to “legally” determine what type of sever someone may or may not be running with some exceptions. Although running specific servers are a direct violation of TOS, Ted hit the nail on the head. Its the amount of traffice that will get you noticed, not the type. However, with that said, ALL servers will put you on the radar because of the unuaual amount of return traffic. It really wouldnt be much of a server otherwise.
Like i said before, i believe the cap pretty much supercedes all previous bandwidth regulations. However, i know for a fact that running a high volume game server would indeed get your account canceled in the past. Also, i dont know for sure, but i would be willing to bet that even with the cap, if someone were running a dedicated server that was approaching or hitting the cap every month with 99% of the throughput comprised of return traffic it wouldnt go unnoticed nor would it be allowed for long.
Bellamy - The cease and desist orders are usually generated because of copyright violations on behalf of copyright holders. Im not 100% of its done as a courtesy or because of legislation but it is what it is. Ive never heard of anyone getting one because of usage unless the cap is breached, and even then, i thought it was more of a courtesy email than anything. But, i could be wrong. As far as i know, unless its been changed, if your account exceeds the bandwidth limit your account is simply put into walledgarden until the end of the biling cycle. Its kind of a provisioning timeout.
I belive 100% that as a suscriber you should have every right to consume your bandwidth in any way you see fit up to the cap. Your upload capacity will automatically be throttled back as a result of design and account settings. If an user, like yourself, is content with the performance of their server with residential tier then there should be no problems, with the cap in place, using your bandwidth as you see fit. Afterall, like you mentioned, you do pay for it!!
[quote=“IanH, post:35, topic:1264”]
Pretty much every XP, Vista, Mac, *nix server computer is a server, as it is running some sort of serving process.[/quote]
Not always true. Those processes can be squashed.
[quote=“IanH, post:35, topic:1264”]
I’ve read over some terms and I’m pretty sure hosting a game doesn’t fall into violation. An e-mail/web/ect. server on the other hand does. I can certainly see Comcast’s (or any ISP) position on this and would agree. The volume that I ‘serve’ is lower than most people consume uploading files to photobucket. I think a cap is the way to do it.[/quote]
You need to brush up on your legaleze speak. The wording used in that first bullet (that I posted above) does indeed include game servers. Any kind, really. It’s a nice, broad, sweeping piece of legaleze. Not saying I agree with the policy, but it’s there.
Agreed, its pretty much semantics at that point. If you define a server in terms of a client/server relationship, you would be pretty hard pressed to catagorize EVERY XP, Vists, etc etc OS as a server. A process communication with another process in the same application is in no way a client/server relationship. Also, its pretty much understood that communication between the system(i.e OS) and an application is also not a client/server relationship. Some could interpert communication between two distinct applications on the same machine as client/server but its a stretch, especially in the context of this thread. In no way would i consider my son’s xp/ubuntu machine that is not connected to any network a server.