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Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

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Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget all those folks without home phone service and unable to make emergency calls.

The same thing happens when telephone service goes out because of a down power line. Nothing new here.

Landline phones generally work during a power outage in the United States.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#182
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases BGP does its job just fine at layer 3. But budgetary constraints and financial reality for the cost of really huge interconnection mean that a cut may result in a 100 Gbps PNI peering session between two ISPs filling up and flat-topping its traffic chart (very, very bad) when the traffic re-routes. One example is that as a result of today's events there was apparently major packet loss and congestion be…

Ah, makes sense, you still need the ability to handle the rerouted traffic.

Well precisely. And not like Comcast doesn't have money aka "But budgetary constraints and financial reality...". The reality is that they do annual surveys and find out spots on map where cutting happens very rarely and in those places they won't have any redundancy running - something, you know - the whole internet is based off of.

So no, two cuts like this are not something out of ordinary. The fact Comcast is cheap and don't have redundant pipes/contracts to operate secondary backup lines is simply being cheap and saving money on their part.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#183
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a non-American, I find to hard to grasp how a country that places super high priority on access to choices and options can get stuck with just two major parties and just ONE ISP (in most places, that is). Distance. America has states and even counties larger than many countries. And even where there are lots of people, population density is typically less than most other nations. Distance is a killer in last-mile…

Sweden is about the same size as California but with about one third of its population (and about 2/3 of the population density of US), still it is in the top 10 internet access list in about every metric you can think of (together with for example Norway and Iceland, neither especially densely populated) so I don't think the density argument holds.

Think per-unit density, not per-geographic division.

On average, houses in Sweden and closer together. Apartments are smaller than the U.S.

Perhaps instead of "last mile," the term should be "last meter."

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, I find to hard to grasp how a country that places super high priority on access to choices and options can get stuck with just two major parties and just ONE ISP (in most places, that is).

>As a non-American, I find to hard to grasp how a country that places super high priority on access to choices and options can get stuck with just two major parties and just ONE ISP (in most places, that is). Distance. America has states and even counties larger than many countries. And even where there are lots of people, population density is typically less than most other nations. Distance is a killer in last-mile…

In Germany the owners of physical lines must rent to ISPs. There aren't usually multiple physical last mile lines, but you still have multiple ISPs. That's at least how it was ~10 years ago. But that would be super unamerican. Free market first, especially in areas where the free market doesn't really work and benefits large companies that make massive campaign contributions. (Disclaimer: I'm pro-free market, but generally anti big Corp)

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that makes sense - bit consumed neither reflects the value of the service to the customer, nor the unit economics of the provider. You want a service level guarantee (99.9% available, with some extra wiggle room for peak hours and degradation. With electricity, you're paying for energy generation, plus grid maintenance. With internet, you're only paying for grid maintenance.

It reflects value to me. I want my connection to be as fast as possible. If I pay a fixed monthly fee, the incentive to the ISP is to throttle my connection at some point. If they have no unit economics, why do some ISPs throttle and cap after hitting a maximum?

The OP didn't say they have no unit economics--just that bits consumed doesn't reflect their unit economics.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#187
Allegedly the outage due to a utility truck in North Carolina knocking down a few power lines. When I heard this, I realized it could've been what happened in my hometown!

There was a video going around Facebook of a truck taking down several utility lines in Wilmington, NC.

https://www.facebook.com/110795228128/posts/1015572616317812...

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#188
post #87
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, we let bridges crumble, communities sit without clean drinking water, and are intentionally bankrupting our postal service in the hopes of being able to privatize it. So I would say the Internet is being treated about the same.

If you're thinking of Flint, you may wish to update your reading material. It's possible your talking points could be more up to date.

It took them the better part of 4 years to bring clean water back to Flint - they only ended their bottled water program in April of this year. Those who were there during the crisis will be living with the consequences of lead poisoning for the rest of their lives. Odd that you view something this recent, and of this magnitude, as an outdated talking point.

Anyway, Flint isn't the only place in the US with water problems. https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/wj4qvx/these-us-cities...

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#189

Allegedly the outage due to a utility truck in North Carolina knocking down a few power lines. When I heard this, I realized it could've been what happened in my hometown! There was a video going around Facebook of a truck taking down several utility lines in Wilmington, NC. https://www.facebook.com/110795228128/posts/1015572616317812...

In case you don't want to go to Facebook:

http://www.wect.com/story/38541106/video-accident-with-crane...

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#190
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoddy

I chose to read that as "shoddy"+"shitty"="shotty". And a new word is coined! Although not to be confused with shotguns and (apparently) some sort of pipe.

Curtesy urban dictionary:

A variation of the bong native to SouthWest England, where a straight tube is used instead of a conventional "gauze type" bong tube.

The end of the shottie tube (also known as a downie or downpipe/tube) is plugged with a small amount of rolling tobacco, onto which a thin layer of crushed or chopped cannabis is applied. The user then lights the cannabis/tobacco plug until such time as all of the cannabis glows red and the plug can be seen to slide down the tube. At this point, the user gives a sharp tug to pull the cannabis/tobacco into the bong water, the smoke is then inhaled, providing the user with a more intense hit than that provided by conventional smoking paraphenalia, this means shotties provide a both economical and enjoyable smoking experience

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