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Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

bbc.com

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Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#121

Post by EvanAnderson »

newsbinator wrote: post #111
ethanwillis wrote: post #93

I recently had my own host of cable internet issues. So about 3 months ago the RJ45 cable in my cable modem melted . I thought it was a freak accident. I checked all of my networking equipment, checked my outlets, etc. No problems. So I installed a new cable and then everything was fine. Cue 2 weeks ago. Connectivity became intermittent and then finally I had no internet for almost a week. Comcast wouldn't be able to…

> Comcast wouldn't be able to send anyone out for a month Is there a good explanation for how this can be the case in a developed country?

Focusing on new Customer acquisition drives revenue. Likely they're a monopoly or duopoly provider in the area. Theres little danger of losing Customers even if they're extremely dissatisfied, so servicing existing Customers is only a cost center.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#122

Post by memsom »

watermanio wrote: post #77
tialaramex wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five years ago (assuming you weren't exaggerating) the house builder chose not to bother calling Openreach about the new homes they were building. They chose to wait until the last minute and then say "We're a house builder, just put up a few new houses, so connect them to a phone line for us OK?" If they instead engage at the outset, Openreach says OK, you need to put in ducting to run fibre to each house from the s…

My last home was built about 5 years ago, and the house builder had fitted fibre ducting to the curb, but when OpenReach turned up they came with a ladder and slung up a copper cable. Maybe on a massive development they will install brand new street cabinets, but anything smaller than a few hundred homes, copper is still the standard.

This is our situation too. What makes it worse is we have Cable in the area too, but that stops on the public street, and doesn't come on to the estate.

We were looking to move recently and almost bought a house from a sub company of Persimmons (yeah, we pulled out after we found out they were involved), but the houses all had Fibre to the premises. Except the provider was a monopoly, and was owned by Persimmons. Apparently, you didn't eve get a BT line installed, and were completely stuck with this dodgy 3rd party provider for the life of the property. That and the quality of Persimmons workmanship was enough to make us walk away from what was actually a very "sweet" deal.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#123

Post by MichaelZuo »

throwanem wrote: post #112
MichaelZuo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electricity neutral for your home used the internet cable line? The amount of macguyvering to get that to work at all in the first place boggles the mind.

It wouldn't be done deliberately. If anything, it's an example of how electricity's invisibility and sometimes very counterintuitive behavior make it never wholly trustworthy, no matter how we've come to rely on it. I wouldn't change that reliance on a bet! Electrical power infrastructure is the most revolutionary human application of energy since the discovery of fire. But, like fire, there's only so far you ever wa…

I agree that electricity has unintuitive behaviour though it is trustworthy, at least as far as you would trust a water system, if one understands why electricity doesn’t behave the same as water.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#124

Post by JosephRedfern »

crote wrote: post #26
nottorp wrote: post #3

Fiber is immune to this kind of thing isn't it? So it's posssibly more of a story about the ISP being cheap.

Actually, it isn't! While commercial fiber is usually point-to-point, consumer-grade fiber commonly uses a Passive Optical Network. Basically, a single fiber is split to multiple devices, and the upstream device allocates time slots to devices in which they can transmit. Just like what's happening with cable internet. This means that, theoretically, a rogue end-user device could ignore the timeslot allocation and dis…

Wow, that sounds like a crazy vulnerability... so could I shine a laser pointer (of the right wavelength) down a FTTH optical fibre, screw up the TDMA, and knock out network access for my village?

EDIT: my understanding isn't great here, but could I also listen outside of my time window and snoop on other traffic?

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#125

Post by [deleted] »

Longlius wrote: post #120
MichaelZuo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electricity neutral for your home used the internet cable line? The amount of macguyvering to get that to work at all in the first place boggles the mind.

It's more that the cable line was connected to the home's ground plate which the neutral was also tied to (neutral is tied to ground so it can discharge excess current in the home's electrical system during thunderstorms or power surges). When the neutral was cut on the service line, the return path for the mains current became residential ground->cable line->neutral in cable trunk. Since coax drops aren't designed t…

[deleted]

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#126

Post by formerly_proven »

heraclius wrote: post #73
thinkloop wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope the cable company bought the "mortified" TV owner (possibly old/poor) a new TV because they've done nothing obviously wrong. I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to jam public signals village-wide: https://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement

I should be rather surprised if the FCC were the relevant body in Wales.

Law concerning radio is very close to universal law.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#127

Post by ethanwillis »

newsbinator wrote: post #111
ethanwillis wrote: post #93

I recently had my own host of cable internet issues. So about 3 months ago the RJ45 cable in my cable modem melted . I thought it was a freak accident. I checked all of my networking equipment, checked my outlets, etc. No problems. So I installed a new cable and then everything was fine. Cue 2 weeks ago. Connectivity became intermittent and then finally I had no internet for almost a week. Comcast wouldn't be able to…

> Comcast wouldn't be able to send anyone out for a month Is there a good explanation for how this can be the case in a developed country?

I work for a European company and many of my coworkers are remote from around the world. They were surprised by this too.

My city also has regular brown outs, power outages, etc. that have greatly inconvenienced my remote work (I have done a lot of work recently over a mobile hotspot). And it's not a HUGE city, but it is sizable (600k metro, ~800,000 in the metro + surrounding areas).

But for how this can be the case: It's as another commenter says. The provider is a duopoly in my area so I have no choice. Even worse the provider doesn't have many employees who do this work, they mostly hire 3rd party consultants to do repairs/installations of infrastructure.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#128

Post by H1Supreme »

implements wrote: post #39
hellweaver666 wrote: post #30

I remember back when I worked support for a broadband supplier, long-term "unsolvable" problems were almost always related to dodgy electronic devices in the house. Most common of all was Christmas lights! (you would be surprised how many people put them up in October!)

Power sockets with built-in usb charging ports also emit a fair bit of RF interference - we had to move the kitchen radio because of it.

Ran into a problem in my studio (audio recording) earlier this month because of a powered USB hub with charging ports. I kept getting this faint rhythmic ticking noise in my guitars.

I stripped down, and rewired everything in my studio to track it down. Not sure if it's the PSU, or something USB specific. But, as soon as I unplugged it from the surge protector, the noise vanished.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#129

Post by CapitalistCartr »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #104
ethanwillis wrote: post #93

I recently had my own host of cable internet issues. So about 3 months ago the RJ45 cable in my cable modem melted . I thought it was a freak accident. I checked all of my networking equipment, checked my outlets, etc. No problems. So I installed a new cable and then everything was fine. Cue 2 weeks ago. Connectivity became intermittent and then finally I had no internet for almost a week. Comcast wouldn't be able to…

The electricity neutral for your home used the internet cable line? The amount of macguyvering to get that to work at all in the first place boggles the mind.

Not deliberately. The neutral from the Power co. failed, then his house power sought out another pathway. The coax was grounded to the house's service ground (as it should be), and became a return path for the electric his house was using.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#130

Post by searchableguy »

ethanwillis wrote: post #93

I recently had my own host of cable internet issues. So about 3 months ago the RJ45 cable in my cable modem melted . I thought it was a freak accident. I checked all of my networking equipment, checked my outlets, etc. No problems. So I installed a new cable and then everything was fine. Cue 2 weeks ago. Connectivity became intermittent and then finally I had no internet for almost a week. Comcast wouldn't be able to…

In India, ISPs intentionally cut the cables to annoy competitor's customers. It's insane how many people don't do anything but simply switch while being aware.
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