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Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

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Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and then most Customers still have no alternative.

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 applications like internet.

See also: Australia.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#122
post #101

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).

Not really. We place super high priority on freedom from government influence. It's OK for a company to fuck you over but not the government for . Edit: I know the , but the debate about that is not particularly relevant here.

but not the government for .

Here ya go, precious child. Edumacate yerself.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#123
post #85
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s that saying? Poor Pornhub planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Actually they do give rebates, unlike the road system. When’s the last time you got money back or a tax rebate from a massive road closure?

When's the last time you had literally only one route available to drive somewhere and it was closed? When your ISP goes down, you can't just switch to another one on the fly. Many people can't switch to another one at all in the first place. When there's a road closure, you just go around.

You can use tether to your phone data plan in a pinch. Enough for email and light browsing for sure.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#124
post #101

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).

Not really. We place super high priority on freedom from government influence. It's OK for a company to fuck you over but not the government for . Edit: I know the , but the debate about that is not particularly relevant here.

We cannot escape the government. We can choose to ignore any or all companies. If I want to, I can lock myself in my house, disconnect from society, and subsist on my backyard garden. But there is no escape from the state. Even if I go completely off-grid and never leave my property, the state still comes banging on my door, demanding a rent payment for property I (supposedly) own -- i.e., property tax.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#125

Comcast's confirmed the fiber cut: https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080 > One of Comcast’s large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & are working to get services restored as soon as possible They seem to be at least starting to route…

For the infrastructure-level network admins out there, is there different lingo for an intentional and accidental fibre break, or is "fibre cut" used for both? I'm just thinking 'cut' is a pretty intentional word to use here.

A fiber cut can happen from innocent enough things, such as digging without getting the proper surveying done first.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#126

Comcast's confirmed the fiber cut: https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080 > One of Comcast’s large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & are working to get services restored as soon as possible They seem to be at least starting to route…

Sounds like it was 2 cuts, which likely means it was intentional IMHO: NY| Manhattan| Communication Failure | 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Comast)| Comcast is experiencing a National outage due to 2 fiber line cuts. One between NYC & Chicago, the second between Ashburn & South Carolina. customers urged NOT TO CALL 911, no ETA on a fix, police monitor Edit: source below. Thank you dfee.

Lol, customers call 911 when Comcast goes down?

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#127

Comcast's confirmed the fiber cut: https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080 > One of Comcast’s large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & are working to get services restored as soon as possible They seem to be at least starting to route…

Sounds like it was 2 cuts, which likely means it was intentional IMHO: NY| Manhattan| Communication Failure | 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Comast)| Comcast is experiencing a National outage due to 2 fiber line cuts. One between NYC & Chicago, the second between Ashburn & South Carolina. customers urged NOT TO CALL 911, no ETA on a fix, police monitor Edit: source below. Thank you dfee.

Is there any other source to suggest 2 cuts rather than one?

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#128

Well, we all know they’ll learn to do better because of this: they’ll take all that money from monthly fees and make sure to improve quality of service! Right? Nope. They’ll probably raise prices if anything, and receive no ill effects as a company for basically failing to provide what they happily accept money for. (Buried somewhere in an “update” to Terms of Service, they probably pardon themselves from exactly thi…

It's not really possible for a single ISP to get to the level of quality that has no hours at a time outages. For minutes per year outages level quality you need at least two ISPs independent from each other and not sharing infrastructure. Which means they won't even be available to consumers in the US and other countries, where internet access market is monopolized. I mean I can't imagine a law mandating ISPs to effectively split into two companies with each providing an independent link to the premises and all that. But when there is a competition a consumer at least has an option to just pay for multiple links to multiple ISPs.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#129

Comcast's confirmed the fiber cut: https://twitter.com/comcastcares/status/1012767042158510080 > One of Comcast’s large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & are working to get services restored as soon as possible They seem to be at least starting to route…

Sounds like it was 2 cuts, which likely means it was intentional IMHO: NY| Manhattan| Communication Failure | 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Comast)| Comcast is experiencing a National outage due to 2 fiber line cuts. One between NYC & Chicago, the second between Ashburn & South Carolina. customers urged NOT TO CALL 911, no ETA on a fix, police monitor Edit: source below. Thank you dfee.

> customers urged NOT TO CALL 911

Do people really do this? I can't even comprehend this.

Re: Massive Comcast Outage Hits the US

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it was 2 cuts, which likely means it was intentional IMHO: NY| Manhattan| Communication Failure | 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Comast)| Comcast is experiencing a National outage due to 2 fiber line cuts. One between NYC & Chicago, the second between Ashburn & South Carolina. customers urged NOT TO CALL 911, no ETA on a fix, police monitor Edit: source below. Thank you dfee.

> customers urged NOT TO CALL 911 Do people really do this? I can't even comprehend this.

I'm wondering if their 911 service is having problems as a result. If that's the case then it's more of a "try not to need 911, but if you do try to use another network"
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