Comcast

CorKy · Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:13 am Post subject: Comcast

I have not been on CSS for the past 2 or 3 days, because every time I join, my ping is ~1000. After noticing that, I realized that my internet is lagging everywhere, not just on CSS.
I believe I remember Comcast saying they're doing construction in my neighborhood, so I'll be back online once they are done.
I just wish they would hurry the fuck up.
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Love kills. Romance is dead.
And I don’t even trust myself, but I love you

Pest · Command Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 651 Location: Maryland

Hmm, that's queer!
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Lucy · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:30 am Post subject:

Consider yourself lucky. I recently lost all downstream entirely. After 3 hours of using both my and comcast tech's voltage meters and assorted tools, we ended up running a brand new line direct from the cable pole, through the brick wall of my office (ever try and drill through brick? It sucks), then through another 30-50ft of shitty drop ceiling pannels (why must every rental in philadelphia use these?) to finally terminate at the modem/tv split in the living room.

MAJOR pain in the ass, and this was after the usual "call india for tech support, ie to tell you to reset your modem and router, then pray for it to work".

On the plus side, I got a spiffy new modem and a direct patch into the fiber. Getting steady 2.35MB (thats megabytes, not megabits) down, and about the same up. Guy felt bad so he "upgraded" my service speeds w/o charge.

He was also nice/stupid enough to log into the comcast on-site tech administration page from my laptop. Helllllooooooo admin acess to my broadband settings Very Happy

phantomphreak · Malevolent Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 136

lol you lucky jackass lucy, i still need to upgrade my modem so i can run my DSL connection at the regular/better speed.
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Lucy · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:44 pm Post subject:

So are you an actual phreak, or just happen to like the sound of the name?

I still have working boxes of various colors down in the basement, a beige box that I still find useful, and a shiny new red box, as it was recently pointed out to me that it is actually still possible to use them.

Of course, all of that means using a payphone. In Philadelphia. Welcome, you now have aids. But hey, your phone call was free right?

Very Happy

Lucy · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:52 pm Post subject:

oh and regarding your modem, I'll teach you a neat trick.

Unplug any routers and or switches you have, and patch directly into the modem. Now reset it, and immediately log into the config page. This is normally 192.168.100.1/0, yours may vary.

If your ISP is like most, there are all kinds of useful tools on that page, but as soon as your modem gets it bootconfig file from the ISP, your locked out of just about everything, or in some cases everything.

Once you have a feel for it, your going to do the same thing, but this time with another step. This time, connect your switch (if its a router, configure it to act as a switch/gateway) and then 2 pc's (can make do with one, but i like to use my workstation and then the laptop for this part). Acquire the program Wireshark. Its free and easily found on Google or sourceforge. With the modem up and running, start a capture in wireshark. Visit a webpage or two and watch the capture to ensure its working correctly.

Now reset your modem again, and pay close attention to what comes across the wire. If your lucky, or if you can spot it, you should see the moment your modems bootconfig arrives, where it arrives from, and most important, what it contains (ie your bandwidth rates "caps").

I'll leave the rest up to your imagination Very Happy

phantomphreak · Malevolent Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 136

Hehe i tried upgrading my modem yesterday, appearently i wiped it from my mother's computer so she couldnt connect to our network, so of course that resulted it not letting me help her and her calling Verizon support and having them take my internet away for a good solid hour, not the funnest Smile

I'll guess i'll wait it out untill FIOS comes to my town, it's in my neighboring town atm. I'm hoping for it to come here by end of the summer.
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phantomphreak · Malevolent Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 136

And as for your interest in the phreak part of my name, i am slightly part of the H/P community more of the H side lol but i did know some people that did/ still do phreak, AT&T i've heard is easy to get around hehe. But me... not to much with phreaking, since it's pointless now basicly. btw nice boxes Smile

my friend has his own lil black box.
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Lucy · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:09 pm Post subject:

P isn't so much dead as it is evolved. I've been focusing on the H scene a lot more, but still keep my ear to the ground on teleco stuff (2600: Telecom Informer is always a great read).

Im really interested in getting my own PBX up and running on "grey market" voip service, having fun with all the CID/ANI data I can manually set on the Asterix box. Fun times calling people to have 911 show as their incoming call Very Happy

phantomphreak · Malevolent Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 136

lol ^^
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-x-TRIPWIRE-x- · Loathsome Joined: 05 Apr 2009 Posts: 114

Just a little FYI, alot of ISP providers are cutting down their upload rates. Reason being is that the amount of P2P file sharing that goes on and it's out of control. So therefore their action on helping regulate this is by cutting the upload rate down, WAY down. For example, I have Time Warner where I live now and it's 13 MB download rate and 0.37 MB upload. Where before it used to be 10 MB and 6 MB. That's causing alot of issues for gamers all over the world. Japan, Middle East, China, Austrailla are also doing this and the complaints are all the charts. So, now ya know and knowing is half the battle, G.I. MOTHERFUCKING JOE.

Lucy · Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:41 pm Post subject:

Since knowing is half the battle, let everyone know you are referring to Mbps, or megabits persecond, as opposed to MB, MegaBytes persecond.

Very Happy

Upstream isn't that huge of a deal to me, with the exception of when i am uploading a .img for a fellow legioner out of the kindness of my heart. While I get "business class speeds" (thanks to my kindness towards the comcast tech, and his in return), uploding 4.7gb doesn't take nearly as long as it would for most, it is still a major pain in the ass. That being said, the average upstream of *most* major cable internet providers is more than enough to ensure decent latency to most gamer servers that are within your general proximity, provided you aren't wasting upstream sharing copyrighted works to others, shame on you.

But being the smart cookie that I am, I know better than to deal with p2p when it comes to finder that ever elusive piece of ware you want. While from a usage standpoint I HATE p2p (read: torrent, gnutella, kazaa, limewire, etc....) I also love it, because it is those idiots who get all the attention from RIAA and MPAA Millennium Copyright Act wielding monsters, leaving those of use who know how to do things properly alone. There, now let me get off my high horse.

While I am completely for net neutrality, and against ideas and network protocols such as traffic shaping, QOS (quality of service), and "paid premium content privilege", I can, to a very, very <i>SMALL</i> degree understand the "rational" behind them. Even with all of our advances and expansions of broadband bandwidth, in the end bandwidth is a resource, and resources are limited. Cable internet is a shared connection, which is why you have rate caps on your modems.

Generally, and i say so with great emphasis because fiber systems very greatly, even from block to block, your general neighborhood cable connection consists of say a handfull of trunked t3's. With say 100-200 customers on this local trunk, it can be very easy for a handful of users blasting upstream content 24/7 (talking to you, p2p retards Very Happy

) to cause detrimental slowing to the overall downstream and reliability of the local trunk.

You DSL users out there might be chuckling to yourself, happy on your dedicated, non-shared bandwidth. Hate to break it to you, but that's not really the case. Always read the fine print, and do some research about the connection type and its protocol implementation. The details of this are far beyond the scope of an already rambling and lengthy post, so we can save that lesson for another day.

The ISP's our there have both the means and the money to correct this limited resource problem, they just don't care enough, as there is no money in it for them, unless they raise monthly usage rates, (which eventually happens anyways, and usually without adding to the network capabilities) and then get a flood of complaints from current subscribers. Until such time as things change, limits will be set and reset, and usage caps will continue.

For example, even with my upgraded speed, pushing my downstream into the low Megs/second category, since I an not a registered business class customer, I fall into Comcast's nasty little "excessive bandwith user" category. This is anyone with a "standard" cable internet account, who has a net monthly "combined up and downstream" usage of 250gb or greater. On average, my downstream alone is well over 400gb a month. While I have managed my way around the penalties for such "excessive" use (1st offender: comcast sends you a nasty letter saying stop doing this, 2nd offender: lose your comcast access for 1 year), others can't, and suffer the consequences. I know my high downstream usage does not affect the usage of my neighbors, I *hypothetical/theoretical situation and complete lie and bullshit hersay I would never do since its illegal, to follow this asterisk* monitor their connections, and their speeds are fine.

If you take the time to read up on comcast's usage limit policy, they even state that I am part of the "1% of total subscribers" who consume massive amounts of data, while the other 99% uses a fraction of a fraction (read: checks email, watches youtube, becomes infection with botnet trojan's/malware, who truly clog the network) of a % of my monthly use. Seems a bit contradictory no? If they use so little, what harm is my big use causing them?

Then answer children, is none*.
To come back to a point i lost pages ago, having no choice but to choose the lesser of two evils, I would opt for traffic shaping, in regards to upstream ONLY, over across the board rate cuts. It is uploading that affects your downstream, negating the ever popular "your pings so high, stop downloading porn" thrown out across CSS servers. I average around 20-30 ping to legion server, and while playing, I am usually downloading at the same time, yet my ping is not affected.

Of course, i am a bit of a special case, having more knowledge and tweaks in effect than your average monkey poking away at the keyboard, but this rule/law/principle is generally applicable. Now you may be saying to yourself, "but lucy, when i am downloading something while playing, it fucks with my ping". Of course it does, because odds are you are A) using a p2p service, like torrent, that has you constantly uploading while you download, thus affecting your ping, or B) are downloading at full speed, leaving no room for the minimal traffic css generates. If you fall into the latter category, simply set a rate limit on your ftp/newsreader/other client/protocol of choice, say 2-3/5ths of your total download capabilities.

Congratz to those of you who bothered to read this entire thing, I hope you learned something, and can better your internet usage because of it. This is the spirit and soul of the computer community I grew up in (sharing information and techniques), and have recently become more involved in once again (nods to Rhysk and Phantom). The community we want a forum subgroup for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (nod nod, wink wink, slightly bump twizt's elbow)

/end of rant and or lesson of the day

*this is a inference made against a population, sigma, based upon my sample population, s, being my neighborhood. Is it obvious I'm teaching statistics this summer? Very Happy

CorKy · Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 9:56 pm Post subject:

WTF do you download thats 250 GB a month???
Thats a lot of porn Wink

_________________
Love kills. Romance is dead.
And I don’t even trust myself, but I love you

Lucy · Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 1:30 am Post subject:

Average fluctuates between 280-550gb/month. That's a lot of Blu-Ray disc images and uncompressed, raw HDTV .ts video feeds. Saying your average BR .img is around 40-50gigs a pop.....well you can do the math.

All of which I already own, of course. I'm just moving legally protected backups of my originals from one machine to the other for storage.

Very Happy

CorKy · Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:56 pm Post subject:

Why dont you just get an external hard drive?
You can get 1 TB of memory pretty cheap these days.

Then you can back everything up via USB instead of having to go through your ISP. USB is a little faster if you ask me Wink

_________________
Love kills. Romance is dead.
And I don’t even trust myself, but I love you