Re: "Can't get any TV" related question

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:21:25 -0500 Pete C. <aux3.DOH.4@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
|
| phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:
|>
|
| <snippage>
|
|> Not always. Satellite has technical issues that cable does not have. The
|> programming disappears at times due to weather and the sun.
|
| That is only an issue if you're not smart enough to get a proper dish,
| and an 18" isn't it. The alternative 30-something dish has no rain /
| snow fade issues.
|
|> Internet speed
|> is nowhere near the same.
|
| Downstream speed is just fine. Sat is just a bit more asymmetric than
| DSL and cable.

I get 6 mbps now.


|> There is no serious competition to cable where
|> FiOS has not yet reached. And all FiOS does is give you the same thing
|> with a different number to call up about incorrect billing.
|
| Don't know what you're doing to get everything so screwed up, I've not
| had any billing issues with any of my providers.

Or maybe I check my bills more carefully than most?

I once had a bill sent to me from the phone company late. It had the
usual "pay by" due date. But the bill date actually printed on it was
a mere two days before. The postmark was the day before. I got it ON
the "pay by" date. I called in, and they said what I claimed could not
possibly be, yet I had the proof in my hands. The past due notice came
out the next day. It took more than a week for them to get it fixed.

At least 3 different cable companies and 2 telcos regularly processed
payments days after receiving them.

In one case an electric company had sent me a disconnect notice for a
month I paid. After calling and talking to a manager, she noticed that
might payment had been posted just a hour before we were talking. So
she went to the room where they were doing that and actually found my
payment. She said not only was my payment being processed 2 weeks after
the postmark, but so were all the others in the same mailbag. But it
was "one of today's mailbag" according to her. But at least she put a
halt to all the disconnects scheduled to clear it up, regardless of who
was to blame.

I've had many cases of wrong long distance calls billed to my number.
This was especially bad when I lived in New Jersey ... nearly every
month was a few wrong long distance calls, even when I made none myself.

When I lived in Illinois, the cable company there had serious ingress
issues on their wires. They also shifted their channeling scheme off
by one, and so channel 17, the ABC affiliate, was on 18, which was the
same frequency as the amateur 2m band. They simply blamed all calls
about interference on "hams are causing that", and never bothered to
fix their system. And they regularly lost payments, too.

When my father switched over to a Verizon flat rate plan, they screwed
that up, too. The switched the local aspect of the plan over on one
date, but didn't switch the long distance carrier at the same time.
So there were long distance called billed individually during the time
the flat rate plan was in effect. The made many excuses why that was
"normal". It took 2 months to clear that up, and only after I told the
manager I would be filing a complaint of fraudulent advertising with
the FTC if they didn't live up to exactly what the promised in writing
that I had a copy of right in front of me.

Corporations are just big screwups.


|> Once there is some _serious_ competition ... a level where some company
|> decides to do things better to get more than their equal share of customers
|> ... only then will we no longer be screwed by the cable monopoly.
|
| And when someone does something better and gets more customers you'll
| falsely accuse them of being a monopoly too.

As long as the other choices are around, why would I? Now, if they get
so many customers that the others go out of business, AND if that company
in turn gets worse as a result, then sure, I will make that accusation
AND it will NOT be a false one.


|> | Too complex. Just need a single high speed data like bringing gigabit
|> | Ethernet to the home from a central POP. Just like power you pay the
|> | company operating those links a transmission charge. What traffic you
|> | bring in over those links you pay the content generators for.
|>
|> That's an option. But if it is multiplexed it is bandwidth limited and
|> not as effective in the future. Then you have to deal with screwups by
|> the company handling the multiplexing.
|
| Everything will always be bandwidth limited, it's inherent to any
| technology.

I should have said limited to a smaller bandwidth, perhaps controlled by
whoever is doing the multiplexing. At least with raw fiber, there is a
limit not specifically under the control of some managers trying to cut
back on services to save money. You get a WHOLE FIBER between you and
whoever is providing you some service over it (or wherever you have it
otherwise terminated).


|> With a straight fiber, it's a lot harder for the facility company to make
|> decisions that screw things up. And its a lot easier for a cable company
|> to transmit all channels in parallel.
|
| You see, that's the thing, transmitting everything on the cable so
| people can pick off the 1% or the data that they want is just a waste.
| When it's a simple IP network, each sub only establishes the connections
| they need.

And that's why I want the raw fiber to the home, instead of Verizon FiOS
style shared/FDM fiber bus. FiOS is better than coax, but not anywhere
near what it could be.

FTTH will have a lot of future capacity for things we cannot yet imagine.


|> | The bandwidth is decent these days. It isn't cable modem speed, but it's
|> | a lot better than dialup. At least one of the sat options can support
|> | VPN connections adequately.
|>
|> Let me know when you can get _one_ full quality HD video stream over it.
|> At least then it is usable to let you select any program from any internet
|> based HD program source.
|
| I expect you can right now. Sat is fine on downstream, it's the upstream
| that is more limited than cable or DSL, and that isn't a factor for
| streaming one way video.

What is the downstream rate? Cable does 6-8 mbps now. FiOS can do at
least 40 mbps if set up for that. HDTV over IP will take a LOT. Some
places in the world have 100 mbps NOW! When will most of the USA have
it available at a reasonable rate?


|> | That F2F upgrade was over a decade ago. Fiber terminal equipment in
|> | every subscriber home as well as enough glass to link all those
|> | subscribers back to the head end wasn't practical or cost effective. No
|> | individual subscriber needs direct glass anyway, coax handles more than
|> | enough bandwidth for the final link. The structure the telcos use with
|> | fiber out to remote terminal peds and then copper the last mile to the
|> | subscriber is far more practical even today.
|>
|> I disagree. Fiber all the way is the way of the future. What we do today
|> might be doable on coax. But that is a limitation. And it means doing a
|> conversion from fiber to metal somewhere ... something that will add its
|> own limitations.
|
| All the telcos do it with their remote terminals now. The days of
| individual subs having dedicated connections all the way back to the CO
| are over, and for good reason. You will always be on a shared connection
| at some point, and there is no benefit to pushing the transition point
| further out from the sub at great expense.

But this is a bad idea, and it is the thing we need competition to get
rid of. Such multiplexing limits bandwidth too low. There is no room
to expand the bandwidth while the plant is still being amortized. At
least with raw fiber all the way, the capacity will be enough to last
beyond the time needed to pay for it.

Tell me how easily the cable/telcos will be able to deliver 100 mbps that
everyone can do 2 streams of HDTV over IP on simultaneously.


|> | You modulate it the same way the cable companies do, with a laser RF
|> | transmitter and matching receiver. Remarkably simple gadgets, RF in and
|> | photons out on the transmitter and photons in RF out on the receiver.
|>
|> Which makes it entirely practical for FTTH.
|
| Not even close.

You have the technology or not. What I'm talking about is running the
fiber all the way to a point where any provider can connect to it.
Verizon's scheme prevents that. And that's a bad thing. That is why
we need what I proposed.


|> | This isn't single channel RF either, it's the whole dang cable spectrum.
|>
|> I know. In fact several whole cable spectrums can be put on one fiber.
|> That would allow a cable company to provide a LOT more programming.
|
| Again, a waste. Much more practical to go straight IP and only establish
| the connections actually being used.

But you still need the bandwidth. The multiplexed approach does do that
at the growth levels projected before the plant investment amortization
is done.


|> | We used the same type of setup for return feeds as well, with laser
|> | transmitters out in the field feeding back to the head end for live
|> | remotes. I expect it isn't cost effective for your application though. A
|> | more cost effective solution would probably to use a base band video
|> | fiber link and an IR remote link and position the receiver with the
|> | dish. Or just trench some coax and be done with it.
|>
|> The receiver needs to be in his house. And I don't want metal running
|> between the houses. Fiber, RF, or nothing.
|
| The power lines are metal running between the houses, as are the phone
| lines.

There are no power lines BETWEEN the houses. The power lines run out to
the 100kVA pad transformer which has its own ground. Electric service
drops bring neutral and ground on ONE COMMON wire, not separate like it
is after your service entrance panel. If you connect a wire between one
house and another, connecting it to ground, then what you have done is
create a secondary neutral path, where differential current that should
only be flowing on that ONE COMMON wire back to the transformer, can
ALSO flow across the neutral/ground bond in the service panel, out the
ground wire to where the equipment is grounded and connected to the coax,
run along that coax to the other house (even if additionally earthed at
the coax endpoints, this won't matter), and in reverse back through what
is in that house and out to the transformer there.

There is an old saying that electricity takes the path of least resistance.
BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE; it takes ALL paths available to it. Some of that
neutral differential current WILL go over the coax between houses when
the differential is different between the houses.

Doing this kind of dumb wiring simply WILL NOT HAPPEN HERE. I will not
have any part of it.


|> |> Which of those options, for each, are doing everything technically right?
|> |> I have 2 data options at high speed from two companies well known to screw
|> |> things up. One of them (Comcast) just today made headlines again in yet
|> |> another thing they are screwing up (although with Linux, I know what to do
|> |> to get around it, and have already done so). The other (Verizon) is just
|> |> as likely to screw up something else.
|> |
|> | I'm not familiar with what they may be screwing up.
|>
|> DNS in the latest story about Comcast. It's always something.
|
| Ok, what exactly did they screw up?

They modified their DNS servers to resolve NXDOMAIN responses to a
partner to place ads on a web page. The issue is that that affects
hostnames even for domains that otherwise exist, and opens a gaping
security hole for such domains for things like cross-site scripting
exploits.


|> Note that my definition of "screwing up" may be what they see as "making
|> more money".
|
| Exactly how are they making more money with DNS???

You mistype a hostname. You should get an error in your browser when it
gets an NXDOMAIN from the DNS cache. Instead, it gets an IP address of
a web page with ads. The company hosting that page pays the internet
provider a cut in proportion to the volume coming in.


|> | No, like the GHz F2F rebuild they did long before tiny dishes. Like
|> | offering digital commercial free music channels even before that. Like
|> | offering interactive pay per view boxes still earlier.
|>
|> I remember interactive pay per view. I got charged for 7 movies even
|> after I had canceled the service and returned the box. Back then that
|> probably was a rather innovative way to make money (bill people for
|> stuff and delete it if they complain).
|
| I remember changing out LNBs on the 10m dish at the head end that
| handled a few PPV channels. When we finished and went back inside we had
| about a dozen voice mails from cable pirates complaining that we knocked
| out those channels for an hour. There were zero buys reported on the PPV
| computer. Those idiots are lucky that we didn't sick the cops on them.

You should have. Seriously, you should have.


|> |> An important feature in a tuner box for me is the ability to select a set
|> |> of channels to be my "favorites" and allow me to "channel surf" just those
|> |> without having to spend 10 minutes stepping through a zillion junk channels
|> |> I have no interest in just to "see what's on" (and the program guide is not
|> |> any better). It's not a hard concept. It would be done in a preference
|> |> menu.
|> |
|> | The Motorola box does exactly that.
|>
|> Then maybe Comcast should offer that box, or at least turn the feature on.
|
| The last time I looked it was still legal for you to own your own cable
| box. As long as it's compatible with the system you can get whatever box
| you want.

Owning and usable are different things these days. Comcast here encrypts
all digital channels now, even those originating from OTA. All that one
can tune with their own TV or STB are analog channels. To get digital
over the cable, you have to have their box. Oh, cable card might be able
to work, but Comcast has a reputation for making sure it has problems all
the time.


|> I should check to see what box maker/number my brother has.
|>
|> |> There needs to be several preferences available for a family. In
|> |> each set, you can enter up to 24 channels you want to have as favorites.
|> |> Then when you select a set, channel up/down selections go around that set
|> |> in the order programmed.
|> |
|> | No multi use favorites on the Motorola box, but these days every family
|> | member has their own box and TV anyway so it doesn't much matter.
|>
|> I'd need the multi user favorites. It should have TEN sets (using one
|> digit to select). Press a digit then press FAV and it switches to that
|> set.
|
| Send a feature request to Motorola or the box manufacturer of your
| choice.

Better yet, send me the firmware source code, development tools (I may
already have those, since most boxes these days are Linux based, anyway),
and a box with the JTAG port intact.


|> |> NO BOX OFFERED HAS THAT FEATURE, YET. The first company to do that MAY
|> |> get my business (but not if they are a royal screwup in other things).
|> |
|> | As I noted, the Motorola box has favorite channel selections and channel
|> | surf rotation through them.
|>
|> But only one set. I need at least three sets just for myself. A box
|> should have TEN sets. TEN sets. That's "10" in decimal.
|
| If you watch that much TV, you need to get a life, not a new cable box.

It's called "downtime". I don't watch that much TV. This Monday evening
all I watched was the news at 6 and a special program WTAE had on at 9:30
covering spring severe weather stuff for this area.

When I take a big break from doing stuff on the computers, I do go watch
some TV sometimes. I want to be able to surf around the select channel
groups quickly. One group are the info channels (History, Discovery,
H&G, PBS affiliates, etc). Another group are all the news channels.
The third group is when I'm taking a prolonged downtime and want to
watch something more like movies, USA Network, other OTA stations.
Mixing these groups is my only option with a single favorites set and
that is probably too many to be confortable with considering the SLOW
rate the cable boxes these days complete a channel change.


|> |> To Comcast's credit, they have offered to replant the "drop" from their
|> |> pedestal to my service entrance for free to move it from where it comes
|> |> in now, to come in where the electric does (at present it does not and
|> |> that increases the lightning surge hazard). But I need to do this at the
|> |> same time for the phone lines (they come in where the cable does) and
|> |> Verizon is wanting to charge over $500 to move the wires.
|> |
|> | Anything past the ped / demarc I do myself. As for lightning hazard, it
|> | doesn't make any difference where it comes in, only that it is connected
|> | to a proper ground block and ground rod and preferable has some
|> | additional suppression close to that ground block.
|>
|> It does make a difference. Everything needs to be connected to a single
|> set of grounding electrodes IN COMMON to avoid voltage differential in
|> nearby strike surges. That means everything comes in to one place OR a
|> "huge ass" copper grounding interconnection be welded in. At least the
|> cable company tech I talked to also understands this, as did his manager,
|> and in fact they wanted to go ahead and make the change before (but where
|> they wanted to run has gas, water, and power, so they or I need to get
|> those marked first).
|
| Unless your house is huge, that differential isn't significant and if
| your suppressers can handle the actual induced surge, the differential
| is irrelevant.

Plug-in suppressors aren't designed to handle that kind of thing that
results from differential grounds. They are designed to handle differential
voltages on the power wires, or shunt impulses from phone/cable into the
ground wire of the power circuit. There are many kinds of surges they
won't protect from, and some of them will be worse with multiple service
entrance points in the house.


|> | Just wait for IP everything. Just another authenticated login on a
|> | remote server somewhere whether you're placing a phone call, watching a
|> | video channel, listening to a music channel, etc. No need for any
|> | special cable box or anything, just your normal home network plugging
|> | into a single gigE at the demarc.
|>
|> If I get the while gigabit bandwidth, that would be great. Still, I want
|> it coming in on fiber, not metal.
|
| Nope, they're going to bring back tin cans and string just for you.

That's not digital. I want digital. Give me smoke signals! Yeah!


|> |> Right now, what Comcast and Verizon offer here cannot stream HDTV. What
|> |> Verizon is testing in at least one city could do HDTV, but I'm not sure
|> |> how many streams, and how much gateway/peering capacity they have for it.
|> |> But eventually, the idea is to stream video from anyone that wants to offer
|> |> it.
|> |
|> | Not much of a priority for me. Most of my TV viewing is on an SD 17"
|> | LCD. I got my OTA boxes, mostly for my camper, at home the two stations
|> | I can get without putting an antenna on a 400' tower have nothing of
|> | interest except for live weather radar on one sub channel. My TV viewing
|> | is mostly CNN, the various Discovery Networks channels, the local
|> | weather radar when a big storm is approaching, and the Food Network.
|>
|> As you suggested "Just wait for IP everything". That should be IP all the way
|> to any endpoint anywhere on the net (not just to the cable company headend).
|> Then if I want to connect to one of CNN's many news channels in HD, I can. Or
|> maybe I'll connect to BBC or NRK.
|
| That's ultimately the only way that will be practical, and it's already
| the way it is for some things like VOIP, VPNs, email, etc.

We still need to get it out of the minds of the cable companies that they are
the gatekeepers of what TV programs we get to choose from. IP technology
gives us the ability to go anywhere in the world with a 32-bit or 128-bit
"channel" number, and get anything we want. Ultimately it will be all data
providers. But they just can't resist sticking their fingers in the pie.

So we need competition to be able to choose a provider that keeps things
working right. If we had such competition now, there's a chance one of them
would offer IPv6 and then we can connect to the few places that are starting
to be on IPv6 only. Eventually provider will need to do that. But which
ones will be dragging their feet too long? My bet is the cable companies
and telcos will drag the hardest and longest.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, I no longer see any articles originating from |
| Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers |
| you will need to find a different place to post on Usenet. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |
.

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