[kwlug-disc] Rogers Bandwith Limit - Consequences of exceeding?

[Andrew Kohlsmith (lists)]

On February 4, 2009 09:21:17 pm unsolicited wrote:
> 2 modems? On same cable? Interesting. Just goes to show (a) each modem
> / digital cable set top box is just a 'terminal' on their wires, (b)
> capacity far exceeds bandwidth offered. They claim their HomePhone is
> "not VoIP" - what they really mean is there's so much capacity they
> can dedicate the necessary bandwidth for their VoIP to maintain call
> quality without impacting internet and cable services travelling on
> the same wires. So, they can shape your 'internet' VoIP while
> maintaining their own call quality, and make their claims. <sigh> Net
> Neutrality anyone?

HomePhone isn't voip -- the home phone modem uses a different "channel" for 
its communications, so it's plain old not over the internet.

And yes -- all cable modem traffic for a neighbourhood is on the same channel 
or group of channels.  That's why when you are in a neigbourhood filled with 
teenage kids on cable and they've all got "teh torrentz" running 24/7 you 
suffer.

> I don't think you'd get 2 Mbps up though, 2 x 1 Mbps yes, but that's
> not exactly the same thing. I don't believe you can aggregate
> bandwidth across different mac addresses. (Even if you make one
> virtual mac address out of two physical mac addresses.)

Depends; I have set up bandwidth aggregation for several businesses where it's 
impossible to get decent broadband, or they wanted failover capability.  I 
have access to some multihomed IP space. you set them up with that, then set 
up 'n' tunnels (I use GRE), one to each "normal" internet connection at their 
place.  All of those connections terminate at their end (cable, dsl, wifi, 
etc.) and with some clever iproute2 invocation you can spread bandwidth 
across all available connections, and if a tunnel breaks, you just lose that 
connection, not your entire aggregate "pipe".

It's not perfect, but it works pretty damned good.

> Rogers usually has non-employee (commission?) sales reps out flogging.
> Perhaps your newly minted regional sales manager isn't actually part
> of Rogers (a 'reseller'?). My own past experience has been they can
> promise things, but not necessarily deliver. And, if you know to ask
> about it, the phone reps will provide.

He seemed pretty savvy, and checked his paperwork when I specifically told him 
that I'd tried to get business service and could not.

-A.