[nycbug-talk] Cogent and Sprint - a signal of things getting Oldschool?

[Charles Sprickman]

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Isaac Levy wrote:

> DSL available to me in 2002: 768/6.0, around $100/mo
> DSL available to me in 2008: 768/6.0, around $100/mo

Optonline Business cable with a /29 of static space, 4 hr. service, etc 
available to me:
30Mb/s down/5Mb/s up, around $75/month.

The world is full of tradeoffs.  I live in western Jersey where people are 
excited that Palin may be president.  There is no art, no culture, no 
coffee shops, no record stores.  There is fast internets (FiOS is on it's 
way) and a giant WalMart.

You live in Brooklyn and have such perks as culture, food, and even the 
possibility of meeting like-minded people.  You probably pay at least 
double what I pay in rent, but you get slow internets.

The giant apartment complex I live in is having a recession special 
though, $883/month for a 780 sq. ft. 1 bedroom apt.  You can move out 
here and get fast internet and be "that weird guy". :)

> Gear deployed/used by DSL company: nothing upgraded, (even squeezing
> DSL through old lead pairs in my parts of Brooklyn).

You are likely using someone that uses Covad.  Even after going bankrupt 
and getting rid of debt, they are still always broke.

> Even with the newer DSL speeds (1.0/15.0), requiring a new card for
> the circut at the DSLAM, they won't deploy the new card until I pay
> for the service- I can't just 'switch over' and start paying more...
> (the monthly cost is nearly double anyhow).

Tell them (speakeasy) that's BS.  Covad has a list of COs with the new 
(earthlink-financed) Samsung DSLAMs.  It's either hot or not, but I 
guarantee you that one customer ordering service will not trigger the 
install of a whole new DSLAM (and thanks to covad's fucked-up engineering, 
another backhaul).

> In the last year, the card at the DSLAM burned out and was replaced,
> with an identical unit- not the newer stuff.

Want to hear another fun fact?  Your DSLAM is made by Nokia, and has been 
EOL'd long, long ago.  Covad has to stock their own spares since they are 
no longer made.  They bought up the last cards a few years ago and when 
they burn through their stock... all gone.  Again, this is part of why you 
don't have ADSL2+ - there are no such cards for the bulk of the DSLAMs 
covad has deployed.

In case you haven't noticed, I've got a bit of a love/hate thing with 
Covad.  My Optonline stuff has not had any problems yet, but Covad is 
going on nearly two months of getting a line in here for backup purposes. 
Their OSS cannot deal with the fact that that test equipment in my CO has 
been dead for the last two years and they cannot figure out how to 
override my "failed" loop test in the system so the order can proceed to 
the next step.

C