Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

[DoYouKubuntu]

My DSL connection has become very unreliable lately. I have Earthlink, but it runs over AT&T's wiring. Earthlink blames AT&T, saying that they're adding more bridges to accommodate the need for more phone numbers and Internet connections, and this is [somehow] negatively affecting my service. After five years with virtually no problems, I'm now finding my connection out every few days--including this morning. Sometimes it's out for a few minutes, other times a few hours, and as much as two days. It sucks.

Anyway, I decided to switch to high-speed cable. Again, it's Earthlink, but Time Warner actually installs and bills it. They're coming tomorrow to do the installation. Naturally, when I was talking to Earthlink they asked which version of windoze my computer runs...and I said "all 6 of my computers run Linux." Then I got the "we don't support Linux" nonsense.

I've never had high-speed cable Internet, and I just don't know what to expect. I remember 5+ years ago when I got DSL for the first time (it wasn't available where I was living in Dallas, so it wasn't until I moved back home to California that I finally got to have it), there was a lot of configuring I had to do to get it to work. I'm assuming that the new service will work with my wireless router (Linksys). But I'm concerned about actually getting it to work, period--and I fully expect the technician who's here to do the installation won't have a clue about Linux. So...what am I in for?!

[dibl]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

I've had Time Warner (i.e. Roadrunner) cable service for 10 years, in two houses. Mostly it just works -- fortunately they won't need to know anything about Linux.

I've had a few service outtages -- perhaps one or two per year. Once they found that the cable had been pinched at the service box at the back of my property, and suffered moisture incursion and corrosion. So they laid a whole new (300') run of cable to the house. Other times their network took a hit of some kind, and we lost all cable services including TV and Roadrunner, until they fixed whatever was broken in their network. I lost the cable terminal (aka "cable modem") once -- Time Warner replaced it for free, when I went and picked it up.

You'll need to shutdown and reboot the modem and your router periodically -- once every few months, as they seem to kind of "fill up" with routing data.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

Unlike DSL, whose reliance on PPPoE makes it fundamentally flawed (no, I don't have strong opinions ), cable modems automatically configure themselves to connect to your neighborhood headend and present pure unadulterated Ethernet out their backsides. Simply connect your modem to your router. The WAN side of your router will automatically acquire (via DHCP) the public IP address from your cable modem. The LAN side of your router will use its own DHCP server to dole out private IP addresses to connected machines. You don't need to install additional software on those machines themselves.

Many cable modems have an HTTP-based management interface listening on the private IP adddress 192.168.100.1. You can browse to that page and see all kinds of interesting info: how many channels are bonded to create your uplink and downlink, modem event logs, firmware updates, and other wonderfully geeky bits.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

Thanks dibl and Steve. I'm feeling much better now! So it should be very painless--and FAST. I've been getting not even half the speed I've been paying for with DSL (due to distance), and I'm really looking forward to reliable and fast service.

With my current setup (DSL modem and router), if I enter 192.168.1.1 in my web browser I get the Earthlink web configurator, and 192.168.2.1 brings up the LinkSys router's configuration utility. Lots of stuff to poke around in, and tomorrow I'll get to explore the cable modem's settings!

[SteveRiley]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

Any reason why you're going through Earthlink rather than directly with your cable company? Seems like eliminating a layer of possible finger-pointing would be a good thing...

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

A few reasons: I don't have a cable company--I have DirecTV. I didn't know that Time Warner was even involved in this until Earthlink transferred me to them to schedule the installation! That's when I found out that they install AND bill for the service, even though Earthlink is the provider. But, most importantly, I don't want to lose the "real" e-mail address I've had since the mid-'90s. (Real as opposed to spam catcher addresses I make up on the fly using my domains' names and catchall mailboxes.) So I want to stick with Earthlink.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

That's reasonable.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

I was using RR (Internet & TV) when my wife and I decided to drop cable TV and RR's bandwidth was throttled at 7Mb/s. Earthlink rides on top of RR's cable so I subscribed to their 10Mb/s service, primarily because I got a NO CAP promise in writing. In the last three years they haven't tried to cap me once. The upload averages 0.9Mb/s and the max download is 1.8Mb/s. Initially it cost $70/mo but about a year ago they dropped the price to $50/mo and raised the bandwidth to 14Mb/s

I am very happy with Earthlink and this 15M/s no cap service. I don't recall a single outage since I started the service on July 25, 2008. But, of course, I am not on 24/7/365. But my modem and wireless router are. I never power cycle either. They've been on for months.

I've never had a single problem connecting to their service, even though they "don't support Linux". Their support is not needed. If I run a cable out of the back of the wireless into my eth port I get an instant Internet connection. Via wireless I have zero problems. I use wicd.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

I'm loving the input!

GreyGeek, your account of your experience with Earthlink's cable service is very reassuring. I'm hoping my experience will mirror yours.

As I said before, my DSL service has been REALLY spotty lately, and I have little to no patience when dealing with so-called "support" people who start out by telling me to reboot my computer. My response? "Um...I'm not a windoze user...I use Linux...and we don't reboot...besides, WHICH of my six computers would you like rebooted--none of which is physically connected to my router?" That stops them in their tracks.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

When I was working at Microsoft, one Sunday evening I experienced some VPN trouble hours before I was to depart Seattle for Hong Kong. I called the help desk (not a usual thing for me), which to my astonishment had been outsourced to a call center in India. I explained the problem, including a full description of the troubleshooting steps I had already taken -- and led me to the conclusion that the certificate on the VPN server for my particular machine configuration had expired. Heh.

This dweeb starts reading his script, which of course began thusly:

Step 1. Tell user to reboot.

I replied, "I'm sorry, that is not an acceptable way to begin a troubleshooting session. I have gathered sufficient information to prove that the fault is not with my PC. Let's find another option."

The call went south and sour very fast. Ultimately the guy just hung up on me. I called the help desk director when I arrived in Hong Kong to explain the situation. I dunno what happened after that.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

This dweeb starts reading his script, which of course began thusly:

Step 1. Tell user to reboot.

I replied, "I'm sorry, that is not an acceptable way to begin a troubleshooting session. I have gathered sufficient information to prove that the fault is not with my PC. Let's find another option."

That was a great reply. It's ridiculous to have already narrowed down/troubleshooted the problem and then be told to reboot your computer.

With my situation with Earthlink, I've gotten so exasperated because of my unreliable connection that my patience has been worn pretty thin. When I spoke to them yesterday--after the rebooting thing--they wanted me to do all sorts of troubleshooting, which I refused. I told them point blank "it's NOT the modem, it's NOT the phone jack, it's NOT the router...it's the SERVICE." I don't think they're used to a customer--especially a female customer--knowing what they're talking about and being adamant about what they will/won't do.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

Well, crap. > Time Warner came, and went, and I don't have cable Internet. They ran the cable but the signal wasn't strong enough; they need to do something with the cable that goes to my neighbor's yard...but no one was home, so TW couldn't get permission. I'm supposed to talk to the neighbors today and TW will come back tomorrow. Problem is, I don't always see these particular neighbors; sometimes they're not home until late, and I'm not going to go over there at 11:00 at night [or whatever]. So I don't know how this is going to play out.

Meanwhile, my DSL connection is slower than I've ever seen--it's reminiscent of a 1200 baud modem in the early '80s. It's been like this all day--and I was *SO* looking forward to TW arriving and solving that problem!

[Qqmike]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

(an aside: as for Earthlink per se, I love their "standard" DSL (1.5 Mb/s), no issues with it since connecting in 2005)

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

(an aside: as for Earthlink per se, I love their "standard" DSL (1.5 Mb/s), no issues with it since connecting in 2005)

You're lucky! (Or distance isn't an issue for you like it is for me.) When I first got this DSL connection in 2006, I was thrilled with its speed--but compared to the dialup I was still using in Dallas, duh!, no wonder. Anyway, I've been getting less than half the speed I've been paying for--the same plan you're on--but there's nothing they could/would do about it, even after both Earthlink and AT&T verified the speed...or lack thereof.

And, as I've said before in this thread, for five years I really had no problems (other than not getting the speed I should've been). Then, all of a sudden, a few weeks ago it started going from bad to worse with no, or extremely slow (like today), connections. At one point Earthlink actually told me that it was impossible for me to have a DSL connection at my house because of the distance to the closest...my mind is blank...whatever the hell the control centers for DSL are called, and I said, "um, I've had this connection for FIVE YEARS and I definitely haven't moved my house recently!"

[Qqmike]

Re: Having high-speed cable installed--any issues I may run into?

Sorry to hear you have had so much trouble with it all. Internet connection is like money: It doesn't mean anything unless you don't have any.

Kind of related here, and something you probably already stumbledupon, an Earthlink DSL forum that is really good:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/earthlink

I hope this gets resolved for you soon.