Of course, you need a beefy backbone when you’re running the third-largest DSL provider in the US, and when said DSL provider ust launched VDSL2 tiers to compete with cable providers’ DOCSIS 3 rollouts. There are rumblings that Qwest in some areas hasn’t allowed customers to purchase more than 12 Mbps down and 896 kbps up on their VDSL2 service even for people chose enough to the remote terminal to get more, due to lack of bandwidth availability. Then again, this is more likely due to the back of “middle mile” connectivity between Qwest remotes and the backbone; the speed limitation seems to suggest that the affected boxes are fed with copper T3s (45 megabits each way) rather than 100-megabit-plus fiber.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Qwest’s offerings, particularly on the high-end side, due to this backbone upgrade. It might mean cheaper bandwidth to large Qwest customers (like the FRGP, of which Mines is a member) or it might just mean that Qwest will be at 20% network utilization rather than 70%. The backbone upgrade probably won’t make the difference between getting faster DSL service in any given location at any point in time, but who knows?

UPDATE 2: According to other Denver-area folks, the DOCSIS 3 upgrade does not require a truck roll, as I suspected. Just go to your local Comcast store (the closest one to Golden is in Wheat Ridge, 11501 W 44th Ave), make the upgrade and pick up a modem if you want to rent one.

UPDATE: Apparently DOCSIS 3.0 in Golden went mere hours ago (this morning, to be exact). So if Comcast representatives don’t seem to know what they’re talking about yet, try to forgive them; the northern part of the Denver metro doesn’t even have DOCSIS 3 turned on yet. Some places aren’t even on DOCSIS 2.

Also, if you want to get a Motorola SurfBoard 6120 modem to take advantage of DOCSIS 3 speeds (or channel-bonding PowerBoost, which from what I hear works even on lower tiers) they can be had at Amazon for about $93. On the flip side, that’s 29 months worth of modem rental fees, and prices will go down for the modems as time goes on. On the other hand, if you plan on sticking with a non-DOCSIS 3.0 Comcast tier, looking around for a cheap modem could put you out ahead of rental fee costs in under a year.

Finally, for those wondering where Qwest’s service falls in relation to Comcast’s in terms of speed, Comcast trumps both Qwest tiers available here unless you guy the Economy tier on Comcast. On the other hand, Qwest costs less than Comcast when not on promotion…

ORIGINAL POST

Sometime in the past couple of days, Comcast has gone live with their DOCSIS 3.0 service in the Denver area, just in time for school. Below are current speed tiers and prices based on what I was able to gather from a Comcast rep online. The two highest-end tiers require a new channel-bonding DOCSIS 3.0 modem like the Motorola SurfBoard 6120 (or you can get whatever Comcast has in stock, which might be a Cisco model instead). According to the representative, upgrades to a DOCSIS 3.0 tier will require a $99 installation charge, though I believe have confirmed this information to be incorrect. New internet installations on the other hand do require this fee if you don’t already have cable TV with the company.

The prices below reflect internet-only service without promotions. If you want to rent a modem from Comcast, add $3 + tax ($3.22 or so) to the monthly price. If you’re on a promotion or are bundling Comcast service with something else, prices will be less. There’s no contract on any of Comcast’s services unless you are buying a “triple play” bundle and don’t want your second-year price to skyrocket. All tiers have Comcast’s 250GB “soft cap”; usage above the cap will get you a warning, then a disconnection for one year. Comcast also has traffic management software in place to throttle down heavy users during peak periods, however the protocol is relatively benign.

1. Economy – 1 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up – $34.95
   No PowerBoost, not heavily advertised
2. Performance – 12 Mbps down / 2 Mbps up – $54.95
   PowerBoost, probably the best value for your money, default tier
3. Blast! – 16 Mbps down / 2 Mbps up – $64.95
   PowerBoost, highest-speed non-DOCSIS 3.0 tier
4. Ultra – 22 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up – $74.95
   DOCSIS 3.0, PowerBoost, best tier for power users in my opinion
5. Extreme – 50 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up – $116.95
   DOCSIS 3.0, no PowerBoost, fastest tier, faster downloads than Qwest VDSL2

If you’re wondering whether Ultra could conceivably outpace Extreme while PowerBoost is active, the answer is a resounding “yes.” In fact, in most cases the Performance tier can match or exceed Ultra’s “regular” speeds while on PowerBoost; due to DOCSIS 2.0-sized upload channels (a must-have for DOCSIS 3) PowerBoosted upload speeds for every tier but Economy will many times reach 9, 10 or even 11 Mbps. That said, for longer downloads and uploads PowerBoost will wear off and you’ll get the speeds you pay for.

One final note: promotions are easy to get; just ask for them. I’m locked in for six months at a rate roughly $23 below Comcast’s regular structure simply because I walked into the omcast store and hinted at downgrading due to my then-$65 internet bill. That said, I had been paying full price for a few months prior to the office visit, and I’ve now been using the company’s internet service for a year or so.

1. Qwest’s medium of choice from here on out is VDSL2.
2. AT&T also uses VDSL, albeit a generation older (for now), for their U-Verse network.
3. Unlike AT&T, Qwest isn’t going to try to run a TV service over their VDSL network, leaving more bandwidth for internet-only service.
4. VDSL2, unlike VDSL, works over copper “loop” lengths longer than a few thousand feet, albeit at speeds comparable to Qwest’s older “Fiber to the Node” ADSL2+ system.
5. Due to (4), all Qwest upgrades will be to VDSL2 equipment, with no ADSL2+ intermediate step.
6. VDSL2 requires a special modem, in contrast to garden-variety ADSL2+. Qwest’s VDSL2 modem is the ActionTec Q1000, which has built-in 802.11n wireless, gigabit Ethernet and backward compatbility with older DSL systems.
7. In areas where loop lengths are short enough, all tiers above 1.5 Mbps can get 5 Mbps uploads (as opposed to 896 kbps) for just $5 more per month.
8. Unlike Comcast, Qwest has no stated caps on their residential tiers, and doesn’t appear to throttle their network.
9. Qwest VDSL2 service will be marginally faster than ADSL2+ service of the same advertised speed, as Qwest’s VDSL2 installation doesn’t used the overhead-heavy ATM protocol to pass internet traffic. ADSL (and ADSL2+) do use the protocol, limiting customers to about 85% of their advertised speed. VDSL2 customers on the other hand should get 90-95% of advertised speeds in real life.
10. Latency (ping time) may improve on VDSL2 service, compared with ADSL. In any case, a call or online chat with Qwest could reduce pings even more, if they turn off interleave on your line. On the other hand, non-interleaved DSL doesn’t work well over old and/or noisy phone lines.
11. More information about VDSL2, directly from Qwest, can be found here.
12. More information about VDSL2, directly from customers, can be found among the posts here.

Got any more questions? Ask in the comments.

But before you go and get the modem off of eBay, check this out.

The item in question is the Motorola SB (SurfBoard) 6120, a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem. Aside from being rather expensive (regular cable modems run around $50-$60 in stores), it’s pretty much future-proof as far as cable systems go. That’s what the DOCSIS 3.0 is for.

Comcast will be upgrading their network to this technology in the relatively near future around here; they’ve already done so in other markets. The biggest benefit of the tech is that it can bond together cable channels to allow for a faster internet experience. In theory, up to eight chanels can be bonded for downloads, and four for uploads, though the equipment to do so won’t be out for quite awhile. The SB6120 can bond together four download channels for up to 152 Mbps of speed on a cable “node” (as opposed to one 38 Mbps channel) and four upload channels for up to 120 Mbps (versus one 30 Mbps channel on DOCSIS 2.0, or 10 Mbps on DOCSIS 1.1, which a lot of this area still runs on).

As of right now, Comcast is only bonding together three channels on downloads, with no bonding on uploads, though you will get DOCSIS 2.0 speeds there. So, 114 Mbps of speed to share on downloads, 30 Mbps for uploads.

This means that, once the new tiers come out, you’ll get faster speeds and less congestion, since people will be spread over more available bandwidth. To be precise, Comcast will increase their lower tier speeds to 12/2 and 16/2 megabits per second download/upload. They will also add two higher-end tiers: “Ultra”, with 22 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up for $10 more than their current highest-end tier, and “Extreme” with 50 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up for about $150 per month.

These tiers will still have their 250GB cap on residential service (solution: upgrade to business for an extra amount per month), and the infrastructure is still shared with a few hundred other internet users, but it’s progress.

Until then, if you buy the SB6120, you wont have to keep paying Comcast modem rent, and you’ll get a top-of-the-line modem, which will probably net you faster download and upload speeds anyway. Plus you get to brag that your cable modem has gigabit Ethernet on the LAN side (it does) and that it looks freakin’ sweet (it does). As soon as I can sell my cable modem (anyone want a perfect-condition Zoom 5241 DOCSIS 2.0 modem?) I’m grabbing one of these puppies; if fiber optic internet suddenly comes into town I can always sell it to a poor soul stuck in a less served area.

Have questions about Comcast’s system or this newfangled DOCSIS 3 technology? Post in the comments!

With that in mind, check out the list below. What are these sites, which vary in form but not much in function? Pastebins. Paste your text in, and that text is made available via a link for you and/or others to see. Plus, many patebins ad line numbers and syntax highlighting to the pasted material. The bottom line: the service is useful, the providers are many, and you just might find sometime that a pastebin is just what you need to get a bit of text from point A to point B.

So here’s the exhaustive list, mainly copied from here, but also from Wikipedia’s main pastebin entry…with more interesting ones first:

Pastebin.com (the original!)
PasteBay (from the makers of The Pirate Bay)
Hey! Paste It (New!)
Nopaste
Pastey.net
ShortText (Rich text enabled, for Twitter people)
Snipt.org (also for Twitter people)
Attachr
Stirkbin
Lodge It
Wicket-based pastebin
Paste.info.tm
Pastebin.cz
Monoport
C++ Pastebin
Paste.org
dpaste
NWScript
Pastebin.sk (OpenPastebin)
paste.lisp.org
Big Bud Den
Pastebin.ca
Pastebin.es
CyberScripters.org

Hope this is useful to someone! Comment with any other pastebins you find.

$34.95 – 1.5 Mbps downloads, 512 kbps uploads
$44.95 – 5 Mbps downloads, 2 Mbps uploads

The above prices include $5 for equipment rental.

One caveat: the service may or may not be good. Reviews have been mixed. Additionally, speeds aren’t quite guaranteed. When I asked about service, I was quoted 3-5 Mbps for downloads, 1.5-2 Mbps for uploads. Then again, the system may work well enough. At least there’s another option, rpovided you have line of sight to a WisperTel…uh…SkyBeam tower.

Qwest (multiply download speeds by 85% to get the actual amount; uploads are around 700 kbit/s…below are advertised speeds)
$39.99 – 1.5 Mbit/s down, 896k up
$46.99 – 5-7 Mbit/s down, 896k up (at my place I can only get 5 Mbps)

Comcast (with PowerBoost, see here for how that works)
$54.95 – 6 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
$64.95 – 8 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up

Nothing below $40 per month as far as anyone can tell…

…until you call in to Comcast and ask for their Economy tier. Which is $34.95 with no other services, and delivers a megabit per second down, and 384 kilobits per second up. No PowerBoost Worse performance speed-wise than Qwest’s 1.5 Mbit tier, but also cheaper. But not much cheaper…

That’s where Comcast’s DTV transition deal comes in. I believe new customers can also get the service, but I confirmed with a Comcast rep that you can downgrade all the way to Economy internet, then add on basic cable…and not only get basic cable for free, but also get a $10 discount on your internet bill. So effectively your internet connection is now $24.95, with basic cable thrown in.

I didn’t ask about the discount on internet from adding basic cable to the higher end packages, but the rep did say that cable itself would be $10 off, for a rooughly $7 monthly cost. It may actually be the case that you can save a few dollars on your internet bill by adding basic cable.

There are caveats to this ultralow pricing on cable and internet:

1. The discount on basic cable only lasts a year, so once that discount is up, your regular rate will be $17 or so per month for cable. You’ll still get your internet discount, but unless you really want the cable it won’t be worh your while.
2. 1024k down, 384k up with no PowerBoost is slow internet.
3. There is a setup fee for adding basic cable to an internet-only setup. $20.99 was the first price I was quoted, but the rep quickly went down to $14.99. Not a big deal really.
4. Comcast’s throttling system (see this post) looks at what percentage of bandwidth you’re using over the course of 15 minutes. Which gets rather dicey with such a low-speed connection. So if your cable node is congested, the threshold for throttling is 716.8 kbps on downloads, 268.8 kbps on uploads. Byte-wise, you’re looking at 115.2 MB straight on downloads, 43.2 MB on uploads. At that size, a routine software update, or a bunch of photos, may well kill your connection if your node is congested.

So there are pros and cons to downgrading. The big pro though is price; in these troubled times $30 or $40 per month is a pretty big deal.

First off, a rundown on DNS, aka Domain Name Service. The best way to describe the process, and the role of DNS servers, is a numerical rundown:

1. Your type in a web address, which must be converted into an IP address (like 138.67.1.1) for your computer to connect to the website you want.
2. Your computer sends out to a DNS server to get the IP address of the site you want, querying “up the ladder” if needed (if it doesn’t have the IP stored in its records).
3. The DNS server sends the IP address of the server you want to connect to.
4. Your browser contacts the server and goes along its merry browsing way.

Google Earth is now available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Less features than the regular Google Earth app but still fun. By the way, you can see the Mines “M” from Google Earth…check it out!

If you have a Mac, you can now stream Netflix movies online within OS X. Nice feature, especially with Netflix’s growing instant-watch catalog. Additionally, Netflix streaming will be available on the TiVo , and in HD on the XBox 360.

Heard of the Amazon Kindle? How about Oprah? Put the two together and you get $50 off the Kindle, so it’s now a cool $309. Contrast this to the new Sony eReader, weighing in at $400…I’ll take the internet-connected Kindle, thanks.

One of the high-speed internet networks powering the Mines campus, along with most colleges and research institutions, is the National LambdaRail. Soon, regular companies will be able to get a piece of the supercharged internet action, thanks to DarkStrand . Don’t worry; there’s plenty of internet to go around, with 300 gigabits per second of capacity available right now on the network.

Introducing yet another brand buzzword into the internet equation, Microsoft introduced its Azure (cloudless?!?) “Cloud” platform to the spotlight at last week’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC). Azure seems to be a mix of online computing power (like Amazon Web Services, which includes their S3 data storage system) and current Windows Live services. The software giant also showed off the latest build of its new operating system, Windows 7 , which will probably ship in time for back-to-school 2009. Additionally, their upcoming office suite, Office 14 , will have an online version available, among other enhancements, a la Google Docs. Last but not least is Windows Media Player 12 , with an eye to getting out of the way when you’re just trying to play a random track instead of diving into your music library.

Using AOL Hometown, AOL Pictures, AOL Journals, Xdrive or Bluestring? Grab your data now; the services will be going offline in the near future.

Wal-Mart has relaunched its music store as a DRM-free, all-MP3 affair. Downloads are as inexpensive as 74 cents, plus tax, apiece. Hot Topic (yes, the clothing outlet) is doing something similar, albeit with more standard (higher) per-song pricing.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is this month. Two words: do it.

GMail users can now chat with mobile phones via SMS , a nice added bonus for people on that system (myself included).

Watch out! If your bank login page looks different than usual, you may well have been infected with a rather nasty “trojan” malware app.

Having problems getting to websites on your Sprint phone? You’re one of those affected by a complete Sprint blockade of Cogent traffic after Sprint determined that Cogent (a big, dirt-cheap internet backbone provider) was sending too much traffic in Sprint’s direction, and not receiving enough traffic back. This “push me, pull you” system of internet traffic is called “peering”, and happens free of charge to both parties when they agree that both are receiving mutual benefit. Sprint, mostly a high-price-per-megabit-per-second, ISP-focused system, decided that Cogent (whose highly inexpensive bandwidth offerings make it ideal for web site hosting, along with some ISP use) wasn’t “playing fair”, so for now “you can’t get from here to there” is an all too real problem on the internet for some people. Basically, Sprint wants Cogent to pay for the rather self-imposed traffic imbalance (probably a majority of Sprint customers can’t go elsewhere easily). Cogent seems willing to “wait it out” until Sprint decides to turn on the internet taps again, in the meanwhile giving a free 100 megabit connection (both upload and download speed) to anyone within Cogent’s immediate service area, who is affected by this “peering dispute”. On the other hand, if you’re using the Mines campus network, Comcast, Qwest, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T or CricKet, you aren’t directly affected by this “inter-rift”. If you are, simply connect via VPN into the Mines network, or use a proxy like Kroxy and you’re routed around this internet blackhole (seriously, that’s a networking term for such an event as this).

UPDATE: Sprint has grudgingly turned connectivity back on with Cogent, while “working on a long-term solution”. Sounds to me like the company just got too many customer complaints to leave the inter-pipes broken for too long…

The Backberry Bold , the feature-rich 3G device from Research In Motion (RIM) will be released on AT&T’s network on November 4th. The price will be $299 with contract. Unlike the Verizon Blackberry Storm, this phone will have a keyboard and, I’m pretty sure, no touch screen.So basically you’re looking at a modern version of your typical Blackberry, which is a good thing.

A few days ago, Apple announced in its earnings call that it has sold over 10 million iPhones this year alone, surpassing RIM to become the 3rd biggest phone manufacturer in the world, by measure of revenue. That’s a lot of iPhones.

In other phone introduction news, Sprint is releasing the HTC Touch Pro on the 26th at Best Buy stores, and the 2nd at all other outlets, including online.The phone, successor to the HTC Mogul Pocket PC phone (on which I’m typing this article) has a slide-out keyboard, high-speed data access and a 3 megapixel camera. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1 plus some HTC enhancements, and will be prices at $300 after a rebate and with a new contract, which will have to include a data plan in order to get the phone. I’ll be upgrading sooner or later, though it may not be for a bit…my next phone upgrade is due late next semester. This is despite the operating system, which has been compared with a Soviet-era tank in the face of the iPhone.

Microsoft’s The Ultimate Steal promotion is back. In one of the few useful ads on the current oredigger.net site, I saw that Microsoft was offering the deal again, and it’s worth looking at for sure. Office 2007 Ultimate Edition is a mere $60, 91% off of retail,Visio 2007 (for flowcharts and such) is $56, and Windows Vista Ultimate, normally around $200, is available for $65. Windows Vista, granted, is an upgrade version, but all you have to do is install it twice, once with no license key entered, then once with the key entered…and you’ve got a legit Windows install for cheap (trust me, I’ve done it before).

Watch out! If you’re playing Oregon Trail, be warned that, sometime in the near future, your app will be replaced without a trace …by Speed Date!?! Unless you’re into that sort of thing, get out while your profile is untainted by such weirdness…

Water-cooled computers are so three years ago…cool your computer with non-nonconducting oil for the latest in ultimate gaming performance. No, seriously…submerge your components in the techno-magical potion for crazy cooling.

Comcast has rolled out its new, higher speeds, based on the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0 standard. The problem: those speeds aren’t available anywhere around here, and won’t be for awile considering the competitive situation. Currently rollout is in the northeast, as well as in the Twin Cities (MN) market, formerly a test bed for the tech. With the upgrade, customers on the standard tier get their internet speeds doubled for free, and everyone with the higher service tier gets speeds set at 16 megabits per second down, 2 Mbps up (double the download speed in most cases, no change on uploads). In addition, with rental (or eventually purchase) of a new DOCSIS 3 modem, two new tiers are available: a 22 Mbps download, 5 Mbps upload “Ultra” tier for $63 per month, and a 50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload “Extreme 50″ package for a whopping $140. The prices on these new tiers seems to be for cable users; expect something higher if you don’t bundle in cable, or if you want business-class service, which will also get the new tiers (the current 16/2 $89-per-month business plan won’t change). Another problem: it sounds like the 250GB residential cap is staying around even with the new, ostensibly more network-congestion-friendly tiers, which spread downloads over multiple channels on the highest-speed offerings. Theoretically this “burden sharing” would allow for less network congestion and thus higher caps, but in reality all the current “channel bonding” technology used in these setups does is restrict single-connection, single-file downloads to as low as one-third the connection’s full bandwidth. In short, when the new tiers do come, heavy users may want to seriously consider upgrading to the $59 “basic” business tier, which will boasts 12/2 download/upload speeds and no usage caps for a price lower than what people are paying now for 8/2, capped, residential service.

The open-source media player Boxee now supports Hulu and CBS videos. The significance? The social media player can be hacked onto an Apple TV, among other platforms.

Time to be more selective on your six-packs, beer-drinkers (I’m assuming you’re legal). Researchers have genetically engineered a brew with ingredients that combat cancer. Plus it’s anti-aging, even when the beer goggles come off. Best. Drinking. Excuse. Ever.

Just because you’re a gamer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an antisocial nerd (though one can’t rule out the possibility, unfortunately). I’m not the one saying this: a study is. Check it out.

That’s all for now! Check back a week from now for more News Bits, or between now and then for more substantial, topical, articles…I have some good ones coming! Also, check out the new Mines website! It’s now online at www.mines.edu and it looks great!