Sun Nov 5 22:35:24 EST 2006
Goodbye SECTV, Hello RCN
RCN game by this weekend and hooked up the new cable modem. To save us all a
bunch of grief I simply had them set up the modem on my work laptop to test
because it's Windows and decided to do the rest of the stuff myself. No
offense to the RCN guys, but from the little I talked to them it was clear they
didn't know much about that "Linux thing". I can't blame them though as I'm
sure they run into if very rarely.
With my laptop connected directly to the cable modem I was blown away to see I was getting actually above the 10Mbits that I has signed up for! I don't know how long that will last, but maybe they won't notice. Or read my blog.
So then I connected the new service up to my IPcop box and ran another
speed test getting only about 2.5 MBits. WTF! After much poking around I
noticed I had my traffic shaping set with a max speed of 3Mbits causing it to
throttle back. I figured I'd turn it off and all would be golden but with
traffic shaping off I only got 8Mbit. Much better, but not what I was
expecting. I went crazy and mostly gave up on it but then I realized today
that my WAN side had a 10BaseT NIC in it! Well, DUH. THAT'S what my problem
was! Some switching of NICs and a bit of configuration later I was running
full speed.
So, I guess the speed problem I had with SECTV wasn't actually their fault but rather mine. I wonder what speed I'd get back on the old service with the traffic shaping off? Still, I'm not going back. They had to many other things that pissed me off. So far RCN has been sufficient. Their tech support isn't Speakeasy but they aren't as brain dead as SECTV. I had to buy a static IP to make sure all inbound ports weren't blocked and RCN assures me they don't filter any spam unless you ask them to leaving it up to me.
Keep the power of control in the users hands...Just the way I like it.
With my laptop connected directly to the cable modem I was blown away to see I was getting actually above the 10Mbits that I has signed up for! I don't know how long that will last, but maybe they won't notice. Or read my blog.
So then I connected the new service up to my IPcop box and ran another
speed test getting only about 2.5 MBits. WTF! After much poking around I
noticed I had my traffic shaping set with a max speed of 3Mbits causing it to
throttle back. I figured I'd turn it off and all would be golden but with
traffic shaping off I only got 8Mbit. Much better, but not what I was
expecting. I went crazy and mostly gave up on it but then I realized today
that my WAN side had a 10BaseT NIC in it! Well, DUH. THAT'S what my problem
was! Some switching of NICs and a bit of configuration later I was running
full speed.
So, I guess the speed problem I had with SECTV wasn't actually their fault but rather mine. I wonder what speed I'd get back on the old service with the traffic shaping off? Still, I'm not going back. They had to many other things that pissed me off. So far RCN has been sufficient. Their tech support isn't Speakeasy but they aren't as brain dead as SECTV. I had to buy a static IP to make sure all inbound ports weren't blocked and RCN assures me they don't filter any spam unless you ask them to leaving it up to me.
Keep the power of control in the users hands...Just the way I like it.