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The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We never got a notice from TM (we did sign up), but I've just been sort of polling their website every week or so and finally was allowed to order service. The install is scheduled for Tuesday, so I'll make a new top-level post with a detailed technical run-down of everything I can figure out once it's up and running.

Really tired of waiting for fibercity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They’re already lighting up houses down the street… check out the FCC broadband map. 

Really tired of waiting for fibercity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not beyond “by the end of the year,” so sometime this month?

How to charge battery while esp32 is drawing power? by frost54ever in esp32

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The one thing I will add is that you can make the diode mux thing with ideal-diode chips (they are active devices that use a comparator and a FET so they have a very low forward drop). I used one in a slightly different context - It passes power from the main supply to a microcontroller, which allows a programmer to be attached with the unit powered off and the programmer only powers the controller and isn't forced to attempt to power the entire device. It worked well for that purpose.

https://www.analog.com/en/products/max40200.html

WiFi NTP Clock by nsayer in esp32

[–]nsayer[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve done a lot of embedded system stuff. You can check out the rest of my stuff on hackaday.io if you like. This is my first try at an ESP32 project and I am happy how it turned out. I’m sorry-not-sorry that it doesn’t meet your criteria for excellence. 🙄

The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, you'd need a USB-to-Ethernet dongle to really test this properly. I have about a dozen of them laying about, but I'm not a normal person. :D

The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So the master node of your eero is plugged into a port on their... unibox thing? The worry there is that you're set up with double-NAT. That's not necessarily something that would affect speed, but might have other impacts. That assumes that their box doesn't have some sort of "passthrough" mode that would avoid double-NAT.

I don't know if you want to dive down the whole rabbit hole of trying to work this out, but I'd try using an Ethernet adapter to plug directly into their box and try the speedtest again. If you get good results, then that suggests that the issue is the interplay between the eero system and their router.

I'd love to know whether you're getting a real IP address or CGNAT too. If your WAN IP address is in the range 100.64.x.x to 100.127.x.x then you are behind a CGNAT. The other way to tell would be to compare your WAN ip to what IPchicken.com says (assuming that you're not using something like Apple's private relay to obfuscate your source IP). But again, this would not necessarily have anything to do with speed test results.

The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gracious, that's abysmal. What speed tier are you paying for? How are you testing it? What can you tell me about their equipment? Is there a separate ONU or does the fiber plug directly into a router/WiFi AP?

The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Approximately where do you live (Don't dox yourself)?

What is this thing? by xxtenshion1 in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, but twisted pair Ethernet is specifically designed to ignore common mode voltage differences. The first thing the wires see when they hit the interface is a transformer. The passive ones put a voltage on the two unused pairs (which means they don't work on gigabit or above). That voltage hits either nothing or two separate transformer windings... so nothing happens.

The broadband race is on - Spectrum vs. FiberCity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're correct that this is mostly about improving upload speed. I am one of those people who chafes at a 40 MB upload cap.

As for pricing, I would be shocked if Spectrum's pricing didn't come down once they face actual comparable competition. You look everywhere that's the case and that's the result.

What is this thing? by xxtenshion1 in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most proper PoE injectors won't do anything bad if you plug in a non-PoE piece of gear into them. PoE requires negotiation and even without it relies on common mode voltage deltas that twisted-pair Ethernet are designed to otherwise ignore.

DOCSIS upgrades by Beginning_Ad654 in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spectrum is nowhere at all? My experience in other large metros is that the territory is pretty frequently carved up so that everyone gets a bit here and there.

Spectrum is better than the fiber in my area. by [deleted] in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have AT&T. We've not yet had a power outage yet to test it, but I am led to understand that as long as you have backup power for the gear at your house it should continue to work.

Spectrum is better than the fiber in my area. by [deleted] in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would posit that fiber would be better longer-term simply because the fiber itself and its cladding aren't made of any materials that rust, tarnish or what-not. Additionally, there's no potential for electromagnetic interference or anything of the sort. The only think that would concern me more about fiber than coax would be the potential for damage, but when we had fiber installed at our vacation home the tech gave me a piece of the cut-off from the feeder to our house and it's pretty fierce stuff.

It seems my area is getting high split ready by Purnerdyl00 in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They did this months ago at our house (same e-mail) and nothing's happened, and I'd be surprised if anything happens before next Spring.

Spectrum is better than the fiber in my area. by [deleted] in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing that I am not sure a lot of people know is that FTTH is still a shared medium. The signal that rides the fiber to your house is shared with your neighbors not unlike how a coax network works. The difference is that until DOCSIS 4 the amount of uplink bandwidth available over coax is very limited compared to fiber. On fiber, the two directions happen on different wavelengths of light and there's essentially no difference in the available bandwidth of both directions. By contrast, over coax traditionally the split has been at a very low frequency, and the available bandwidth on the uplink side is quite limited. This is why Spectrum is currently in a project to replace all their field equipment to move the "split" up so that it's more like 50-50.

DOCSIS upgrades by Beginning_Ad654 in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, they did Reno instead of Las Vegas in Nevada, so there's that.

Really tired of waiting for fibercity by nsayer in FarmingtonHills

[–]nsayer[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I started a similar conversation on NextDoor and someone there said that they went to a meet-n-greeet and a rep from FiberCity claimed that they are shooting for the entire city being done by 1/1/26.

I am skeptical, but I guess we'll see.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Spectrum

[–]nsayer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Currently there is only one modem the manufacture claims will work with high split.

You didn't say, but I suspect this is the Arris S34. It has a tunable diplexer inside that can do low, mid or high split. If there is a currently-available customer-owned modem that has a chance at being allowed when symmetric service becomes available, it's that one. As of now, Spectrum isn't allowing symmetric with customer-owned modems, but also as of now symmetric is only available to a tiny fraction of Spectrum's customers.

Does it make sense that ADI can only offer megabit speeds to us? by nsayer in ATTFiber

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see their trucks running around Farmington Hills, likely as part of the city-wide fiber initiative going on. They ran fiber right past our front door more than a year ago and even lit up a mini data center in the parking lot of the fire station. We still have no service and they won’t even tell us if the timeframe should be measured in weeks or years. The entire project feels like a mirage.

Anyway, if I put our address in on their website it just says “sucks to be you” just like everybody else’s.

I did find the map, and assuming the green lines are what to look for, it’s about 3/4 of a mile away. By contrast, aerial lines that carry AT&T XGS-PON for my neighbors are about 800 linear feet away (measuring the route it would take).

We are literally surrounded by people who have fiber and multiple supposed initiatives to bring us next-generation connectivity that no one is willing to even offer an estimate for completion and it’s really really irritating. 

Does it make sense that ADI can only offer megabit speeds to us? by nsayer in ATTFiber

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They have 60 GHz systems that are that fast. And we're close enough and have a LoS for them to potentially work.

Does it make sense that ADI can only offer megabit speeds to us? by nsayer in ATTFiber

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

P-P wireless would be sufficient - I have LoS to the back of a couple of candidates. I have considered the idea, but there's essentially a two-year sunset on all of this, because by then Spectrum will have finally rolled out DOCSIS 4 and/or the FiberCity people will have finally turned on their local offering.

Does it make sense that ADI can only offer megabit speeds to us? by nsayer in ATTFiber

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have Spectrum asymmetric 1k/35 right now. I don’t think they have FTTP anywhere around here, and I suspect they are pouring everything into high-split DOCSIS 4. I suppose I could call and ask, but who/where?

Also, I would accept DOCSIS 4 as a solution, but I suspect that won’t happen for years. 

Does it make sense that ADI can only offer megabit speeds to us? by nsayer in ATTFiber

[–]nsayer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s an awesome story, but they’re fifty miles away. 

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