Ken,
Your wealth of knowledge and experience in this area help brighten my day
because I suspect that those folks providing my service are too new to the
game to appreciate these details. They are relearning what you and others
experienced some time ago. While I enjoy the benefits of FTTP, I dread each
problem that shows up from time to time.
Thanks, once more, for the enlightenment.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:48 PM
Subject: Re: [OM] Question for Ken
>> Thanks, Ken. I had not realized that the cables and plugs were so common
>> that this could occur. Thanks for the education on the subject.
>
> This varies a lot depending on the network interface device. A lot of
> set top boxes have a fiber connection or a CATV style connection for
> the provider side. On the home side of the box you have connections
> for your TV, telephone and computer network. The computer network
> connection is bog standard.
>
> What the majority of households have now is a wireless router
> providing connectivity to computers, smartphones and tablet devices.
> These usually have a couple of little antennas and five ports on the
> back. One of the five will be a different color and is intended to be
> hooked up to the set top box (or DSL modem). This is usually called
> the "WAN" port. (Wide Area Network). The other four ports are the
> "LAN" ports. (Local Area Network). Inside the box are three main
> components: Router, Switch, WiFi adapter. The four ports and the WiFi
> adapter are hooked up to the switch, which feeds to the router. Some
> of your better units skip the switch and really are multi-port
> routers, but those aren't what you can buy at Wal-Mart for $39.99. The
> router itself is really pretty lame in these things too and provide a
> very bare-bones set of features and performance specs.
>
> But, let's say you have your computer directly hooked up to the set
> top box or dsl modem and you check what your IP address is. Then
> program the brand new router with that subnet in the LAN settings.
> Now, plug one of the LAN ports into the set top box or dsl modem. In
> SOME circumstances, (not all, by any means), your router will now
> start to compete with the ISP's router. Anybody who has established
> their Ethernet connection prior to this point will remain OK for a
> while, but anybody else logging on won't be able to get to the
> Internet.
>
> The majority of broadband providers protect against this type of
> problem. The old style copper DSL systems, if ATM based, are almost
> always immune to this problem, but a switched network where users are
> hid from each other, but not isolated from each other can be affected.
> Fortunately, and unfortunately, we've been moving away from ATM to
> straight Ethernet, but that type of "progress" has brought with it a
> whole slew of new challenges. FTTH is pure Ethernet and everything is
> kept straight through VLANs. That's fine, but every few years we get a
> new group of people that have no desire to know history and will
> deploy the new/shiny in a way that makes the old-timers cringe because
> we've already been-there-done-that and have the scars to prove it.
>
> On a semi-related note, I got a bunch of emails here at work talking
> about how we're migrating a system to a piece of software that we used
> for this same task FOUR systems ago. I asked if several specific
> issues have been fixed yet. Answer was "no" but it doesn't matter
> because that's an "easy fix". Right. It was a fix that took us three
> years to try and do without success.
>
> I'm glad I don't have to deal with the consumer side of the house. I
> just have to deal with adding ungodly amounts of fiber-optic capacity
> between cities because some people can't figure out how to deploy
> their networks. Instead of fixing the dragging parking brake, they're
> adding a bigger motor.
>
> --
> Ken Norton
> ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.zone-10.com
> --
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>
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