The Perfect Storm

(picture unrelated)

Over the past week or two I have gone through an interesting confluence of issues, all centered around communications.

1. My Comcast Triple Play is about to hit the one-year mark, which means that my rates are about to go way the hell up.

2. My company is deploying Cisco IP phones to all telecommuters. These phones require a VPN initiated at the router, so each of us was issued a Cisco 851 or the wireless equivalent.

3. Verizon is trying for a third time to finish pulling down their fibers so every unit in this building is finally ready for FIOS.

4. I just finished converting all of my home wiring to cat 6, and every device has access and is wired to Gigabit ethernet (not all can support it).

I had expected the Cisco router to be the biggest pain in the ass, but in reality it is a matter of education. I just don't know enough about it, and troubleshooting it takes time. What I had not expected was for my bailout from Comcast to Verizon to turn into a god damn comedy of horrors.

Yesterday, I decided that a company that treats its incoming customers as bad as Verizon does is not really a good way to spend my $150/month for telecommunications and cable TV. The solution is simple: cancel the order and move on.

The problem is that it is not just an issue of killing the order, I still need to deal with a rate increase from Comcast (who, by the way, have exceptional customer service for my area) which is going to leave me paying over $60/month for a VoIP service that is buggy and flaky. Also, *that* part of their customer support is not as good as for their TV and Internet sections.

My caller ID and voicemail work on and off, and opening tickets doesn't help much. I don't think I have lost the voice line once in the past year, but all of those ancillary services have been average at their best, and the web interface is just terrible.

Since I'll have a company issued phone, the VoIP line now reverts to personal use. I decided to switch it to Vonage, only to find out they are not able to transfer my number. No big loss there, I am sure that less than 15 people have that phone number so it should be easy to send them the new number. Vonage is $25/month (actually $30 after you add all of the regulatory taxes) for more features than Comcast's VoIP product, which in two weeks or so is going to cost me more than $60.

Even if my TV and Internet rates go a bit up, I'll still end up paying less by using Vonage.

The first thing that impressed me about the Vonage setup is that it allows for an automatic failover number. If your network goes down, it forwards your calls to whatever number you specify. This is a pretty sweet feature, assuming it actually works. The rest of the web management area is clear and uncluttered, and it is clear of eye candy, unlike Comcast's which looks like they spent more time making it pretty than making it useful.

Another thing I noticed is that some enterprising MBA type figured out a way to blend-in feature up-selling without making it intrusive. Some features are optional, but they are not shoved in your face, instead they are simply listed on the side or clearly marked as optional and available at an additional cost.

If Comcast's only competition is Verizon, and they keep treating new customers the way they have treated me since March, FIOS is going to be a monumental flop. It doesn't do them a god damn thing to have a technically superior solution of the business is not capable of handling the business part properly. When Comcast basically redid their whole cable network in this county, it was transparent to us. One day they simply told us that they have finished to redo everything with fiber to the curb, then offered us digital cable and cable modems.

Zero disruption.

When HD came, it was a question of switching digital cable boxes, again, zero disruption.

When voice came, they simply brought in a voice capable Arris cable modem. It took them about an hour, but most of that time was spent with the tech on the phone to his dispatcher trying to check the phone line. They did not even take out my old cable modem until weeks later.

Is MagicJack the new Sunrocket?

For those of you that missed that mess, Sunrocket was a VoIP service that promised unlimited domestic and long distance calls in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico for $200/year or less, depending on the promotion. Sometimes you even got a $50 cordless phone just for signing up. The service was provided through a black box, you could either plug it into your home network router, or you could plug your broadband connection into it and use it as a one-port router. I was one of the lucky ones: the day I signed up I was given two years of full service for $200.

The service was great, but it did not seem to take advantage of QoS, so I had to make sure that I was not doing a big download before I reached for the phone to make a work call. Once the connection was using more than 200K or so, it did not really like it and started sounding noisy (one of the basic reasons why my current boss hated that line so much).

Sunrocket crashed and burned. I got about 14 months of service out of my $200, still an exceptional value. I did not want to try another of those outfits, so I simply upgraded my Comcast account to a triple play, which got me a new cable modem with built-in VoIP and proper QoS. It is still a bit noisy, but only when the connection is about to get saturated. What I don't like about the Comcast phone service is that their ancillary services are actually inferior to what I had with Sunrocket. Their voice mail management sucks, and the call history is not always available.

During one of my many insomniac episodes, I was channel surfing when I noticed that there was an infomercial for MagicJack. The beauty of the infomercial is that it was designed to sell the product without really explaining how it works, they just showed you to plug it into your PC, plug a phone into it and use it.

Pure genius.

The other thing is that the MagicJack is much smaller than the Sunrocket device, it is just a little box with an USB plug. People understand when you try to sell them a little box and very basic instructions.

You don't have to be a nerd, just take this box, plug it in, and you are done.

Now I am starting to see reports that they are actually making a killing selling the damn things. Broadband reports started a thread today about the subject, and you can see some more activity at Google News. The funny thing is how very few news outlets are questioning their momentum and if the company can actually make money. I guess we'll see.

I would have been tempted, but my employer just handed me a Cisco IP phone and a Cisco 851 router, so as long as that works without disrupting my home network it will probably leave the Comcast phone to be used for personal calls only.

How the iPhone puts a bomb under mobile networks | The Register

Amazingly good analysis of the new push notifications service for iPhone 2.0:

If you think everything that could have been written about the iPhone already has been written, prepare to be surprised. One vital aspect of Apple's strategy has been overlooked - with multi-billion consequences for complacent network operators.

Over at Telco 2.0, the blog of analysts STL Partners, we learn that networks who partner with Apple must install Apple gear at the data centre to support its services - specifically, the Push Notification service that wakes up the Jesus Phone. Forget the revenues from sales of extra server gear - the key point is that Apple now sits in the middle of the data stream, capturing the customer's data. The analyst outfit describes the iPhone as a potential "poison" for the networks.

[From How the iPhone puts a bomb under mobile networks | The Register]

I like how they call it the "Jesus" phone.

For three months before and after the launch of the first iPhone, one of the earliest and most convenient excuses to dismiss it out of the business arena was the whole idea that you couldn't push content into it. Who gives a shit how neat this is, it can't talk to Exchange for crying out loud!

Now it can basically replace a Crackberry. Where's your God now?

Subsidizing it by $200 helps too.

What the hell is wrong with Verizon?

Verizon spent millions wiring Fairfax County (VA) for FIOS, then spent god knows what wiring my condo complex (~ 300 units) so each unit would have the fiber running all the way into the wiring cabinet. Ordering FIOS would involve having a technician open a closet in your condo unit, slap two boxes in the wall and connect them to the fiber already there.

The problem is that they somehow forgot to check on the work. After spending so much money doing the wiring, they did not bother to check if their contractors did the work. Instead, they assumed it was done.

I ordered FIOS months ago and was asked to wait a month for installation. On install day, the technician figured out that the cable was never pulled down, and proceeded to bail out after giving me a number to re-schedule.

I called Verizon, which explained I would need to wait yet one more month. I hung up.

Months later, I got a memo from my condominium homeowner's association:

"Please be informed that Verizon will be on the premises on June 6 to finish wiring some buildings, including yours."

I thought awesome, now as soon as I see them finish, I can call and reschedule my install.

It did not work exactly like that. The wiring crew worked until lunch, then left. They never entered my building. So here I am, hating Comcast, but not being able to order FIOS.

Comcast: FCC lacks any authority to act on P2P blocking

The man who spoke for Comcast at Harvard last month has told the Federal Communications Commission that the agency has no legal power to stop the cable giant from engaging in what it calls "network management practices" (critics call it peer-to-peer traffic blocking). Comcast vice president David L. Cohen's latest filing with the Commission claims that regulators can do nothing even if they conclude that Comcast's behavior runs afoul of the FCC's Internet neutrality guidelines.

"The congressional policy and agency practice of relying on the marketplace instead of regulation to maximize consumer welfare has been proven by experience (including the Comcast customer experience) to be enormously successful," concludes Cohen's thinly-veiled warning to the FCC, filed on March 11. "Bearing these facts in mind should obviate the need for the Commission to test its legal authority."

[From Comcast: FCC lacks any authority to act on P2P blocking]

In other words, "Fuck the FCC."

That's the funny thing about common sense: you can't teach it. If you find a loophole in federal law, why brag about it? All you are going to do is draw attention to yourself and the loophole, and before you know it, the loophole will be closed.

Do you really think that a government agency is going to let a private company give them that UFIA out in the open? And in an election year?

Of course not.

Here's what I don't understand: why act so bold when they are no longer the only game in town when it comes to broadband? Here in North Virginia they are still strutting around as if they own Fairfax County. Seems their suits haven't figured out that Verizon has been selling FIOS here for a while.

The other thing I can't understand is their billing. Every month the bill is different, and my tiers never come out straight. Are these people actually interested in making money? The one thing I know for sure is once I call them to tell them about my new FIOS line they'll start throwing discounts at me, as if it is going to make a god damn difference.

FCC spectrum auction is completed with $19.6 bln in bids - MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A sale of communications airwaves by the federal government to the commercial wireless industry closed Tuesday, after 261 rounds of bidding and $19.6 billion in bids.

The end of the auction means that, within a short period of time, the Federal Communications Commission will reveal who the winners of the valuable radio spectrum licenses are, and where in the country they acquired airwaves.

The proceeding was conducted on a blind-bidding basis, which means that, throughout the sale, bidders have been anonymous. The FCC put this in place after some potential participants in the auction argued it would enhance competition.

[From FCC spectrum auction is completed with $19.6 bln in bids - MarketWatch]

As one of the many customers that made the jump from analog to digital, which is what allowed this bidding to happen, I would like to say the following:

"Where's my cut?"

And by cut I don't mean two discount coupons to buy ATSC tuner boxes.

Actually, I don't care, I was hoping they would make like bandits. Now I hope they can take that freed up bandwidth and do something creative with it, maybe solve the last mile problem for rural america once and for all.