[TriLUG] Spectrum vs AT&T

[David Both via TriLUG]

So after requesting your input, I thought I would let you know what 
happened.

I did decide to switch to AT&T residential Gb fiber. The migration to 
AT&T fiber is now complete and everything went very well. Of course that 
is not to say it was problem-free.

I have never been a fan of AT&T but Spectrum has been unable to resolve 
issues with the network just dropping out and the modem/router rebooting 
at frequent and inopportune times. But the speed of fiber and the fact 
that it is symmetric with upload and download speeds at 1Gb rather than 
uploads being so much slower as wih my old provider, and the fact that 
it is significantly less expensive, I decided to switch.

I wanted to go with residential service which is much less expensive but 
I had some concerns about needing static IP addresses and with issues I 
have seen with blocked ports like 25 for email. I run my own web and 
email servers so that was important to me. After a chat session with a 
fairly knowledgeable rep and talking with a sales person on the phone, 
they both said that the static IP addresses were not a problem and that 
the installation tech could help set that up as well as deal with 
blocked ports.

They were right. Which was a surprise to me.

Scott, the installation tech called me the morning of the installation 
to let me know he was on the way and he was delayed only slightly due to 
traffic. We discussed my needs for a few minutes and he assured me that 
we could do exactly what I needed. As a gamer, he was very knowledgeable 
and understood what I wanted and why.

After doing the physical installation of running the fiber from the 
street to my home office, we worked together to install the modem/router 
in my desired location and get it and the ONT plugged into a UPS, cabled 
together, and connected to the fiber. I would not let him into the 
narrow space available to do that so we worked together on it.

He installed updates to the Arris modem/router and we were ready to go. 
He showed my on his hand-held tester that the rates were both within a 
decimal point of 1Gb. We easily got the static IP addresses configured 
on the router and Scott placed it in passthrough mode.

I then reconfigured my own internal router. We did have some issues with 
blocked ports. Although I could browse the web and SSH to remote hosts, 
nothing was able to initiate connections to my router/firewall. After 
calling around to various support systems inside AT&T, Scott and I 
figured out how to unblock the needed ports and everything was working 
fine. The secret here is that the blocks are in the modem/router. Access 
the router using the web interface on the gateway IP and set the "Allow 
incoming connections" to on or enabled. I don't remember which. We 
figured this out while talking to the AT&T fee service which "unblocks" 
ports. They needed access to my computer but being Linux and paranoid 
there was no way. We discussed it and the guy on the other end said he 
could talk me thought it which means it must be in the router. So I 
accessed the router looked around and made the change. I now have no 
ports blocked in either direction. The router PIN for admin access is on 
the bottom of the device. We also made some other changes in the router 
to meet my needs.

I did have some issues with speeds, but those problems were with my own 
older Linux computer that I was using for my router/firewall. I moved 
the hard drive from that machine to a newer one, installed the needed 
network adapters, made a few configuration changes and all is now well.

It just took longer than I expected but everything seems to be working 
very well now. I am getting very high speeds but I did notice that my 
CLI speedtest.py is very inaccurate at these speeds.


On 1/16/20 1:20 PM, David Both via TriLUG wrote:
> I have spectrum at 300Mb but am currently having lots of problems with 
> dropouts at all times of day. 1st level support just replaced 
> connectors and checked signal levels. Part of the problem is that, 
> even though I have business class service, it uses the same coax that 
> the neighbor kids stream videos and play games. Most of my problems 
> are during times that this would be taking place but not all.
>
> I need to know your thoughts about switching to AT&T fiber and 
> possibly U-verse for TV . Please help! ;-)
>
> Thanks!
>
>
-- 


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David P. Both, RHCE
He/Him/His
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www.both.org - My personal web site
www.Linux-Databook.info - Home of the DataBook for Linux
DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both
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The value of any software lies in its usefulness
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