Comment Re: Waste of time (Score 1) 39
Increasingly systems like Comcast X1 are delivering live linear streams as IP - just IP that never needs to suffer the packet loss and jitter of the open Internet.
Most cable co do this now. Mine has even dropped support for analog signal over cable. OK, that pissed me off because there no way to just hook up a splitter/booster and have TV in all rooms by yourself anymore. I now need a device for each TV and the devices receive the signal through IP even if you don't subscribe to Internet services with them.
They typically use LAN IPs (usually 10.0.0.0/8) to route traffic even for Internet subscribers. You just don't usually see it but I noticed the dhcpd giving me my Internet public address all have 10.0.0.0/8 addresses and I needed to allow communication with them since I usually block that traffic.
I also worked for some cable co doing provisioning software and such. Each Internet cable modem has at least 2 IP adresses, one 10.0.0.0/8 and a public IP. They route to your public IP through the 10.0.0.0/8 address.
route add (publicIP) gw (10.0.0.0/8 address) for the Internet access.
The TV devices are plugged in before the cable modem so they have direct access to the the internal cable co LAN without going through the cable modem. Each TV device has its own MAC address and 10.0.0.0/8 IP. Easy enough to know what you are watching isn't it?
By the way, cable co that offer phone also do it through IP (VOIP) and you don't notice unless you try to use an old fax machine and even then...
In the end, the cable network has become just an IP network over DOCSYS.
