Comment Re:But, can they still compete with cable? (Score 2, Informative) 445
I don't know where you got you info from but this is not exactly the way it works.
A smaller ISP's connection and a Sympatico connection are exactly the same all the way from the house to the Broadband Aggregation Server (BAS). In Nexxia's case they use Juniper ERX and Redbacks SMS-1800. From the BAS, the Sympatico customers go straight to the Nexxia IP cloud via a FE or GE connection while the smaller ISP's traffic has to be backhauled again over ATM via an L2TP tunnel. Only then do you access the small ISP's IP network. In fact this actually makes it worse because you add extra overhead (not that much but most of the time you have to reduce your MTU even more when you are with a smaller ISP or risk fragmentation and certain web sites not loading at all).
Given that a lot of these small ISPs actually use Nexxia as their ISP I find it hard to beleive that they would in fact be faster than Sympatico.
I've been on Sympatico HSE for over three years and have been very satisfied. I have friends who use the smaller ISPs, but its certainly not for speed... maybe more for the more "specialized" kind of service they offer (static IP, droneless help desk, better NNTP feed...).
A smaller ISP's connection and a Sympatico connection are exactly the same all the way from the house to the Broadband Aggregation Server (BAS). In Nexxia's case they use Juniper ERX and Redbacks SMS-1800. From the BAS, the Sympatico customers go straight to the Nexxia IP cloud via a FE or GE connection while the smaller ISP's traffic has to be backhauled again over ATM via an L2TP tunnel. Only then do you access the small ISP's IP network. In fact this actually makes it worse because you add extra overhead (not that much but most of the time you have to reduce your MTU even more when you are with a smaller ISP or risk fragmentation and certain web sites not loading at all).
Given that a lot of these small ISPs actually use Nexxia as their ISP I find it hard to beleive that they would in fact be faster than Sympatico.
I've been on Sympatico HSE for over three years and have been very satisfied. I have friends who use the smaller ISPs, but its certainly not for speed... maybe more for the more "specialized" kind of service they offer (static IP, droneless help desk, better NNTP feed...).
