Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Work is Under Way
1:35 PM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
We thought this day would never arrive! But, finally, our new cable modem termination system (CMTS) is being installed. The picture shows our own Wade England being assisted by Darie Marza with TVC, poring over the data that must be properly configured for the new CMTS to operate properly.As we discussed in an earlier message, the new system should improve the performance of our cable modems and your internet access no matter where you are on our system. The new CMTS has much more "horsepower" and should do a much better job handling all of the internet traffic that is transmitted to and from Glasgow every minute of the day. However, as we discussed earlier, this process does come with the possibility of interruptions to your internet services. The work will be ongoing during all hours of the day for the rest of this week. So, the new CMTS should be working by the end of the week but we will be very deliberate in our efforts to move each internet customer to the new system. About three hundred folks have already been moved to the new system so we can do testing with them and figure out all of the nuances of the new CMTS.
On Sunday, September 7, beginning at 6:00 a.m., will start moving over the next group of about 1,400 customers. The following week, on Sunday September 14, we will again start at 6 a.m. and move another 1,400 customers over to the new controller. This process will be repeated, hopefully for the last time, on the following Sunday, September 21. During these moves customers can expect Internet outages on the days we move them. We can’t say for sure how long the outages will be but it is our intention to cause minimal downtime and have the section of customers that we move up and running normally by midnight on Sunday of each week.
So, things are going well so far in our efforts to completely upgrade our internet service. However, your individual performance improvement might be a few more weeks in coming due to our plans to do this is a very methodical manner. Before then you may see our trucks in your neighborhood doing some fine tuning on the broadband equipment before the final moves are made.
On another note, you have likely also been seeing some messages from a new anti-SPAM device we are testing from Barracuda Networks. If you have been seeing a drastic reduction in the amount of SPAM, or junk email, coming into your inbox, that is a result of the new Barracuda device. You might also be seeing daily reports from the device delivered to your inbox which detail the number and characteristics of junk email it has stopped on your behalf. All you need to do is open that report from Barracuda and review the mail it has trapped. If you want any of it actually delivered, you can tell it to deliver them. If you want any of it permanently deleted, you just have to click on "delete" beside the messages you want gone.
Presently we are only evaluating the Barracuda device to see how effective it is. We'll keep you posted on how all of this goes!
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4 comments:
I want under 100 ping to chicago dallas new york servers during peak hours. Is this possible or do I need to start looking for a new ISP. This is a gamers rant. I only have internet for my video games, and well lets face it, as it stands, between the hours of 8 am until midnight, the games are unplayable due to massive lag. A 300 steady to dallas/chi/ny from 3pm until 8pm, and after that it's in the range of 400-800.
Micah,
Yes it is possible. Can we guarantee it? No.
We control, at the most, about .01% of the route between your home and those game servers. While it is true that our .01% has not been performing well and that is the subject of this, and other, blog posts right here on this site, our new CMTS hardware and software will only make things better right here in Glasgow. If your game server is hung off of a small pipe in some distant state or country, nothing we do will improve your game ping time. I know we are an easy target for your unhappy gaming experience, but we are only a minute part of the total infrastructure involved.
However, we are optimistic that, by the end of the schedule detailed in this post, no ISP will be able to offer you faster access within Glasgow and our new fiber connection to the AT&T POP will remove any bottlenecks we have been experiencing with our old Windstream circuits to Louisville. That may not solve all of your problems, but it sure cannot hurt.
We also realize that as soon as these improvements are made, the game software folks as well as the peer-to-peer movie downloads, etc., will quickly consume that bandwidth and we will have to start planning our next upgrade just to stay ahead of the game. That is what we do.
I hope this helps you understand the issue. Thanks for commenting.
I to am a gamer, and from Glasgow I use to get 30 ping during peak hours. Now during peak hours it ranges from 300-800 and makes the games unplayable.
I'm optimistic that the changes being made in Glasgow will help this. But the comment back to Micah does not sound very promising.
From Bowling Green, we can still get a 30 ping, peak hours. To the same game servers that I ping 600 plus from Glasgow, therefor I have to assume that the game server I'm playing on is not in some remote land hanging off some random pole.....
Is there a schedule of what parts of town will be transferred on the dates posted? I am curious if I'm already "fixed" and still have this impossible lag....
We too are quite optimistic that the CMTS upgrade will solve your latency issue, but Micah seemed to be asking for a guarantee which no ISP could truthfully give. There are just too many elements of a local connection to a distant server that the local ISP like us cannot control for anyone to offer such a guarantee. Still, we feel like the problems you are having are caused by our old CMTS and that the new one will fix everything. We certainly have our fingers crossed.
If you will email me privately with your address I will respond with the information about which Sunday your move is scheduled for. Thanks for commenting.