[ale] comcast issues

[Daniel Howard]

Yesterday and today, my cable modem service either died or went at a 
snail's pace.  I called customer service today and got a person speaking 
english w/o accent (so it wasn't India this time...), so after we talked 
details of cable modem technology, he converted his "there are 
technicians in your neighborhood improving the network" line to "they're 
splitting fiber nodes."  What this means is that Comcast is currently in 
an upgrade mode, likely all over the city, dividing neighborhoods into 
half or less and activating the dark fiber installed when they initially 
did the big upgrade several years ago.  Splitting the fiber node that 
feeds a tree and branch coax network to a neighborhood essentially 
doubles the capacity to the neighborhood.  With telcos moving forward, 
albeit slowly, on fiber to the curb/service area, cable operators have 
to compete by pushing their fiber deeper towards the customer.  I 
believe this is why many of us have seen reduced service this weekend. 
Too bad they don't send an email out notifying us, so we don't think 
it's just poor service.

Daniel