[ale] So, Comcast says 8-16ms to their first hop is... OK?

Sat Sep 6 16:22:23 EDT 2025

That reminds me of an incident with my home cable TV a few years ago.   One channel wasn’t coming in but all the others were.  On calling them they went through the usual rigamarole (power cycle the cable, box, the TV and check all the coax connections).  I was incensed again noting it was only one channel having an issue.   I said if it was a connection issue it would affect more than that one.

Finally, I checked the coax connections just to make them get off that idea.   The one on the back of the cable TV box was fine.   However, as soon as I touched the end of the one at the wall jack it fell on the floor.  That wall jack was on the wall nearest the exterior breezeway and it had been years since I initially connected the cable to it.   My guess is that it was vibrations caused by people walking through that breezeway over the years that caused it to unscrew.    

After reseating the cable at the wall jack and screwing it back into place the one channel that had been an issue began working.  I’ve often told people since then I hate it when THEY are right.  😊

From: Ale <ale-bounces at ale.org> On Behalf Of Neal Rhodes via Ale
Sent: Saturday, September 6, 2025 4:05 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
Cc: neal at mnopltd.com
Subject: Re: [ale] So, Comcast says 8-16ms to their first hop is... OK?

Fair is fair.    My mistake in contacting the Account Manager, to, you know, manage the account. 

When I contacted tech support and talked my way to level 2, it only took a few minutes for them to say "Hmmm. why don't we swap out your "modem"; it's almost 5 years old".   

They did that today, and it seems times are a bit better.   Still 8ms to the first hop, but maybe 16ms overall. 

On 2025-09-04 16:29, Raj Wurttemberg via Ale wrote:

We have the fault tolerant UDM Pro Max setup (main and "shadow") in our offices, and we have AT&T and Comcast.  AT&T is the primary and is always rock-solid.  I see the Comcast connection fail a few times during the week, so it is only used as a backup connection. I like it that the UDM Pro lets me know when there are internet issues.

I too see about the same hop times as you do on AT&T and Comcast. Looking at my UniFi console now, I see that Comcast had six "high latency" alerts today.... None for AT&T.

/Raj W.

From: Ale <ale-bounces at ale.org <mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org> > on behalf of Neal Rhodes via Ale <ale at ale.org <mailto:ale at ale.org> >
Reply-To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org <mailto:ale at ale.org> >
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2025 at 1:08 PM
To: <ale at ale.org <mailto:ale at ale.org> >
Cc: <neal at mnopltd.com <mailto:neal at mnopltd.com> >
Subject: [ale] So, Comcast says 8-16ms to their first hop is... OK?

We've been chasing why the church Unifi UDM Pro router is several times a day alerting that the Comcast Business Internet connection has gone down. 

I did some pathping (kinda like MTR) tests yesterday, and typical times to 8.8.8.8 from the back of the Comcast router, eliminating our local router and lan are about 16ms. 

Of that, 8-14ms is just the local Comcast router getting to its first hop.    

My AT&T Uverse is about 3ms to the first hop, and I understood that to be normal. 

I ping the Comcast Account manager, and here is the response:

Based on the findings, a lot of businesses/churches on the shared coax network in that area experience capacity issues which impacts reliability and performance.  To solve this issue, I'd suggest a complete network overhaul, which we could setup and manage.  

The first step would be migrating to a dedicated network.  Comcast would build out a dedicated fiber connection to the church to guarantee network uptime and speed consistency.  To guarantee wifi distribution/quality we would install a managed Meraki Device, with a new switch and Aps throughout the building. 

Comcast would invest $11,789.43 to run the fiber line ( no cost to the church), and the monthly cost for everything would be estimated in the 2k-2.5k per month.

Really?  Comcast Business Internet is that bad?  And it's ok? 

FYI, I have looked on what we could do to change the threshold in the Unifi router to relax the times and we can't find any such. 

regards, 

Neal  

_______________________________________________ Ale mailing list Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org>  https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org> 
https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20250906/f31f375e/attachment.htm>