Dane DeValcourt

Not sure if others saw this yet, it just got released from what I understand.

Now I know most in the City of Lafayette aren’t going to care much
about this due to LUS fiber slowly becoming available. But some others
around the Lafayette area outside of LUS planned rollout might.

My understanding is that the first plan is $89 a month for 50down/5up.
 I know I know.. 5up, lets just say its better than what Cox has been
offering so thats a good start.  :-)   There is also a $99 charge I
believe for the cable modem, I think you have to buy it outright from
Cox.  The modem in question is a Cisco DPC3000.

I think it is now ok to share that I have been testing it for about a
month now and so far so good.  Consistently get the speeds stated.

I know this isn’t for everyone, and I don’t want to get into the
arguments of what service is better and blah blah.  However, I should
point out if you look at the rest of the cable industry that has
rolled out DOCSIS 3 you will find that the prices are WAY higher than
the $89 that they are charging here in Lafayette.

To me this is a win for the Lafayette area.  And it sort of falls
right into line with what the fiber folk wanted in some ways which was
to push the incumbents to do and offer more to the area.  So I would
think even they should be somewhat happy with this in a way.

Should be particularly good for those ‘work at home’ folk who often
have the service paid for buy the company.  The better upload is
significant when compared to any of the current Cox offerings.

Here is the official press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2009

COX CONTACTS:
Patricia Parks – Cell: (337) 254-0341 – patricia.parks@cox.com
Ann Ruble – Cell: (225) 317-1807 – ann.ruble@cox.com

GREATER LOUISIANA IS FIRST NATIONAL MARKET TO LAUNCH COX’S ULTIMATE PACKAGE

Cox’s Lafayette Parish residential customers first in Cox’s national
footprint to receive speeds up to 50 Mbps through DOCSIS ® 3.0
Technology

Cox Business customers in Lafayette Parish also see first launch of
Cox Business Internet Ultra tier

LAFAYETTE / BATON ROUGE – Cox Communications today announced that it’s
launching the Ultimate Cox High Speed Internet Package in Lafayette
Parish, Louisiana including the cities of Broussard, Carencro, Duson,
Lafayette, Scott and Youngsville. This is the first market to launch
nationally for Cox. Powered by the strength of the cable industry’s
DOCSIS 3.0 technology, Ultimate Internet offers customers some of the
fastest broadband speeds in the marketplace, with downloads up to 50
Mbps and uploads up to 5 Mbps.

“We’re proud to be the first market where Cox is offering the new
technology of DOCSIS 3.0 to our customers,” stated Jacqui Vines,
senior vice president and regional manager for Cox Greater Louisiana.
“Cox has invested over $500 million regionally in our network
operations to ensure we continue to deliver on our commitment to
meeting customer needs. Our investments – and the talents of our
technical team – positioned us for this first in the nation launch.”

DOCSIS 3.0 is a cable-exclusive technology that allows providers to
combine Internet channels in a new way to offer even faster speeds and
more robust features. While Cox’s Ultimate Internet Package is
designed with the high-end computer user in mind, Cox continues to
offer several other levels of Internet service, for everyone from the
casual e-mail user to the avid music fan who enjoys downloading the
latest hits.

“We know customers are turning to the Internet for more
bandwidth-intensive purposes, such as watching videos online,
downloading music and gaming,” stated Vines.  “Ultimate Internet helps
these customers get more out of what they’re into by doing all these
things in record time.”

Cox Business Internet Ultra, the commercial package powered by DOCSIS
3.0, is also launching to customers in Lafayette Parish. Cox Business
Internet Ultra is the premium package for business customers and
includes download speeds up to 50 Mbps, upload speeds up to 5 Mbps,
five dynamic or static IP addresses, one hosted domain name, and 10
email boxes. While Cox Business has been offering dedicated speeds up
to 100 Mbps through fiber-to-the-premises construction throughout
Greater Louisiana, the Ultra package is the first time customers will
receive speeds of 50 Mbps through Cox’s existing network.

More information about Cox High Speed Internet is available at
www.cox.com/highspeedinternet.

® DOCSIS is a registered trademark of CableLabs. Used with permission.

###

About Cox Communications
Cox is a multi-service broadband communications and entertainment
company with more than 6 million total residential and commercial
customers. The third-largest cable television company in the United
States, Cox offers an array of advanced digital video, high-speed
Internet and telephony services over its own nationwide IP network.
Cox wholly owns and operates the Travel Channel.

Cox’s regional operations in Acadiana and Baton Rouge employ over
1,200 people with an annual payroll of over $45 million. In this
region, Cox serves 311,000 customers with voice, video and data
products in the 13 parishes of Acadia, Ascension, East Baton Rouge,
East Feliciana, Iberia, Iberville, Lafayette, Livingston, St. James,
St. Martin, St. Mary, Vermilion and West Baton Rouge.  Information
about the products and services offered in the combined Louisiana
markets can be found www.cox.com/greaterlouisiana.

Well it looks like Huval and Durel tried to sneak some announcements in regarding the LUS fiber pricing at tonights council meeting.  I suppose this short notice was an attempt to keep the incumbents from being on hand.  I also believe the only reason they announced the pricing tonight was because of the recent questions and concerns by the citizens over recent articles where Huval was very vague and basically hiding info and not being up front to the citizens of this city.  They “Durel and Huval” took a lot of flak in the comments for these various articles by the citizens who feel that both Durel and Huval seem to forget they work for the citizens of this city and that they are public servants.  These guys run things like a business (which can sometimes be a good thing) but they are very secretive and keep things from the public too often.

Anyway, I got wind of that they were making this pricing announcement tonight and so I tuned in and documented everything I could.  I posted everything as quickly as I could to LFT411.com and Twitter to reach as many people as possible.  It was nice to scoop The Advertiser and provide more details then what they did on their website.  Simple pleasures I know.

Here are the basics:

VIP (Video, Internet and Phone) – This is what LUS is calling things.  Personally I do kinda like this better than the “Triple Play” or “Bundle” that everyone else calls it.

Basic VIP –  Total $84.85  (Does not include taxes and fees)
80 Channels – $39.95
10 Mbps (up/down) – $28.95
Phone $15.95 and .05 min LD (Basic Features)

VIP Silver – $137.21 (Does not include taxes and fees)
250 Channels – $63.31
30 Mbps (up/down) – $44.95
Phone w/ extra features – $28.95

VIP Gold – $199.99 (Does not include taxes and fees)
250 Channels and Includes HD and Premium Movie Channels (Suites) 45+ HD? – $98.09
50 Mbps (up/down) – $57.95
Phone with Unlimited LD – $43.95

 

They also announced some business fiber internet plans:

Business Internet Plans:

10 Mbps – $64.95

 50 Mbps – $119.95

 100Mbps – $199.95

They rushed through things pretty quickly, I did record it (video) and could provide that but its not very good quality and hard to read the power point presentation.

Many people commented else where that they were more interested in the “A La Carte” pricing for TV services.  Well what they don’t know is that LUS stated (Huval) at the CampFiber event that they will not be able to offer “A La Carte” the content providers make this impossible with how they negotiate contracts, same thing the incumbents have been saying for some time but no one believes them because they are just after money, at least now that LUS is saying this people will finally understand that most of the incumbents have their hands tied in what they can and cant do by the content providers

For those that might be interested there is a Google Group up now regarding Lafayette Technology.  I think the purpose is to get various individuals in the community talking about technology and what it can do for our community.

Let’s see if this one has some staying power.

http://groups.google.com/group/lafayettetech

Ever since the CampFiber meeting this past weekend in Lafayette, Louisiana where I heard from Major Joey Durel and Terry Huval the Director of Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) who reported that they had selected Alcatel-Lucent for the Fiber To The Home service I have been very interested in more technical details of the network.

Being the geek that I am with a thirst of knowledge for all things networking related I decided to try seeing what solutions by Alcatel-Lucent might be used for this.

I didn’t find much but I did come across the Alcatel-Lucent 7342 Intelligent Service Access Manager (ISAM)

What I found interesting about this solution is on pg. 3 where it states:

“Each PON line supports 2.5 Gb/s downstream and 1.2 Gb/s upstream. In addition to GPON performance, PON lines can be extended up to 20 km with 32 subscribers per PON, or up to 64 subscribers per PON for shorter distances.”

So, each PON supports between 32 to 64 subscribers.  Each PON also supports 2.5Gb/s downstream and 1.2 Gb/s upstream.  So, lets say we go the minimum 32 subscribers.  If you divide the 2.5Gb/s by the 32 subscribers you get 78 Mb/s per user on the downstream.  If you divide the 1.2Gb/s by the 32 subscribers you get roughly 38 Mb/s.

None of this is a problem when we are just talking about the 10Mb/s for the internet service.  But it does lead to some concerns about the 100 Mb/s peer to peer capabilities.  Of course it is understood that all ISP’s over subscribe their service so it’s not a big surprise.

The numbers do get pretty darn low however when you go to the full 64 subscribers each PON is capable of.  For example, the 2.5 Gb/s downstream divided by 64 subscribers gives you only about 40 Mb/s.   The 1.2 Gb/s upstream divided by the 64 subscribers gives you only about 19 Mb/s.

Again I will be the first to admit that none of this is really all that bad.  It’s well above the 10 Mb/s minimum internet service they will be offering.  And since the 100 Mb/s Peer to Peer is kind of a lagniappe service I doubt anyone will complain if they find themselves in a situation where they are unable to attain the full 100 Mb/s service.

To me the most interesting part of it all is the fact that the upstream and downstream aren’t equal within the underlying infrastructure.

And what I would really be curious about is whether the video and voice services also use up some of this bandwidth as well which would effectively lower the total rates I provided previously.  The numbers above assume that the 2.5 and 1.2 are dedicated to data only which I really don’t think is the case.

Of course I don’t even know if this is the solution they picked and I suck at math so I could be way off about everything.  :-)

Another good read about this from Alcatel-Lucent:

http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/com/en/appcontent/opgss/23168_DeployFiber_wp_tcm228-1336491635.pdf

My last post regarding CampFiber reads awfully negative despite that not being my intent.  I did appreciate the event and I really do look forward to any future events that may come of this.

Kinda sad that it took someone from outside of Lafayette to organize the event, I sincerely appreciate Geoff Daily for doing this.

Here are a few key takeways for me from the event and things I look forward to in the future:

1.  Keith Thibodeaux from Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG) mentioned an iPhone application that was in the works!  This was something I actually planned to mention as an idea at the meeting so it was nice to here.  Wish there were some details as to what all it would do.  I envisioned an application that would have quick access to news and events in Lafayette, traffic cameras, traffic accidents and so on.  I will elaborate more on my application idea in another post.

2.  Someone discussed the idea of a tech festival of sorts.  Something like South By Southwest (SXSW) combining both technology and the ‘creative class’.  I kinda like the idea in general.  This is Lafayette, Louisiana after all where festivals are in our blood.  I could envision something like TechSouth meets Festival International.  It would be best to do it in conjunction with Festival International in my opinion.

3.  No A-La-Carte.  It was funny to hear Terry Huval say how impractical A-La-Carte service is and no one made a peep.  When the cable co’s and others state this everyone gets in a tizzy, but when LUS states this oh well thats ok we all understand.

4.  Wireless is a part of LUS’s plan / strategy but due to its unpredictable nature they don’t want to push it much.  Understandable.  I am still very intrigued about the possibilities surrounding the 700Mhz spectrum and what Cox will do with it in the Acadiana market.  Mobility is more important to me than any fiber to my home and its this technology that excites me.  There was some recent news regarding successful testing of 10GB wireless in labs!  Long time away from being anything more than just fantasy, but exciting stuff.

I had the opportunity to attend an event today titled “CampFiber” here in Lafayette, Louisiana.  I am grateful for the event and those who presented, but over all I was a bit underwhelmed and disappointed.  However I must say I don’t think I was really the target audience.

The event was aimed primarily at developers in an effort to brainstorm ideas on how best to leverage the soon to be fiber to the home (FTTH) deployed in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana by the local utility company, LUS Fiber.

Granted I am a network engineer and life long geek so anything to do with technology and networks I am interested in and thus why I attended.

One of the first things discussed was the set top box that LUS has picked to standardize on and its capability to provide a basic web browsing experience through the use of a wireless keyboard and mouse.  As developers they all wanted to know what the capabilities of the box and browser were so they could possibly work on solutions targeting those consumers.

We also got an earful from the owner/founder of Abacus Data Exchange.  She is quite proud of herself and her little business.  Which I just found to not be very impressive and not very well thought out.

The #1 issue I found actually seemed to be common shared ideal by most participants and with Abacus Data Exchange was they all just focused on what they could do just with LUS Fiber.   Granted this was “CampFiber” so I guess it makes sense.  But I just don’t know why anyone would create a business or application that was completely dependent on this one provider and 100Mbps peer to peer connectivity.

With Abacus the first issue I see as a network engineer is lack of peering relationships.  Heck they even have “exchange” in their name as to indicate they are an internet exchange point but the only connectivity they have is with LUS.  As a network engineer who has spent 15 years building, designing and working on networks for ISP’s and data centers one of the first things you do is ensure you have diverse paths.  Not just physical diversity but provider diversity as well.

I believe Lafayette is prime for a public data center right now.  But personally if I were designing it one of the first things I would do is ensure we had peering relationships with each of the main providers; LUS, Cox and AT&T.  This would be similiar to what NTG has done in Baton Rouge.

Why?  Well with true peering relationships with each of the main local providers you can tap into each of these consumer / user bases.   In some situations you could also possibly be able to avoid having to route traffic between say an LUS customer and Cox customer out over the internet and back.  This would be a great advantage for a data center especially if you offer colocation services for businesses looking to tap into one or more of these user bases.

I think Joey Durel and Terry Huval actually help make my arguement here when they both discussed how this network would be so far ahead of its time that the rest of the country might not catch up for 20+ years.  I find that hard to believe but if it were true then why would anyone want to develop anything that would only be useful to those on this network?   I simply wouldn’t want to limit myself in that way.  I read some LUS Fiber document that stated the pass rate as being roughly 57,000 and the take rate was estimated at 28,500.  Even if those numbers were on the low side I don’t know why one would want to design an application that solely catered to that market.  But thats just me.

Again I don’t blame anyone but myself here as I know I was not the target audience.  Despite all this being said I look forward to future events and what this might start.