Re: Recommended ISP's
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Brett Carrington wrote:
> But how? The lines are -still- shared, they didn't change the entire
> infastructure. Is each user's cable connection now encrypted
> end-to-end? I imagine any amount of secure encryption would really
> hurt people trying to play bandwidth-heavy games. (Not in actual
> bandwidth but computational time on what I assume are minimally
> powered cable modems.)
Cable companies that implement DOCSIS 1.1 can use something called
Baseline Privacy Interface, which essentially provides for just that.
Cox Communications (as an example) has turned it on for most if not all
of their cable systems. BPI provides for encryption from the modem to
the CMTS (where the cable system meets the rest of the IP network,
essentially).
I used to work for Cox, and I don't recall hearing any complaints at
all in terms of speed or latency issues. A few modems here and there
balked at the config changes, but those were issues with those modems,
and nothing inherent in BPI or DOCSIS 1.1.
Of course, BPI only works (I believe) if the modem is DOCSIS 1.1
compliant or better. Older modems won't be able to use it. In those
cases, Cox falls back to ordinary unencrypted transmission.
- Aaron
--
Aaron Hall : I claim this planet in the name of Mars.
ahall@vitaphone.net : Hmmm, isn't that lovely?
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