Would Linus compare the Ruckus Zoneflex R720 to the Netgear Orbi

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, ryao said:

To be accurate, cable internet requires a modem too.

That is what I said .

 

5 minutes ago, ryao said:

While they aren't popular here, that is partly because every single person with a clue about technology will tell anyone asking about it to avoid these at all costs. Also, originally, DOCSIS ISPs didn't provide a router because you were expected to plug your sole computer into the modem. I think the same was true for DSL.

 

I don't know how things developed elsewhere, but I'd be surprised if they had integrated units back when homes had a single machine that used wired ethernet to connect to broadband modems.

DSL always went to combo units that were modem/router/switch, directly plugging in wasn't a thing for it. DSL came in when there was a big push from the ISP community to use NAT to preserve IPv4 address space as they actually caught on rather quickly that it would run out. I have never seen an ISP in NZ, Aus or anywhere else not give out all in one units to new DSL customers.

 

I suffered through the horrors of dial-up, through all the DSL standards and now GPON, boy technology used to be so bad. 

[leadeater]

33 minutes ago, ryao said:

While I am on the topic of their internet connectivity, here are my issues with the infrastructure:

1. Nearly all peering/transit links between ISPs within the country are saturated. The only things that could make full use of a 230Mbps down 23Mbps up internet connection's download were speedtest.net using the ISP's own test server and in rare instances, Steam, although that would be for less than 1% of the duration of a download.
2. The CPE is heavily backdoored and once you have access to an advanced interface for technicians, it is blatantly obvious. There are features for remote administration that are enabled. There is also a dyndns updater that is updating a non-existent domain name with information.
3. There is no encryption used at all, such that neighbors should be able to snoop on download traffic with promiscuous mode, although I did not try. I realize that PPPoE's encryption is broken, but they could at least make it look like they were trying.
4. There is no IPv6 and you can't get it because the GFW doesn't support IPv6 and hell will feeze before they let their citizens access the internet without the GFW.
5. International traffic latencies are terrible due to terrible routing. Packets going to Hong Kong is routed to an area north of Beijing while data going to South Korea or Japan is routed through Hong Kong. It is as if they are trying to make latencies terrible. What is sad is that I noticed when doing traceroutes from Shanghai to NY using a shell on a router at a relative's apartment around June one year that they had fixed this. By the time I visited in the Fall, things were broken again.
6. International communications have high packet loss (5% to 15%). While some would blame the government on this, my evaluation is that it occurs naturally without any need for the government to lift a finger. There is just too much demand and not enough supply to the entire region. This is demonstrated by machines in South Korea and Japan exhibiting the same high packet loss.

This can all be summed up with "Welcome to China". They do so much weird stuff and block, unblock, change things so often is a nightmare. It's bad enough we have to provision web servers in China Azure to service international students from there otherwise it just doesn't work. Even getting access to China Azure is hard enough in itself, have to jump through a lot of hoops.

[ryao]

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

DSL always went to combo units that were modem/router/switch, directly plugging in wasn't a thing for it. ... I have never seen an ISP in NZ, Aus or anywhere else not give out all in one units to new DSL customers.

I am surprised. Are technology-fluent people (i.e. the type that would read/watch reviews and post on online forums) there happy with that or do they put the ISP units into bridge mode so that they can use their own equipment for routing, switching and wifi?

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

DSL came in when there was a big push from the ISP community to use NAT to preserve IPv4 address space as they actually caught on rather quickly that it would run out. 

Conserving IP address space is a thing here too, but distributing NAT routers was unnecessary to conserve address space given that only 1 address was allowed per modem. If you wanted more and you did not have a NAT router, you had to use Windows’ Internet Connection Sharing (which is a software NAT router plus a few other bits) or you were out of luck.

 

At first, people would run out to Best Buy or some other store to buy a router (typically a linksys that had a bundled AP) and set it up if they wanted multiple machines to share internet. At some point, ISPs noticed a money making opportunity and started renting them (while providing them by default with new installations), but the modem and router are typically separate. The only people here in the United States that have a preference for integrating the two are the people that are completely clueless about technology as far as I can tell.

 

That said, anyone buying an Asus gaming router or an Eero mesh solution has already given up on the idea of having a single device for everything. Also, anyone watching Linus Tech Tips or reading SNB is in an entirely different class of user than the average user that ISPs handle. I think that a review that shows the enterprise options are not just viable, but better and cheaper, would be able to disregard the preferences of the general public because they aren’t the target auidence for any of this anyway.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, ryao said:

I am surprised. Are technology-fluent people (i.e. the type that would read/watch reviews and post on online forums) there happy with that or do they put the ISP units into bridge mode so that they can use their own equipment for routing, switching and wifi?

Hell no, we all bridge to proper stuff and throw the ISP garbage out. Don't even use their stuff for bridging, Draytek Vigor is the best around for DSL. I'm on GPON now so it doesn't even matter, I just go directly from the ONT to my fortigate.

[ryao]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Hell no, we all bridge to proper stuff and throw the ISP garbage out. Don't even use their stuff for bridging, Draytek Vigor is the best around for DSL. I'm on GPON now so it doesn't eve matter, I just go directly from the ONT to my fortigate.

I would love to replace my ISP provided GPON ONT with a GPON SFP transceiver, but GPON has the most draconian anti-consumer design ever conceived. The specification requires that the devices verify that a profile provided by the OLT matches them and quits if not. This breaks compatibility when the customer wants to change the device.

 

I imagine that telecommunications companies love it because it gives them out-of-band telephony that can be given strict QoS guarantees and cannot be targeted by a IP-based DoS attack, but I am not a fan because their GPON ONT wastes power, adds latency and is a security risk. There is very little security research on GPON ONTs done because of how much effort it takes to study them, but that is security by obscurity, which is bad.

 

GPON also has so many proprietary extensions that what interoperability might have existed in theory does not exist in practice, even for ISPs, which raises the price of service because they pass the increased equipment costs from vendor lock-in on to us.