I purchased a single GigE transport link from them between a off-net building that they lit for us and a lit site. Install went without issue, including pulling in new fiber. Never underestimate the advantages of having pole and conduit rights. My only complaint would be interval - it took nearly 120 days from order to install and much of that was seemingly spent idle. The service itself has been rock solid. Unfortunately they don't span across metros within the same logical network (yet) - this would definitely be a bonus. -Dave Sean Head wrote:

I just started looking into them as well. Mind of I has for similar info? (maybe just keep the responses on list?)

-Sean

On 2009.12.23 01:10:39, Brandon Galbraith wrote:

...

We're looking at using Comcast's (business) transit and private ethernet services at several client locations and I wanted to see what experiences others have had regarding this. Off-list replies are preferred.

Thanks, -brandon

On Mon, 4 Jan 2010, Holmes,David A wrote:

I do not know of Comcast's Ethernet services specifically, but a general problem with carrier Ethernet services that are based upon the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) is that PIM-snooping is not implemented for multicast traffic. The absence of PIM-snooping results in the carrier's Ethernet service operating like a 1990's style Ethernet hub in which (S,G) multicast packets are incorrectly flooded out all user ports.

Not implemented because it's not in the MEF specs or not implemented because of carrier operational practice? Antonio Querubin 808-545-5282 x3003 e-mail/xmpp: tony@lava.net

The Deathstar opt-e-man service says they will knee-cap you at 1Mb/s of multicast. - Jared On Jan 4, 2010, at 4:56 PM, Holmes,David A wrote:

PIM-snooping is not in the MEF specs, but should be if multicast is to work properly over a carrier's Ethernet service. Regardless of the specs, RFPs and other user requirements for Ethernet services should include a "must have" clause requiring PIM-snooping functionality.

-----Original Message----- From: Antonio Querubin [mailto:tony@lava.net] Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 12:13 PM To: Holmes,David A Cc: Brandon Galbraith; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Experiences with Comcast Ethernet/Transit service

On Mon, 4 Jan 2010, Holmes,David A wrote:

...

I do not know of Comcast's Ethernet services specifically, but a general problem with carrier Ethernet services that are based upon the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) is that PIM-snooping is not implemented for multicast traffic. The absence of PIM-snooping results in the carrier's Ethernet service operating like a 1990's style Ethernet hub in which (S,G) multicast packets are incorrectly flooded out all user ports.

Not implemented because it's not in the MEF specs or not implemented because of carrier operational practice?

Antonio Querubin 808-545-5282 x3003 e-mail/xmpp: tony@lava.net

I've found them to be quite sufficient here in the PDX metro area. They support all L2 tunnels, in particular, QnQ which I require. We have diverse paths, multiple strands and multi-colored. We are a bit of a special case as we are serviced by a group that is intended for government and education which gives us pricing breaks. The commercial shots I have out to meet-me POPs are priced diffrently. Their CPE devices are migrating to Cisco ME3400, etc. devices. Their tiered pricing is based on link speed which I'm not necessarily pleased with but they're starting to become more flexible. They aren't currently honoring our P-tags so our locations that may be oversubscribed have difficulty with priority queueing. Their new core in our area is a single C 7.6k. I would rather they moved from their older F Big Iron to a J MX or C GSR, but I'm sure the group that services us is faced with limited resources (ref pricing breaks earlier). The customer portal provides custom/customer views on their Orion instance which I find even more useful than my own Cacti graphs at times. The engineering staff is very accesible (again our group is unique). I'd like to see them put gear in more colos and hotels. Their uptime and reliability from my perspective has been right on target. -b On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Brent Jones <brent@servuhome.net> wrote:

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 1:10 AM, Brandon Galbraith <brandon.galbraith@gmail.com> wrote:

...

We're looking at using Comcast's (business) transit and private ethernet services at several client locations and I wanted to see what experiences others have had regarding this. Off-list replies are preferred.

Thanks, -brandon

-- Brandon Galbraith Mobile: 630.400.6992

This was a timely question, as we've have a GigE fiber line with them for 6 months now. Largely, the link performs at ~999Mbit 99% of the time :) However, we've had two issues with connectivity that seem to originate from their network. The link will show up, but both sides of our fiber will show 0 frames received, and lots of transmit errors. It takes a call into the Comcast NOC each time for them to resolve it, but they've been silent on what may actually be going on. These interruptions last anywhere from 30 minutes, to the last one almost 7 hours (luckily over a weekend).

Benefits to this, being Metro Ethernet, they do support tagged VLAN's, so cost to entry is low in terms of equipment and setup/support.

Our link goes between downtown Portland, OR, to across the river to East Vancouver and Mill Plain.

-- Brent Jones brent@servuhome.net

-- Bill Blackford Network Engineer