[ale] Comcast Business Class experiences?

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:20:21 -0400
Chris Woodfield <rekoil at semihuman.com> wrote:
> So, I'm looking at Comcast's "Business Class" service - from talking  
> to a rep, I'm looking at saving about $30/month if I go with their  
> 6Mbps/1Mbps service and get 5 static IPs (The speakeasy plan I was
> on included 4, and gives me 768K up). I can make do with a single
> static and shave off another $5/month, but I'm not keen on having to
> set up port forwarding.

I have a 23/3 connection with Comcast Business, and 5 static IPs.  There
were a few issues having to do with the sensitivity of their equipment
to the wiring situation here at the apartment complex, but they've been
quick to resolve that, sending a tech out often before COB the day I
report the issue.

As far as I see, there is no NAT of the static IPs.  However, the
device does let you NAT machines if you want.  You can run a DHCP
server and give them RFC-1918 addresses.  It will then NAT via the
"gateway" IP.  A little on that:

The 5 IP plan is really them giving you a /29.  Of course, the first is
the network number, the last is the broadcast, so there are 6 left.
The combo cablemodem/router-switch uses the last of the six available
IPs as its own, and performs various functions via that IP address.
That means that you get the first five usable out of the /29 for your
own machines, plus the device does the NATting for RFC1918 addresses
for you.

> How reliable/responsive *is* the Business Class service compared to  
> Comcast residential? I've heard the myriad horror stories, but they  
> all seem to come from the residential customers. Any insights/ 
> experiences from Business customers here?

Compared to residential?  I'd *never* go back to residential.  Ever.
If I call for support, I can get Tier 2 people now, and they actually
*know* something.  IOW, you don't get a password-resetter and you don't
have to tell them eleventyone times that "Y'all have a routing issue,
and here's the traceroutes to show it," with them going "Huh?".

> Does Comcast apply bandwidth caps/port blocking to Business Class  
> customers?

No port blocking that I've detected, and no caps on business.  The caps
are residential-only.

> How is the CPE set up - I've seen forum posts suggesting that it's
> not a true bridge, and that even a static IP is set up as some sort
> of 1- to-1 NAT on the CPE. This will break my 6in4 tunneling (unless
> the CPE can terminate the tunnel), so I'd like to know if it can be
> set up in a true bridging mode.

Depends on how the tech initially sets it up.  The guys that came out
to do the install did it wrong, and had the thing pulling a DHCP
address and doing (some) of its routing through that.  A quick call to
Comcast fixed that.  You can check that, by the way, by just going to a
machine with an RFC1918 address and going to any "What is my IP" Web
site.  If it's the IP for the gateway as mentioned above, it's set up
correctly.  If it looks like a Comcast Residential IP address, then it
isn't.

> All in all, think it's worth the money I'd be saving to make the move?

I do.  It's been very much worth it for us.  Of course, it's also the
only option in our area... that said, we went over the residential
usage limit and so that's why were on the business plan now.

But it's *much* faster, and the price isn't horrible compared to what
we were paying for the residential service.  One thing, though: they
*have* to do the install.  If you don't want to pay them to do the
install, you have to sign up for a three year contract.  However, they
will let you out of that (of course) if you move outside of Comcast
territory, so it's easy enough to get out of the three year contract if
needed.

Also, I've heard that they're going to be rolling out DOCSIS 3
equipment to business-class users first.  That's not a certainty, but
if it's anything like some of the rollouts they've done already,
that'll mean 150 Mbps fairly soon around these parts...

	--- Mike
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