During this past weekend spending some time with my parents in Virginia (it was my mother’s birthday and she wanted to spend some time with her mother and sister) I’ve come back somewhat interested in getting into some of the more geeky hobbies of the years past Amateur Radio. Don’t be confused by the name Amateur Radio simply means it is non-commercial and they cannot be paid (with very few exceptions) for operating various stations across much of the US. Most of the “Amateurs” are very highly skilled electronic engineers (many without formal training) and build their own antennas and equipment for transmitting and receiving radio signals as well as analyzing.

A couple years ago for Christmas I got my dad a 2-Meter HT (Hand-held Transceiver) shortly after he received his Technician’s license (callsign KI4NDF) for operating a limited set of frequencies on Amateur bands. I had very little interest at that point, and was basically feeding his hobby. I saw modern day technologies as more interesting and my dad’s interest in repeaters seemed to be as close to talking on Skype or Ventrilo as anything else with a considerable less cost involved by using the latter. He has since tested for his General and Amateur Extra license and now has the callsign of AI4ZV.

It wasn’t until this past weekend that something actually piqued my interest… (more…)

A Little of the Geeky Background

Before you read any further, get this straight: I DO NOT OWN THE DOMAIN. It is still unknown who purchased the domain.

I’ve got the knowledge that should squelch any thoughts otherwise by any logical person. Admittedly, I found it amusing and slightly humorous, if for no reason but it was grounds for a great lesson in DNS and Domain Registration.

–Original Content Omitted–

I love my job and the technology I get to deal with on a daily basis… It’s amazing what some people will believe without understanding how the internet, browsers, email clients, and servers work when presented with partial evidence.

Erroneous Claims

All of the sites claiming or inferring John McCain’s campaign owns the domains and registered them privately to dodge the possible scandal are making up what they think is news without actually checking the facts. The truth is it could be anyone that registered the domains (including Sarah Palin herself) but the proof can only be obtained with a subpoena to the Private Registration holder DomainsByProxy. DomainsByProxy happens to be used by GoDaddy and Network Solutions, the biggest domain registrars on the internet. I have used DomainsByProxy for a couple of my domains in the past (and on a somewhat unrelated note I started receiving credit card offers in the mail shortly after I discontinued using their services). That doesn’t mean that my domains were once owned by John McCain’s campaign does it? To reiterate: for the record, I DO NOT OWN THE DOMAIN. It is still unknown who purchased the domain. (more…)

After reading Phragmunkee’s Q&A, I still had some questions left over for EPB.

Q. What bandwidth tiers are going to be offered?

A. We have not finalized our product sets or tiers at this time. We do expect to have multiple bandwidth offerings, ranging from 6 Mbps up to 20, 30 or even 50 Mbps, depending on demand. All customers will have dedicated bandwidth which means that it isn’t shared with other customers, and the customer who is paying for the connection is always getting the speed they subscribe to.

Q. Is bandwidth going to be symmetrical upstream/downstream?

A. Upload and download speeds will be symmetrical.

Q. Is a basic subscriber (like most subscribers) going to be NAT’d behind one EPB router, or are we going to be given a static or persistant dynamic IP address? Some of us may wish to port forward some things through our personal routers so we can utilize the resources of our connection for server roles (Email, Web, VoIP, Game, SQL, etc.).

A. The system will use a combination of public and private IP addresses in our network core. Static or persistent IPs will be available but we may require a separate service. We are in vendor negotiations now and this may be dependent on the vendor we end up choosing.

Q. Will our p2p bandwidth be throttled or even cut off (like Comcast’s “Sandvine”) or will non-abusive p2p/torrent (legal distribution) traffic be allowed by default?

A. We believe our customers know the importance of respecting others and policies that ensure fairness. For that reason, we will likely determine a usage policy that will be very favorable to the average to slightly-heavy user. Users who exceed these caps may be required to pay for additional usage.

Q. How does EPB feel about Net Neutrality? If EPB doesn’t have an official stance, how about the board of directors? Does EPB stand on the side of their potential customers (net-neutral) or their investors(whatever it takes to make more money)?

A. Our current ISP network is operated on a network neutrality basis. All ISP traffic is given best effort priority. As long as we operate a non-congested network, best effort for all users allows us to meet the bandwidths being purchased by the customer. It is not our intention to allow network congestion that would lead to prioritizing use for any user.

Q. Did EPB take notes from our Tennessee Valley neighbors in Dalton, GA (Dalton Utilities) on their “OptiLink” Service?

A. We have visited many FTTH providers and have tried to incorporate best practices learned from each.