Service Electric Cablevision/Service Electric Cable TV Discussion

Jed1 · 2025-01-18T18:38:30+00:00

Hi, I'm picking up where we left off at DSL Reports. This thread is for anything Service Electric related. I even added the other division so this thread will cover all the Service Electric divisions. SECV is Hazleton, Sunbury, and Birdsboro and SECTV is Allentown, Wilkes Barre, and Phillipsburg NJ. Hopefully everybody from the old site will find their way here.

cypherstream

dishrich I don’t know. I asked them and they said it can’t be used that way… only tablets and phones. They thanked me for the suggestion though.

It doesn’t come up in Apple TV store or my Google play store on my Sony x900h Android TV. It does appear in Apple App Store on my phone, and it looks like Google play store for mobile.

Unless they change something, it’s a non-starter for me.

They are heavily pushing fiber. See constriction almost every day now in another area. I see the utility work ahead sign, flagger ahead and I’m like, if it’s SECV fiber, I don’t mind! Get it done boys!

bsocko

The heat is on!! I guess I just don’t understand how one provider was the status quo forever and now everyone is on an overbuilding spree. For example Danville and Bloomsburg has soooo many fiber providers its not even funny. Jlink, SECV, Fastbridge, Empire Access and now Comcast?!

Comcast has already begun connecting the first homes and businesses in Mifflin Township, and will soon expand services across North Centre, Orange, Scott, and South Centre Townships. The project is paving the way for future expansions towards Bloomsburg and Danville.

[https://www.northcentralpa.com/news/comcast-announces-upcoming-columbia-county-service-expansion/article_7e8229dd-159a-496a-84e4-7887cc80f0c2.html)

What’s Next: Central Columbia County
Building on this expansion, Comcast has begun connecting the first homes and businesses in Mifflin Township and will soon expand service across North Centre, Orange, Scott, and South Centre Townships — bringing multi-gigabit Internet to more than 2,700 homes and businesses in Columbia County. This project is also paving the way for future expansion toward Bloomsburg and Danville. Soon, these communities will join the nearly 65 million locations nationwide already connected to America’s smartest and most reliable converged network

[https://corporate.comcast.com/stories/local/pennsylvania/reliable-multi-gigabit-internet-from-xfinity-now-available-to-new-communities-across-carbon-luzerne-and-schuylkill-counties-in-pennsylvania#:~:text=This%20work%20follows%20Comcast's%20recent,connectivity%20and%20Internet%20adoption%20programs.)

cypherstream

bsocko I swear Comcast wants to one day have the entire state of PA covered.

Should be ePON if the build is designed after 2025.

They rolled out traditional RPHY mid split HFC down here 2022-2024. Recently been swapping out those mid split amplifiers for FDX, but no docsis 4.0 service is offered anywhere yet (tried various addresses within eye shot of an FDX amp or Harmonic node).

SECV has a few splice boxes up. Moving along nicely. Looking forward to it. Hope the Iran war and fuel prices don’t slow things down.

cypherstream

bsocko Fastbridge fiber is down in parts of Reading and surrounding communities. They use CG-NAT unless you play an extra $10 a month. They peer directly with Cogent and Level 3. The first trace out of their relativly small IP block is cogent.

https://bgp.he.net/AS1088

Fastbridge Trace:

Traceroute from 192.168.1.236 to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1):
1 192.168.1.1 1.869ms 0.728ms 0.586ms  
2 vl2002vrrp (167.94.99.129) 4.659ms 1.423ms 1.633ms  
3 10.0.1.2 8.355ms 8.571ms 8.508ms  
4 * * *  
5 38.88.214.142 13.548ms 13.327ms 13.773ms  
6 173.245.63.219 14.302ms 15.947ms 12.868ms  
7 one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1) 12.508ms 12.031ms 12.326ms

Traceroute from 192.168.1.236 to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8):
1 192.168.1.1 1.47ms 1.105ms 0.873ms  
2 vl2002vrrp (167.94.99.129) 1.823ms 1.356ms 2.054ms  
3 10.0.1.2 8.109ms 7.897ms 8.451ms  
4 10.0.1.1 7.996ms 8.628ms 8.594ms  
5 et-1-0-23.bar3.Philadelphia1.Level3.net (4.37.232.137) 11.589ms 11.352ms 12.088ms  
6 ae2.3611.edge2.NewYork6.net.lumen.tech (4.69.209.82) 15.766ms 16.523ms 19.282ms  
7 15169-3356-nyc.sp.lumen.tech (4.68.68.146) 13.258ms 13.69ms 13.503ms  
8 108.170.229.101 13.952ms 13.747ms 13.434ms  
9 142.251.65.95 13.006ms 13.21ms 12.904ms  
10 dns.google (8.8.8.8) 13.388ms 12.732ms 13.045ms

Jlink… never heard of them, but they peer with ptd.net and zito media (of all companies)!
https://bgp.he.net/AS394305

Not sure what Empire Access ASN is, there’s a lot with “Empire” in the name, but if I had to take a guess it would be: https://bgp.he.net/AS11962#_asinfo which peers with Crown Castle and Level 3.

EDIT: This may be Empire based on the whois information having a 570 area code. I wasn’t sure at first because the peers are not local, but when I look at the topology, everything goes through Hurricane Electric, so they can get you basically anywhere.
https://bgp.he.net/AS40545#_asinfo

MapGuy11

cypherstream
I have a client with Empire Access in Williamsport. All IPv4 stuff is CG-NAT with fully working IPv6. They are AS # 40545. Fastbridge is similar in Williamsport as it is in Reading but has a couple more hops.

Empire Access in Williamsport IPv4 Traceroute:

Tracing route to one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  unifi.mainnet.xx.lan [10.89.95.1]
  2     3 ms     2 ms     3 ms  10.255.255.227
  3     3 ms     3 ms     2 ms  10.255.255.227
  4     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  ip-pool.cust.empireaccess.com [199.190.197.193]
  5    12 ms    11 ms    12 ms  66.115.66.18
  6    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  de-cix-new-york.as13335.net [206.82.104.68]
  7    14 ms    15 ms    14 ms  162.158.61.111
  8    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]

Fastbridge Fiber in Williamsport:

traceroute to 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  100.64.68.1 (100.64.68.1)  1.775 ms  0.923 ms  1.673 ms
 2  10.0.1.10 (10.0.1.10)  7.087 ms  6.811 ms  6.687 ms
 3  10.0.1.21 (10.0.1.21)  6.174 ms  6.206 ms  5.731 ms
 4  147.185.187.17 (147.185.187.17)  8.037 ms  7.631 ms  8.042 ms
 5  10.0.1.2 (10.0.1.2)  7.658 ms  7.057 ms  7.790 ms
 6  *  *  *
 7  38.32.185.178 (38.32.185.178)  11.292 ms  38.88.214.142 (38.88.214.142)  12.520 ms  38.32.185.178 (38.32.185.178)  11.165 ms
 8  173.245.63.211 (173.245.63.211)  11.123 ms  173.245.63.201 (173.245.63.201)  12.021 ms  173.245.63.177 (173.245.63.177)  11.105 ms
 9  one.one.one.one (1.1.1.1)  10.717 ms  13.254 ms  13.933 ms

cypherstream

Oh boy… I hope the fiber shortage doesn’t impact SECV…

https://www.reddit.com/r/FiberOptics/s/l6qL0lzxc5

MapGuy11

Seems like SECV just released a $20 mini-pack for TiVo users.
https://www.secv.com/etv/

cypherstream

MapGuy11
Ah I see. App cheap faith and family based stuff, no OTA or sports (so no broadcast or RSN fees to be paid). Not a terrible idea. With IPTV they can push channels in any order they want to different people very easily.

My concern is that I hope they have enough fiber in stock to finish the rollout. It’s getting hard to get single mode fiber in any quantities thanks to AI ruining the marketplace like they’ve been doing with other things (energy, ram, cpu, storage), war time manufacturing constraints (oil, fiber for drones) and big committed contracts (Meta, AT&T).

Jed1

cypherstream I have a package called essentials pak it is classic cable with all the sports channels removed. It is not listed and you have to call and ask for it. I have it for 8 years now and it saved me around $44/month when I first got it.
There is no fiber work being done at all in and around Frackville. I see fiber work in Pottsville when I was there on Tuesday. They replaced the power supply to my node on December 1st, but it has a solid green light with a constantly flashing red light. For some reason I only have an upload speed of around 40 up. Not the 100 I am supposed to have. I will have to do a reset to factory defaults on the modem to see if I can fix it.

Neighbor texted me last night that her TiVo Stream wasn’t working so I had her unplug it and plug it in again. This is the second time in the past two months that this has happened. I didn’t go over and look in the TiVo diagnostics screen to see what is wrong.

The TiVo app you guys are talking about is just for out of the home streaming of your content and not to be used to get your subscription on a non SECV TiVo box. I have the same thing for my consumer TiVo units. I have it for about 10 years now. This will only work for your TiVo account and nothing else. My consumer accounts are not interchangeable with SECV TiVo accounts so my out of home streaming will not work with their units or vice versa.

cypherstream

Jed1 there’s nothing but complaints about SECV’s TiVo. On Facebook or Nextdoor, big thing is it freezes, spinning circles, pixilation, audio issues, no connection errors, etc…

I hope SECV and their contractors bought and have enough fiber already in stock to get the work done. Seems the fiber network runs TiVo better. I know a guy whose speeds are reversed. Like 60-70 mbps upload, and only 20 download! He said it’s his whole neighborhood. While Comcast is available too, they are gonna wait for SECV fiber.

Check your signal page, make sure you still have that OFDMA channel. My SB8200 has been getting pretty consistent 938 mbps down by 96 mbps up. Sometimes there’s a little dip here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty good. Fibers up all around me in the aerial developments. Not spliced and active yet, but the taps are all there. Waiting to see them come through here and fill the conduits thru buried last summer.

MapGuy11

Anyone have a change in speed? I am not sure if it was due to the heavy weather yesterday but it now seems like 500/50 has bumped to 650/65.

cypherstream

MapGuy11 Did you have a power blip after the storms? Usually a modem reboot picks the changes up.

I took of Unifi smart queues and tested. Got 937 down by 103 up. With smart queues enabled get 941.9 down, 96.7 up. My gig plan likely doesn’t have a ton of headroom on an SB8200 modem. Maybe I could see them tossing us a little more of an upload bone, but with fiber so close I didn’t think they’d invest in coax plant anymore.

Though the node utilization must be down since defecations to Comcast and migrations to fiber. That leaves more bandwidth on the table to go around. If DOCSIS does see a speed bump, I’d wonder if pon will follow (650/650 for example instead of 500/500).

I’ll try a modem reboot when I have time. Lights flickered during the storm but we didn’t loose power. Everything’s on an APC 1500 UPS anyway so I get almost 2 hours of runtime.

cypherstream

MapGuy11 rebooted modem. No change here.

WiFi speedtest (smart queues disabled so latency spikes)

MapGuy11

cypherstream
Yes the power did blip a couple of times during the storm. Still speeds at what I can assume are 650/65. Maybe they are making modifications on the lower tiers.

cypherstream

I put smart queues back on. It really helps latency during speed tests / maxed out connections.

You can see the upload latency spike between 10:30 and 11 when I had it disabled just to see if there were any speed upgrades.

Currently on the site, it still shows the same speeds…
250/25
500/50
1000/100
2000/200

Maybe if anything they will touch the bottom two? 300/30, 650/65? Maybe, it would match Comcast’s entry speed of 300 for $40. 650 would just beat Comcast’s second tier of 500 for $50. I think there’s too many variables with customer owned modems to certify over 100mbps in the upload. They’ll likely try to push those customers to fiber (assuming the fiber shortage doesn’t affect them). Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it go to like 150 upload and 250 upload, but I don’t see it happening. If there ends up being a fiber shortage, I’d hope they would explore faster DOCSIS uploads. I know they had a DOCSIS engineer position open last year and they were asking for DOCSIS 4.0 ESD, DOCSIS 3.1+ experience. Multiple OFDM / OFDMA bonds for crazy speeds. I don’t see them ever touching amps again (already midsplit), but possibly refarming some upstream for wider OFDMA - thats IF they get into a 5 year fiber leadtime.

bsocko

There should make the top tier 2500 × 250.
Gig tier to 1500 × 150
That would require zero technical or hardware changes as that is already their hardware out in the field.

cypherstream

bsocko That would make me consider grabbing one of their CM9200 modems since my 8200 only has gig-e ports.

cypherstream

ECE (Eustis Cable) was just here working on this splice. Looks to me they worked till 7 PM. It’s nice it stays light out later. I think they work 4 × 10 hour days (I haven’t seen them anywhere on Fridays)… but I don’t know.

This is real close to me.

This is another installation of a new splice box by one of our neighborhood nodes. The above ground portion of my adjacent development looks wired. No signs of underground work yet. The vault in my yard is still empty.

cypherstream

MapGuy11 Ok yeah I know someone on 250/25 and I had them reboot the modem and they tested about 370 down but had a quick peak at 390 down and a solid 35 up.

So yeah this is a great response to Comcast’s plans which I noted is prepaid 100m, or 300, 500, 1000, 2000. SECV’s lower two tiers now edge up ahead of Comcast, with lower latency. Good interim step and I’d imagine the fiber plans will follow.

I’m not sure what the official marketing is on the 250 plans adjustment since he got between 370-390. Could it really be 400/35, or is it really 350/35 and it was just a speedtest fluke.

bsocko

I can confirm that the 250×25 plan is now 350 by 35. They rebooted modem remotely and knocked the PFSense Netgate appliance offline. After I rebooted that these were the new speeds.

This is at a remote camera site in Elysburg.

cypherstream

bsocko Nice, 50mbps more on the download than Comcast’s standard 300mbps plan.

350/35
650/65
1000/100
2000/200
(Still think they should have thrown us a bone on the higher two tiers)…

Don’t see any changes on the website, but then I suppose, theoretical fiber would be
350/350*
650/650*
1000/1000
2000/2000
5000/5000
8000/8000

If they follow that same pattern.

« Previous Page Next Page »