| From: Alvin Starr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | The issue is not just the last mile speed to your house but what is the | backing service provided. I simplify it to three parts (terms are different for cable): 1. last mile (user to CO) 2. backhaul (CO to a big centre / Point of Presence for 3rd party ISP) 3. big centre / 3rd party ISP to cloud Note: this is a model and not 100% accurate. 3rd party ISPs pay a ridiculous amount for backhaul because the CRTC got bamboozled. So much that those ISPs wanted to pool together to provide their own backhaul network but Bell and Rogers would not let them put equipment in the COs. The third one matters but is generally beyond the ken of we who are customers. If you do traceroutes, sometime you can see backlogs at exchanges (packet loss). They usually reflect games being played by the gods. For example: Bell used to refuse to interconnect with Rogers so traffic that should have been exchanged at 1 Front St. went to Chicago and back.