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Making Last-Mile Ethernet A Reality

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yes-please dept.

vannevar writes: "Is that erbium-doped fiber you're smoking, or are those bandwidth crack-heads in the Ethernet First Mile Study Group turning up GigE fiber to the garage? Of course, no good deed or innovation goes unpunished, but at least someone is busting knuckles, carpal tunnels, wallets, and reputations to make Gigabit Ethernet To The Home a reality." You may remember this earlier mention of the same concept, but rather than just ideas and proposals, here are pretty pictures and delivery speeds that might even make non-Californians want to relocate.

2 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Skeptical... by mjh · · Score: 5
    While I would be one of the people who would try and sign up for this service, if it were available at my house, I find myself frustrated by their literature comparing the relative speeds of DSL, Cable Modem, etc. The comparo is here

    This guy does a naptser download to compare the relative speeds of DSL, Cable and GigE to the house. While I agree with the basic conclusions (that symetric is going to be better than asymetric, and that GigE will be faster), some of the things he says stretches credibilty, and for obvious reasons.

    It's just *NOT* a good test to use Napster as a mechanism for determing the relative speed of a first mile infrastructure. Or for that matter, any internet connected service. There are WAY too many variables in between me and the end site that I'm connected to on the Internet to be able to say that the underlying first mile infras is the problem. In particular the remote site may have an over subscription problem. Or the available internet bandwidth (beyond the first mile) may not be sufficient. NONE of these type of problems indicate anything about the capabilities of the first mile infrastructure.

    If you want good tests for the first mile, stick a server on the other end of the first mile and do bandwidth tests to that. Otherwise, it's just useless hype, and it doesn't really tell you anything. The conclusion that a DSL or Cable modem really doesn't offer any speed advantages over a regular modem is just plain wrong.

    That page, with its gross inaccuracies, would make me skeptical, as a customer as to whether or not anything provided by this organization would be reliable.

    $.02
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    --
    Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
  2. Hey great... by artemis67 · · Score: 5
    I got gigabit ethernet to my home!

    Now if only I had some fricken power to run my computer...