Slashdot Mirror
Rolling DSL and Wireless Access Out In One Swoop
B1ackFa1c0n writes: "Finally those of us in telecom valley (Petaluma/Santa Rosa, CA)
are getting DSL with a twist... Vista Broadband is beginning to roll out DSL to those of us beyond the SBC limit. Rumours have it that every home that installs gets a wireless router and an antenna on the roof - effectively expanding Vista's wireless network at the same time. If enough people sign up, this would allow seamless wireless coverage for the whole area *at a profit* to Vista."
Wireless access on the roof? That's not DSL, that's probably microwave or something. DSL only works over copper phone lines; any other form of broadband is not DSL. What's the deal here?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If they do it in a responsible way, they split the bandwith (x MBit for the customer, rest for the WAP), but without sharing the broadcast domain. DSL modems usually have an ATM mode which could be used to create separate channels, guaranteeing QOS to the customer and keeping the wireless traffic away from his network socket.
This is not DSL, it is wireless broadband - probably not unlike the Nokia Rooftop system that Cringely mentioned not too long ago...
Jeff
Stupid editors.
They are calling their fixed wireless service "DSL" to market it. It's no more DSL than a tin can and string.
"Beyond the SBC limit" should have given that away anyway. You simply can't have DSL service past a certain cable run length. Who the hell do you think runs the CO's? SBC! Some copanies sell IDSL in locations where SBC won't, thereby increasing their customer base to "beyond bell," but this is not one of those cases.
Honestly.
-=AnonyMoose=-
I talked with a vista market type about that. He claimed they use 128-bit encryption in the wifi modems, so everything broadcasted is encrypted. The encryption is flash-upgradeable, as well.
Yes with DSL it is true you have your own dedicated connection, but that usually only goes as far as a local collection point - it certainly is not a dedicated amount of bandwidth right to the ISP, nor to the Internet.
The only difference with cable is the proximity to the individual customer at which the sharing begins. Peak usage times on DSL introduce just as much slowdown to the user with his "dedicated" pipe as they would to the Cable user with his "shared" pipe.
I understand that your point relates to the sharing forced up on the user by the reselling of the wireless access which is sure to come, but the shared/dedicated differentiation between DSL and Cable is already misunderstood enough by Joe Sixpack without this added complexity.
[Pinhead alert]
Cable is shared bandwidth from the cable company CO or central office to the users on that local cable loop segment.
DSL is NOT - it's basically a PPP style connection from the CO to you.
Thus, your won't suffer from performance lag from other users in your segment.
Now, if the DSL is terminated in a ATM or Frame cloud that is saturated, you'll have to compete with those other requests from other customers to the SAME ISP.
If your ISP oversells too much, you can always switch ISP's, and then provided the new ISP doesn't oversell, the problem is fixed.
If you are on the same cable segment (cable modem here) and another group of users saturate the cable segment, the only solution is to blow up those users who are saturating your segment. Since you stand to do a long stint with Bubba in the local pen. for such an act of terrorism (Seig Heil Ashcroft!) it doesn't seem like such a great solution.
For these reasons, DSL has some significant advantages over cable.
Cheers!
According to the techs I worked with it's not DSL, it's just an implementation of 802.11 wireless with directional antennae.
We recently had to switch over to DSL because the wireless got too flaky over time.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. -- Mark Twain
This is residential wireless of the same type that Sprint/Earthlink rolled out to several major cities. Check out their services page.
Residential wireless is neat, but only if you can't get DSL or a cable modem. The latency makes it problematic for fast-paced online games, but the download speed makes it ideal for web surfing. Also, wireless usually has a transfer limit -- in this company's case, it's 3GB-6GB a month (3GB for the lower-priced connections.) You have to watch your downloads.
It's a great idea if your only choice is dialup, and I'm glad to finally see a company recognize that this is a great service to those in flat areas that DSL/cable are not covering.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Sorry, now I get it. I had thought they wanted to provide a wireless network as a bonus to normal DSL. Stupid me. I guess I'll watch the demonstration from Nokia before I continue commenting.
There are non-802.11 wireless systems out there that have different security properties.
It's all shared bandwidth if you look at the larger picture. With DSL, each person has a dedicated line to there house....but only from the CO. Once the line gets to the CO, then it is combined with many other subscribers and passed on to the fatter pipes. Several DSL subscribers can still suck most of the bandwidth. So what if you are guaranteed a 768/128 or whatever to the CO...it's beyond the CO that matters.
Cable does share the bandwith among the neighborhood, but it usually (or at least is suppose to be) partitioned off into smaller neighborhoods once one gets beyond the capacity.
See here for more of an explanation and other DSL/Cable myths. Yes it is from Cox cable, and yes the do have a vested interest in trying to get you to subscribe to cable service, so take it with a grain of salt. But for the most part it is true.
Ok, looks like the article is a little misleading. "Wireless coverage" is not really the goal of this approach, but merely the means to provide residential broadband internet access. It makes connecting distant customers feasible because up to 40 subscribers can be connected to one one "airhead", which is a special box connected to an uplink, which in turn can be either wired or wireless (but not through other airheads). The cost of installing an uplink can therefore be split among 40 customers, and because the "airhead" is so small, renting an office for hub hardware isn't necessary. This whole concept doesn't appear to be based on 802.11b at all.
There is one important difference between DSL and cable beyond the shared bandwidth. Most cable providers have a more restrictive TOS. Compare your cable providers TOS to that of DirectTV DSL(aka Telocity). While most cable providers discourage/disallow servers and some even disallow VPN's, not only does Telocity tolerate servers, they even give you instructions on how to set them up and help you get a Domain Name pointed to your *static* IP address. Most DSL providers seem to have a "it's your line do anything you want with it as long as you don't infringe on other people" attitide.
This is simply a wireless ISP using the Nokia Rooftop system that was created by Rooftop Networks three years ago (and acquired by Nokia). It's a mesh 802.11b network on steriods with a routing protocol. If your only way back to the ISP's POP is through your neighbor's unit, and he deactivates his service or trips over the power cord, your service is down.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along...
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
I disagree with your point about DSL and cable being lagged at the same points.
I have both DSL and cable connections at home. I'm 3k feet from my CO, wire-distance. My DSL is set to 5mbit down / 1mbit up. Cable is 2mbit down, 384k up.
In my neighborhood, there is a very high concentration of customers terminating on the local cable node. When I last spoke to a contact I have at the cable company, he said that there were over 4 thousand connections from residences to the node. That node is connected via a single 45 mbit ATM DS3 to a regional ATM concentrator, then to the main office, which connects to the net over a singe 45mbit DS3.
As for the DSL connections at the serving Central Office, mine currently has about 1100 DSL lines connected to the DSLAMs located there. Each DSLAM is connected to the local SONET ring by an individual 45mbit ATM DS3, which each then connect into an ATM concentrator, and from there to the main office, and out to the Net via dual 155mbit links.
Raw performance in off-peak times isn't applicable, due to the speed of both connections. But during peak times, I'm lucky to get 20k/sec on the cable link while downloading a test file from the cable company's FTP server. The same test on the DSL network yields about 450k/sec duting peak times. Accessing the internet yields similar results.
According to Nokia's site, the Nokia Rooftop is NOT 802.11b.
FYI
www.clarke.ca
DSL is capable of several MBits/s. There are different types of DSL, but for ADSL, an FAQ mentions up to 8 MBit downstream and 1 MBit upstream. Since residential customers usually pay for and get less than that, there is extra bandwith which could be used for providing wireless access.