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."

Comments

Shared bandwidth

[crow]

One of the great things about DSL is that you have your own connection to the ISP, as opposed to cable modems, which share bandwidth within each neighborhood. With this scheme, it looks like they are using each subscriber as a relay, so your bandwitch is shared with anyone upstream from you. This can be good for business, but not so great for consumers.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[RC514]

Yes, but typically a DSL connection is not using the maximum possible bandwith. They probably use a fixed part of the bandwith for the paying customer and any excess bandwith is allocated to the wireless access point.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[GSloop]

[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!

Re:Shared bandwidth

[wesmills]

DSL is NOT - it's basically a PPP style connection from the CO to you.

*ahem* Maybe those customers cursed with the travesty that is PPPoE have a "PPP style" connection, but mine is straight TCP/IP, no wrappers required.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Cerebus]

DSL is only dedicated to the terminating point, usually a DSLAM.

SBC is extending DSL coverage with DSLAMs located outside the CO, typically on the poles in the serviced areas.

The question then becomes: how much bandwidth is the pole-mounted DSLAM fed, hmmm?

Re:Shared bandwidth

[RollingThunder]

Where do you want to clog today?

Cable: right outside the house
DSL: at the ISP's uplink

six of one, half dozen of the other. DSL is nowhere near as clogfree as cable is made out to be, given equal overselling of the upstream capacity it's exactly the same, in fact.

The uplinks are the bottleneck, I've always found - not the link from me to the ISP.

(I'm a shaw.ca subscriber)

Re:Shared bandwidth

[cdrudge]

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.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[GSloop]

But a DSL customer get the opportunity to change this. Cable doesn't. Just switch ISP's. (Not only that, but cable rarely even gives you the choice of ISP's either, so either type of congestion will screw you.)

My ISP charges for bandwidth used. That means that if they keep congestion down, they get the opportunity to bill me more money. That's incentive to keep oversell to a minimum.

Choice is a good thing! DSL isn't perfect, but it does allow for a more choice rich system.

Cheers!

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Karlt1]

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.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Alan Shutko]

You speak as if changing DSL isps is an easy thing, as if it's likely that you'll be able to find another provider who will service you, who will not have oversold upstream bandwidth, and you'll be able to switch without massive billing problems and disruptions of your service that seem to happen whenever someone with DSL changes _anything_ about their service (why billing contact changes should kill your DSL I don't know....)

Now, you may not have had these problems. You may not be in an area as fraught with DSL problems as others. But for that matter, my cable modem is faster than any DSL sold around here, and doesn't clog like you say it should. (And DSL happens not to be available at my specific location.)

Clearly, your post is a massive oversimplification of the issue. If someone wants to know which is best for them, they need to check out the specifics for their area, rather than relying on some "networkguru" who believes in a holy grail.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Reality Master 101]

This is technically true, and one of the reasons I always preferred DSL. But in practice, a Cable Modem is a pretty phat pipe, at least here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula (California / Cox). I regularly get 300 K-bytes per second downloads (yes, that's 2.4 megabits/sec). Nothing like getting 1/4 10Base-T Ethernet speeds.

That's compared to the 384kb DSL that I used to pay twice as much for at my old pad.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Archfeld]

does anyone have EXTRA bandwidth ? is kind of like extra money. I know I use every kbps on my sdsl line. 768 seems like a big amount but goes really fast.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[Yottabyte84]

You also have to log in with PPPoE, don't you? My connection is plain old TCP/IP, and like it that way, I just turn on my DSL modem wait 15 seconds for it to boot and sync the signal, and the connection is up. When I first got on I didn't even have to know my username or password to get connected.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[RC514]

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.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[cdrudge]

When I said a couple, I didn't mean 2 or 3 people total. I should have said more approprately a small percentage of the DSL subscribers. The CO serving my house has a single OC-3 connection (at least as reported by DSLreports.com). Since an OC-3 is approximately 51.84 megabits/sec, it would take 69 people running at 768up/128down to completely saturate the line. This particular CO serves the NE corner of my city, approximately 10,000 holmes maybe and numerous business that probably would bring down the number of people further.

The phone company hopes that there will not be a large number of people sucking 768 kbs consistantly for very long periods of time, just as a cable company bets that not everyone in a neighborhood gets online all at once. But my original point is still valid. There is a limited total capacity of either system's pipes. There is still a bottle neck somewhere between the "Internet" the wall jack. The bottle neck just moves from the neighborhood to the CO.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[cdrudge]

Ok, teach me to respond when I'm tired. :) The everything2 node that I originally refered to was basically a definition of an OC-1 that you are suppose to multiply by 3. Didn't see that part.

Since I have no expericene working with ATM or traffice shaping, I might be talking out my ass (wouldn't be the first time :) ), but traffic shaping doesn't increase the available bandwithd, just makes a more fair use of it. Correct? So instead of a small porportion of the network sucking most of the available bandwidth, many people have equal amounts of bandwidth, but with quite reduced speeds.

Either way, the bottleneck is still there somewhere between the wall jack and the internet. It's finite and can/will reach capacity at some point in time.

Re:Shared bandwidth

[rew]

One of the great things about DSL is that you have your own connection to the ISP, as opposed to cable modems, which share bandwidth within each neighborhood.

Everybody (most notably DSL providers) is quoting this as a downside of Cable, and an advantage of DSL.

I share something like 2Mbps with my neighborhood. From the central office of my cable company I still share the link with the rest of the customers of my ISP. My cable provider caps me at 512mbps.

ADSL customers have their private 6mbps (but capped to the same 512mbps) link to the ISP, and then share a similar link with the other customers to the "rest of the internet".

No provider will tell you what the capacity of those links are. And they won't tell you when and how much they are congested.

What I do know is that on average, I get (slightly) better download speeds than my friends with ADSL.

I deduct from this that at the moment, my Cable provider has a better internet link than hte averate ADSL provider out here, and that my local segment isn't very crowded.

Roger.

"Telecom Valley"??

[Anonymous Coward]

When was Santa Rose ever referred to as "telecom valley"???

Not that telecom isn't one big valley - look at WorldCom and Global Crossing stock.

unsubscription

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

So do they like not let you unsubscribe because you'll be taking out a portion of their network?

or is there a claus that says that once the transmission tower is welded to your house/trailer it cant be taken down. ever.

Not a bad deal

[Restil]

It also kinda puts a sock in the mouth of those that complain about people "reselling" their bandwidth by offering up wireless access points. Now Vista does it themselves, its endorsed and they can maintain some control over it while still providing the same level of advantage to the customers that desire it.

Makes sense to me anyways.

-Restil

Is this wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is this wrong because someone is making a profit, or is it cool because everyone gets service?

Not too shabby

[slakdrgn]

Seems like a kewl idea, I wish they had something like this in orlando.. The only thing I see (tho I dunno how cali laws/rules are) is problems with people who rent.. down in florida, your reqiured to have permission to setup any type of attenna.. It'll be interesting to see how this works out.. I wonder what protocol they will use. :)

Also how strong the signal is without an atenna.. be kinda like wirless internet for thoes laptop people, when the infastructure gets big enuff, from soo many residental users. I hope this works out :)

Security?

[glh]

What about security... This seems like it could really be a privacy issue. I would think anyone driving around with a portable could sniff your network (assuming they had the right wireless adapater)! Anyone know more about the technology that is used here?

How Fat's the Pipe?

[Wintersmute]

I may be showing my ignorance here, but does this mean that each subscriber is going to be broadcasting WiFi to the neighborhood?

Doesn't this make the whole network more susceptible to wireless attackes by AirSnort and WEPcrack technologies?

Or am I on crack?

Re:How Fat's the Pipe?

[RC514]

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.

Re:How Fat's the Pipe?

[Wintersmute]

The QoS may be there - while I was under the impression that current traffic maxxed out the DSL pipe, I'll just assume I'm mistaken - but that still doesn't explain how Vista is going to protect their own wireless traffic nodes (forget the end-user) from mobile attacks.

Wouldn't they have to deploy high-end security for each router that gets an antenna to prevent every deadbeat with an 802.11b device and some sniffing technology from surfing for free?

Re:How Fat's the Pipe?

[RC514]

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.

Re:How Fat's the Pipe?

[RC514]

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.

Drive by hacking...

[yonnage]

Wireless DSL... Hmmmm, I wonder how soon until drive by cracking is a problem.

Hmmm...

[stressky]

Sounds like a good idea. There's a group over here in Australia that are looking at doing the same thing as these guys. They're called the "commpunity broadband project"...It's not so much a commercial venture as a group of knowledgeable members of the broadband community (read : users) whom are trying to get together a more affordable broadband solution for Australians.

Still, these vista guys seem somewhat further advanced in their endeavor - they've actually launched!

Re:DSL?

[moniker_21]

And what's up with the fact that I can't find anything about this service on their crappy web page? Is this for real?

Gnutella, and now Broadband

[KenSentMe]

Interestingly enough, the technique they are using to "expand" their coverage area is remarkably similar to the distributed nature of peer-to-peer sharing networks, such as Gnutella.
I wonder how well it will scale. Will users' bandwidth drop as more and more customers in their area sign on, due to the heavy relaying of traffic?

This is not DSL

[jspayne]

This is not DSL, it is wireless broadband - probably not unlike the Nokia Rooftop system that Cringely mentioned not too long ago...

Jeff

Um hold on a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

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=-

A good test for Vista?

[Em Emalb]

linking their URL to slashdot. If they can't handle it, then maybe this won't be a good thing :)

Re:DSL?

[asv108]

I think your a little confused here. Each house that gets the DSL service will also get a wireless 802.11b router installed so your house will also serve as an 802.11b access point for users on their network. This way they kill 2 birds with one stone, this is a clever idea if they can get through all the usage and security problems. I don't know how people will if there DSL connection slows down to a snail's pace to due eccessive wireless usage.

As others have pointed out...

[GoRK]

This has absolutely nothing to do with DSL. A Tin can and string is closer to DSL than this.

A lot of fixed wireless companies (not just broadband data) call their services the wireless equivalent of the wireline alternative. Ie: Wireless Cable -- what a misnomer!

Some company says "Wireless DSL" and some stupid person posts it to slashdot as some sort of breakthrough idea. It's simply fixed wireless.

You can't sell DSL service "beyond SBC" unless you want to run your own CO's, which is not turning out to be very profitable for small companies to do. DSL only goes over copper wires and it only goes so far.

~GoRK

Wireless Broadband

[CyberHippy]

Sounds like what my company signed up for three years ago from Broadlink which worked really well at first, but they figured out after the first year that the more people they had on the same antennae, the shorter the effective range.

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.

Confusion?

[taniwha]

reading their web page (which is admittedly very short on detail) I suspect they're rolling out a broadcast broadband service (not a DSL service - a connect to the net via radio service via transmitters on local hills - there have been several abortive attempts to do this elsewhere). This may explain why it sounds like they're giving you 802.11 and DSL - in reality they are probably giving you DSL-like speeds via a wireless medium

This is NOT DSL!

[SlashChick]

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.

Don't assume 802.11

[Wesley Felter]

There are non-802.11 wireless systems out there that have different security properties.

Ugh, propaganda...

[SlashChick]

"One of the great things about DSL is that you have your own connection to the ISP, as opposed to cable modems, which share bandwidth within each neighborhood."

Uh-huh, and does this make your DSL line any faster than a comparable cable modem? Take a look at the results of the DSLReports speed tests -- nearly all of the top speeds belong to cable modem networks.

I had DSL from Speakeasy -- 1.5MBps down/384K up. Great service, but it was $100/month. My $35/month cable modem has the same download speed. I get 1.5MBps down, period. It's not dependent on how far I am from the cable company, either.

You have a point, but the fact that your bandwidth isn't shared doesn't make a difference in your overall speed. This is just something the DSL companies came up with to try to differentiate their more expensive service from the cable modem crowd.

Slashdot Gets It Wrong Again

[Goody]

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...

Creative Use of Coffee Cans

[Goldenhawk]

If you're really concerned about sharing your new DSL line's bandwidth with a roof-top antenna, or you worry about security, but you don't want to (or cannot) cut the power cord, a coffee can over the antenna, or some tinfoil, would probably block enough of the signal to prevent any useful connections to YOUR rooftop, and divert those connections to a neighbor.

Re:Creative Use of Coffee Cans

[eric_aka_scooter]

"If you're really concerned about sharing your new DSL line's bandwidth with a roof-top antenna, or you worry about security, but you don't want to (or cannot) cut the power cord, a coffee can over the antenna, or some tinfoil, would probably block enough of the signal to prevent any useful connections to YOUR rooftop, and divert those connections to a neighbor."

...and at the very least you'd give the neighbors something to talk about (as if your "rm -rf /bin/laden" T-Shirt wasn't enough).

why both?

[Suppafly]

I don't really see why they are doing both at once...

Why not just cut out the dsl and give everyone wireless

Amateur usage.

[bobdole369]

Does anybody have an definitive answer as to how these wireless devices stand on the FCC's "totem pole". I was under the impression that us ham radio operators (at least for the part of the spectrum we share with 802.11b, about 1/2 - 2/3 of the channels) were given a higher priority than the ISM unlicensed users. In fact my license gives me the ability to jam out 1500 watts with no limitation of ERP. So my spread spectrum 5 watt signal at 2.406 mhz sent through a 15db vertical is going to cause them at least a hiccup if they ever make it down to Florida. (my signal is audible enough to digipeat at 23 miles from my house. (yikes, too bad I can't make money off of it...)) What would happen if say a company wanted to use the same frequency my station is set to? In the past hams have usually been trod upon, as the primary users have priority. Does this actually mean they have to work around me for once?!

Nokia rooftop not 802.11b

[aclarke]

According to Nokia's site, the Nokia Rooftop is NOT 802.11b.

FYI

Re:Wireless != DSL

[laserjet]

He was asking genuinely if anyone knew what hardware would be used, and made a guess based upon all of his knowledge (admitting that his knowledge was limited).

And all he got was a smart ass remark.

only on slashdot...

Something is better than nothing

[MBCook]

I live in a sub division that has, untill recently, been way to far out of reach of broadband. Even if it would be shared bandwidth, as has been pointed out, it would be VASTLY better than the 24.6kbps modem speeds we get here. Plus my subdivision is full of multi million dollar homes: ie people with MONEY TO BURN. They would make a perfect test market. In a place like this, most everyone has a computer, and so you could test the system very well. It is a market like this where they will be able to make REAL money. But for us it's too late. We got cable modems about 10 months ago, and we should have DLS within about 6.

Latency depends on hops, queuing, if any

[billstewart]

The only latency inherent in a radio service is the extra latency from copying a packet onto the radio at the speed of your radio channel (depending on the service speed and packet size, that might be large or small.) The real issues are how many hops the connection has to take, and how much queuing occurs at each hop, e.g. how much time do your packets spend waiting for somebody else's packets, which depends a lot on the total bandwidth available vs. the bandwidth per individual subscriber.

The Metricom Ricochet network had occasionally significant latency issues, because some radio poletops were directly connected to frame relay data feeds, while other poletops relayed data to each other until they reached a wired poletop, which incurred latency for queuing and copying and CPU processing at each poletop. So not only did you get affected by how many users were sharing a wired poletop directly or indirectly, but also by how far away you were from a wired poletop. Especially in their initial deployment in the Silicon Valley area, the real bandwidth was down near San Jose / Santa Clara, and the farther you went up Route 101, away from the core area, the more relay hops you had to suffer through. But it was still cool to be able to get email on your laptop from where you were, even if it wasn't always good enough for telnet.

Re:DSL?

[MrResistor]

Actually, it is you who are confused. From http://www.vistabroadband.com/residential_info.htm :

Additionally, our wireless connections mean no busy signals, no missed calls, and no tying up your regular phone lines. (emphasis mine)

The network is, in fact, entirely wireless according to the information they provide. You can find a slightly more technical description here.

I have to agree with the parent, this is not DSL. DSL is based on copper wire. If there is even an inch of fiber between you and the CO, you can't get DSL. DirectTV's "DSL" is similarly misleading. These are certainly broadband technologies, and they're definately cool, but they are not DSL.

These companies are inapropriately using the term DSL for marketing purposes, likely because DSL and DSL providors enjoy a much more favorable reputation than other consumer broadband options, and totally ignoring the fact that DSL is a very specific technology. It's unfortunate, perhaps, but the fact is that everyone who's going to be interested in this has heard of DSL, whereas calling it MMDS, for example, would lead to some headscratching and a lot of questions asked of "knowledgable friends" at cocktail parties.