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New Look at ADSL2

genrader writes "broadbandreports.com just posted a news article which had an interesting story about the new ADSL2, which should be approved in 2003. They say it should be backward compatible with current hardware. It seems pretty interesting. ISP-Planet has the featured in-depth look at it, so you might want to see if it is of any intrest to you."

13 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Does this really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, ADSL2 is faster, but how many of us are running our DSL lines at close to the max speed now? I can do 3+ Mb/s on this line, but only get to use 640 Kb/s. New technology that allows me to go faster, yeah that'll come in handy! If it worked at a much longer range it might be useful for some who are out of range now, but it really isn't much of an advance there either. So why should we care, this is like getting excited because Macs are shipping with a gigabit ethernet port when your office is running on a shared 10 mbit hub!

    1. Re:Does this really matter? by cybercomm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah it does.

      Whereas YOU may not benefit, this may be just the thing that small businesses/SOHO's need to sway them from having to get one of those T# lines! And the savings should be quite substantial for those who either dont need or can't afford the extra bandwidth. Plus a dedicated line sure beats the 'ol cable modem!

      --
      Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
  2. Oh nice.. by the+unbeliever · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will Telco's be rolling out more and more central offices or remote dslams? Not a lot of people live within 8000 feet. Just more broadband solutions that aren't going to be available everywhere.

  3. Comments From the Article That Sum it All Up by LuxuryYacht · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The real problem is that the guys in charge have so very little motivating them to implement new and better things..."

    "Why bother?
    Do we actually think for a moment that US telcos will adopt anything decent? Please...if it's not a patented US currency printing press or a customer cornholing machine...they won't be interested."

    And even better...

    "For example, on longer phone lines, ADSL2 will provide a data rate increase of 50 kbps--a significant increase. This data rate increase also produces an increase in reach of about 600 feet, which translates to an increase in coverage area of about six percent, or 2.5 square miles."

    Wooohooo...a whopping 50kbps, 600 feet...WOW...totally worthless! In about a zillion years they'll have enough range to reach me at 60,000ft from the nearest CO. Hell, telcos can even measure their copper runs accurate to 600ft. I'm serviced at my office at an actual copper length of 19,200ft...while Verizon originally estimated under 15,000ft.

    Wow!
    It's good for a total of 8,000 feet! Instead of screwing around with short length technologies, why don't they develope something that has far better range .. like 15-30 miles from the telco ...

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
  4. ADSL2 Length by Tempelherr · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The new ADSL2 Standard has the ability to double downstream data rates up to over 20mbps, yet the new standard only increases the reach by 600 feet? Sure the downstream increase would be nice, but it doesn't seem like you are reaching much of a new market. Is the change over to ADSL2 Standard mandatory? If not, then it seems like the companies would want to be wary about investing in the changeover since it is still really limited on the distance from the central location.

    What will the costs be, as compared to the old standard? One would think that coming up with this new ADSL2 standard would be allow them to increase their range more than just 600 feet, which unfortunately leaves me off the list of getting any broadband in the future.

    Is there someone who could shed some light as to why the limitations on the ADSL2 standard have barely been increased?

  5. Limited Use by SmartGamer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't see that this would be all that useful. While a very cool upgrade for the sake of very cool upgrades, how is it all that great?

    My DSL connection is very high speed. I feel no net slowdown when listening to Shoutcast Radio on a 128Kbps station; even though I'm eating up 1/4 of my downlink, only rarely does it actually have an effect.

    The slowdowns are at the other end. The servers are overloaded; its their T3s that need to be upgraded. Although 500,000 hits in the period of an hour would swamp anything, I suppose.

    So while this idea has merit, a whole bunch of other stuff would have to improve too if this is to be particularly useful.

    --
    Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
  6. Wonderful. . . But by jchawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well this is all well and good, but lets keep in mind that dsl is expensive to roll-out, what is motivating the company I work for to go out and purchase this *new* wonderful equipment which is going to require upgrades at least in the DSLAM's / ATM switches, nothing is just "hook it in and it works", ever.

    It's wonderful that they claim these super fast speeds, but what's the point right now? My company already has equipment in place to offer a few megabit to the home user, but we don't currently offer speeds faster then 768/768. Why? Because the demand isn't there, period. A few geeks here and there, or maybe a business or two, but most business that need something faster then 768 symetric are going to go with another dedicated telco soltion such as a T-1, or a DS3.

    I'm happy that we have these wonderful systems, that promise super fast bandwidth, and I'm not saying I don't believe the speeds, I'm just skeptical that we're going to see them hitting the market anytime soon because phone companies aren't eager to roll them out, keep in mind they're all still trying to re-coup the costs to roll out the network in the first place.

  7. So what??? by Nonillion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For me to take advantage of this two things need to happen.

    1. My internet provider is going to have to remove the 1 gig a month limit (if real expects to download movies).

    2. Verizon is going to have to provide 1.5 m/bit or faster connection for the price of my current 768/128 k/bit connection..

    --
    "I bow to no man" - Riddick
  8. Useless... by CrazyDuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Faster DSL is useless in the states until the telco's quit guarding and charging for broadband lines like it's their damn cherry. When that happens, ISPs might actually be able to afford to serve the "ulimited" service they claim without pruning off the people that actually use their share of bandwidth.

    Example? T1 prices 5 years ago where $400 to $800 a month and T3 was about $8000 a month. Now? T1 is about $400 to $750 a month and T3 is about $6500 a month on up.

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
  9. This is useless to me by eatenn · · Score: 2, Insightful
    So ADSL2 and ADSL2+ offer more bandwidth... That's all well and good, but it doesn't make any difference to ME because my ISP doesn't even offer me an option (even a ridiculously expensive one) that approaches what today's ADSL standards allow.

    ADSL2 and 2+ are only going to further the gap between what is possible, and what my ISP offers. It's still a good thing, but I doubt it will benefit the regular Joe, at least not for quite awhile longer.

    Or I could be wrong. Whatever. I'm tired.

    --
    "But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
  10. That's all very well and good.. by Doomrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ..but still I can't get ANY form of broadband. And I'm not even living in the sticks - I live in a fairly large English town, which the government had the nerve to dub "IP-City", even though 90% of it lacks any form of connectivity above 56K. I know this is offtopic, but damn it, when I sit here with a connection which I pay more than broadband for, which also ties up the phone line and disconnects every 2 hours, I feel real mad and need to rant about it. Oh, and from my window I can see the BT lab where they develop new and exciting broadband technologies, and then fail to deploy them anywhere near.

    This is what you get when you keep on electing a government led by a snivelling weasel who won't do anything unless Bush tells him to first.

  11. Re:Small range increases mean BIGGER area increase by andrewgaul · · Score: 3, Insightful
    You wrote:
    Remember your high-school geometry , area of a circle is pi(r^2) So the 6% ( ? ) increase in range translates to a more than 12% increase in coverage area. It's not as small as first it appears.
    From article:
    For example, on longer phone lines, ADSL2 will provide a data rate increase of 50 kbps--a significant increase. This data rate increase also produces an increase in reach of about 600 feet, which translates to an increase in coverage area of about six percent, or 2.5 square miles.
    An increase of 600 ft, or 3%, in distance yields a 6% increase in area. You can work it out yourself if you add to the maximum ADSL distance of 17500 ft.
  12. Don't think of range increases personally by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Instead think of them in a larger scope.

    Many Telcos are starting to roll out evironmentally hardened DSLAMs that they can pole or slab mount to serve areas that have demand but are too far from an existing DSLAM.

    If a Telco can now reach a larger subscriber base without rolling out as many remote DSLAMs, that results in an increase in available infrastructure dollars, which could translate into fast or a greater number of remote DSLAM rollouts. I can also increase DSLAM rollouts by increasing revenue per DSLAM, since a given DSLAM can now service more customers, which might in turn make more DSLAM rollouts more affordable for Telcos.