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How Broad is Broadband?
Photon01 writes "The Register reports that UK ISP NTL have lost, in a ruling that their advertisement of their 128k broadband service as 'High Speed Broadband Internet' is misleading.
This is despite it clearly meeting the technical definitions of broadband internet.
Apparently 128k broadband is not broad enough." My first cable modem was only 256k. It wasn't blazingly fast but after being stuck on dialup it was heaven, and I imagine 128k wouldn't be so bad for a single household.
When you buy gasoline, the octane rating is Required by law to be posted. A similar system of 'Broadband Octane', so to speak, would allow consumers to more effectively make decisions on internet access.
In addition, there seems to be a growing trend of 'broadband' carriers who are slowly jacking down the bandwidth to each individual, either by packing in more consumers on a main line, or forcing the hardware to lower rates. In any case, more unsolicited disclosure would be welcomed.
Just remember that to the average user, a 128k ISDN line with relatively low latiency is going to feel much faster at their normal tasks than a faster connection with higher pings, such as satellite or even some cable modems. Broadband should include more than just throughput, it should be the sum of many factors.
Someone should tell these guys about it. What they advertise as "ultra high speed internet access" is actually a great 100 Mbit LAN connection...to the other residents of the apartment complex. Connection to the internet? Capped at 64 kbps. Yes, you read that right... 64 kilobits per second. As in, slightly faster than your 56K modem. On a good day.
I tried to call them on it, but the apartment won't take responsibility ("we're not the network guys, we just pay for it") and the actual ISP won't either ("we just provide what they pay us for"). It infuriates me because I think the ISP is trying to pull a fast one on the apartment complex and the complex just doesn't know any better. Even the head technician claims that 64k is two to three times faster than 56k cause it's full-duplex (doesn't help my download speed) and ethernet means reduced latency (still doesn't help my big downloads).
Someone get Cogentco to come to Utah. Now *that's* what I consider "ultra high-speed internet!"
Dont forget about all the people who have the most expensive and lowest speed DSL, iDSL. DSL over ISDN.
I was stuck on iDSL on covad for 2 years till they fixed our phone lines.
Good points, faster than modem, almost 3x. And ping was great, 20ms to all hops in Seattle. (Low ping bastard for games)
So it was doable. And compared to ISDN which you had to bind the channels together, and dial out, was a snap, static IPs and never a disconnect.
Total cost, about 400 bux for a modem, 100 bux a month service.
Now YOU bitch about the price of high speed DSL.
I remember reading a while back about the FCC's definition of Broadband. One idea holds that broadband should be fast enough to support streaming video at VHS quality which is supposedly 500 kb/s. In theory if you can support streaming video, basically anything can be provided over the internet assuming that it is processed on a remote server. However, I would still like my personal fiber optic cable.
My home ADSL is 1.5Mb.
Where I work (the R&D hub of the Air Force) has OC-12s and -48s and who knows what else, coming out of its ears.
But the link from inside to outside goes through so many filters and firewalls that reading email, loading a web page, or trying to download the latest security patch goes far far faster at home than at work.
(And it's not competing traffic from the rest of the base's inhabitants, either. Trying to pull stuff off the net in the middle of the night when nobody else is there isn't any faster. Grumble.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)