200mbps DSL On Its Way?

An anonymous reader writes "I came upon a news story about Texas Instruments developing a new DSL technology which will allow ISP's to boost their bandwidth to 200mbps (Yes, mega bits per second). The UDSL service, as it is dubbed, is backwards compatible with current DSL technologies such as VDSL and ADSL. This should get many cable internet users, like myself, a second look at DSL." Update: 06/15 01:26 GMT by T : "mps" and "mbs" both de-mangled.

Comments

Problems with this

[DarkHelmet]

I can imagine hordes of "geek apartment buildings" sprouting up next to central offices.

They never mention what kind of distance you have to be from a node in order for this to work. I imagine all these "geek apartment buildings" are next to the C/O ;)

Also, will the telecos even have the bandwidth from the node, onward to really sustain that kind of bandwidth? I mean, we're looking at OC-3 speeds, right? I can imagine their pip getting saturated.

Finally, what good is this if ISP's shut down anyone who use "too much bandwidth" anyway? We're already at that scenario with 1.5 meg/sec constantly. What about 200? Egh.

Re:Problems with this

[ikkonoishi]

They never mention what kind of distance you have to be from a node in order for this to work.
Yes they do.

Article Quote.

VDSL, a newer kind of DSL, provides much higher speeds, of up to 52mbps. But it can only transmit signals up to 800 meters, making it useful only in very densely populated areas, such as high-rise apartment buildings. VDSL services are popular in large cities in Asia but are not viable for most markets in the United States.

UDSL provides a middle ground, according to Chow. Because the technology is compatible with both ADSL and VDSL standards, it adheres to requirements of both technologies. For example, at distances greater than 1 kilometer, it provides an ADSL-like service with ADSL data rates. But at shorter distances, it can provide VDSL-like service with data rates that match or exceed VDSL. In some instances, Chow claims, a UDSL service could provide up to 200mbps of bandwidth. This is four times as much bandwidth as is currently available through VDSL services.

Re:Problems with this

[Oculus Habent]

will the telecos even have the bandwidth

This was my immediate thought. Sure, it's a great concept, but there's no practical application for home use. You might see this in very large business or site-to-site communication - both in place of OC-3 lines.

Don't expect 200Mbps for general home use any time soon. The costs to provide that much bandwidth, even ridiculously oversold, are too high.

Re:Problems with this

[Jack Porter]

Don't expect 200Mbps for general home use any time soon. The costs to provide that much bandwidth, even ridiculously oversold, are too high.

My home internet connection is over 50Mbps (I can get up to 5MB/second using BitTorrent). My apartment building has fiber from the provider, and they run 100BaseT ethernet to every apartment. I pay about $US35 a month for unlimited service.

I do live in South Korea, but it goes to show with enough demand, this kind of bandwidth DOES scale economically.

Re:Problems with this

[dissy]

Actually,
an OC-3 is 155mbit/sec
an OC-12 is 622 mbit/sec

technology never ceases to amaze

[Anonymous Coward]

'which will allow ISP's to boost their bandwidth to 200mbs'

awesome, now it will only take 5 seconds to get a bit.

can't wait

[Anonymous Coward]

think how fast sites could get slashdotted then.

I think....

[Digitus1337]

That we've all learned the disappointing lesson that lab results don't tend to display the same capacity in the real world.

Ultimate Powa

[ParticleMan911]

When your phone lines start burning through the walls, don't say you weren't warned.

isp's

[flacco]

and your isp will still cap your drooling consumer connection at 256k upstream.

Re:isp's

[PlusFiveTroll]

Actually that wont work, there is about a 10:1 download to upload ratio(very rough estimate from experance). If you download too fast you wont be able to [ACK] acknowledge all of your tcp packets and the connection will start ratelimiting itself. On a 200Mbps you absolutely have to have at least 10Mbps up with very large receive windows to see the anywhere near the max.

Where I'm at, we barely have regular DSL

[RLiegh]

So, I will expect 200mps DSL ...oh, let's see... on the fifth of never.

I guess it's cable for the foreseeable future.

Re:Go Little Bells!

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they'll still complain bitterly if you actually act as if you have some right to use that capacity.

Mega/milli

[gspr]

200mbs (Yes, mega bits per second)

No, millibits per second. Get your prefixes straight. Oh and by the way, the headline says "200mps" - 200 metres per second?

Spam spam SPAM!

[mcrbids]

I remember reading not too long ago that 80% of SPAM is relayed through virus-laden open relays.

Can you imagine the amount of SPAM a 24x7 200 Mb connection can generate? /Shudders

Re:That’s assuming...

[bizitch]

You forget what the "killer app" for this is...

HDTV

The telcos are sick of getting there asses kicked by Cable in the broadband/tv/telco arena.

Right now they are trying to have a go at it with bundleing DSL with DirectTV - but that aint flying so well.

If they can pump out bits this fast it would make them quite a formidible player in the "Convergence" field.

They've already cranked their infrastucture everywhere with DSL repeaters to get around the CO distance issue - Rolling this out shouldn't be a big deal.

Amazing to contemplate it though - 200mps Internet, Telco, HDTV - all on a single pair of CAT3 - wow!

Misleading Headline and Caption

[Little Grey]

If you actually read the ZDNET article, they state:

"UDSL provides a middle ground (between ADSL and VDSL), according to Chow. Because the technology is compatible with both ADSL and VDSL standards, it adheres to requirements of both technologies. For example, at distances greater than 1 kilometer, it provides an ADSL-like service with ADSL data rates. But at shorter distances, it can provide VDSL-like service with data rates that match or exceed VDSL. In some instances, Chow claims, a UDSL service could provide up to 200mbps of bandwidth. This is four times as much bandwidth as is currently available through VDSL services."

So basically 200mbps is probably only attainable under an incredibly small percentage of installations where the variables are all basically perfect.

Our Home and Native Land, True.....

[J2000_ca]

I have to say I'm glad I live in Canada after hearing you all bitch. My dsl seems pretty decents. No download or upload limits. Uploads and downloads cap at a reasonable level. Bell doubled the speed for free. I do have one arguement against cable right now though. When the cable and phone line got cut down the street. Bell was there pretty much right away and it was fixed in 2 hours while it took rogers (cable) all night. Cable doesn't seem to consider itself critical yet.

Hello, standard units of measure?

[g0at]

200mbps (Yes, mega bits per second).

then

Update: 06/15 01:26 GMT by T: "mps" and "mbs" both de-mangled.

Well if you're going to take any effort to de-mangle, how about de-mangling into something that doesn't mean "milibits per second" if what you really mean is "megabits per second" (Mbps)?

-b
(argh)

My guess

[einhverfr]

is that the telcos will allow people to use the bandwidth but charge for the throughput. I mean-- if the pipe is saturated, then people will still get a reasonable speed. However, we are still dealing with USDL in short distances, then VSDL, the ADSL on the same equipment, just varying the distances.

Personally, I think that twisted pair might be endangered in the long run. Where I am (rural central Washington), the new trend is to run fiber to peoples' houses at least in the small towns (a few small towns are going wifi, but that is another matter). My telephone and 2mb/s internet shares the same fiber at a rate if $51/month.... (Geeks should move here), and I recently upgraded to their $100 offering and bought 2mb/s *symetric* so I can host customers' web sites here.

Note that this is their *residential* offerings. Business offerings can start out at 5mb/s down at least for $9.95 plus telephone lines!

How do the ISP's and telcos make money at this rate? Easy. I am allowed to transfer up to 10GB of data per month. Each additional 10GB incures additional (reasonable) charges.

There are ways of limiting bandwidth without shutting down "abusers." Just find out what it is costing you and pass that cost plus a markup on. This turns a hostile situation into a very good oportunity.