SBC Planning 15-25Mbps DSL Networks

Tuxedo Jack writes "The Register reports that SBC has begun planning a massive network upgrade which will push fiber connections deeper into subdivisions and neighborhoods than before, resulting in incredibly fast DSL speeds for home users. Their current estimate for down/up speeds are 15-25mb/s down and 1-3mb/s up (mega_bits_, not bytes). SBC's press release goes into depth about this."

Comments

Deregulation is working

[SIGALRM]

From the SBC press release:

The recent decision by the Bush Administration to allow unlawful telephone wholesale rules to lapse and let stand the FCC's decision not to unbundle broadband is a positive step

As much as I disagree with the administration on many issues, last year's decision by the FCC to deregulate fiber networks was a positive step in the right direction. Loosening broadband rules will restore some competition in the industry; and we may see lowering prices for telephone and internet services.

However, although I look forward to fiber-to-the-curb, it'll be awhile, at least in my subdivision.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Monkelectric]

um? Bundling broadband is a travesty. In my town there are two choices for broadband internet: Adeplhia Cable or Verizon DSL. Verizon DSL is *HORRIBLY* oversubscribed and slow, so I choose adelphia internet. But I can only get adelphia internet by subscrining to adelphia cable TV.

Adelphia cable TV is *TERRIBLE*. Digital Cable looks like *CRAP* and they keep moving services over to it and taking them away from analog cable. They lie, cheat, steal (sending out letters telling you to "come pick up" a new cable box -- not telling you they charge for them monthly!) And no cartoon network! And did I mention all this service costs far more then dish?

Basically, bundling is a bend over and take it.

Re:Deregulation is working

[SIGALRM]

Bundling broadband is a travesty

I don't disagree. However, the FCC decision was aimed at not forcing service companies to unbundle broadband from their other offerings.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Penguinshit]

If you think Michael Powell is deregulating to benefit the consumer, you're drinking too much of the Koo-aid...

That same FCC decision, IIRC, also allowed the local baby-Bells to charge whatever they want for access to their networks by other carriers. That effectively *destroys* competition for last-mile service.

I have yet to see a decrease in consumer prices in any such circumstance...

Re:Deregulation is working

[dasmegabyte]

Actually, if history has proven anything it's that deregulation in a telecommunications industry decreases overall expansion.

The idea is that, outside of regulation, telecommunications tend to settle on "safe" levels of service, where margins are highest but R&D suffers. With regulation, that same level becomes unsafe as margins decrease and competition on the regulated low-end service becomes stagnant. The thought process goes something like this: We are regulated. We have to charge a specific price for baseline service, where both the price and the baseline are mandated. Therefore, if we want to raise revenues, we will need to create a demand for a more expensive service ABOVE baseline, and we will need to push our boundaries into new territories. The cable industry developed cable broadband, digital cable, addressable cable and on-demand pay-per-view as means to maximize profits during their strong regulation period (from 1992 on).

Of course, if you're in a regulated industry it's hard to see the forest for the trees. It looks like the government is forcing you to do what you don't want to do, and that's lose money on a cheap baseline service (many cable companies broke even on regulated "basic" cable). Therefore, when you exit regulation the natural reaction is to raise prices, let service fall off and enjoy your freedom. Some say this is what killed various airlines after THEY became dereg'd.

Anyhow, it's good to see SBC upping their network. But I'd say that deregulation of fiber had little to do with the decision. I'd also like to point out that regulating all broadband providers to offer 512/128 service at $30 would create a ton of very profitable high speed options at the same price we pay now for that speed. Prices stay the same, but service goes up...or did you think SBC's new supercoolfast DSL was gonna be $50?

Re:Deregulation is working

[Monkelectric]

Yea, but when I go to the store to buy macaroni and cheese, they don't say "we'll only sell you macaroni and cheese if you buy this stick of butter for 8$ You probably wanted butter right? That GOES WITH macaroni and cheese, right? Oh, by the way, the butter is expired, and its terrible butter...BUT! You can only get broadband errr macaroni and cheese at our store."

Bundling is the anthesis of a free market. If I want dish network and a cable modem, theres no reason I shouldn't have it.

Ever notice how fiscal conservatives bitch, moan and worship a free market, but when its preventing their customers from paying less for better service, their tune changes? :)

Re:Deregulation is working

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to see a decrease in consumer prices

What planet have you been living on? I used to pay $90 for what now costs me $29/mo. And who cares what Powell's motives are. As long as it *does* benefit the consumers, isn't that the most important thing?

I think parent is a tiny part flamebait.

Re:Deregulation is working

[drinkypoo]

Comcast sells cable modem without cable tv. They do charge $10/mo more though.

The reason they're taking stuff away from analog cable is that every analog channel they free up lets them air several more digital channels, or support hundreds more cable modem subscribers on the same segment.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Moofie]

Fiscal conservatives never do that. Robber barons, on the other hand, do that all the time.

Re:Deregulation is working

[DoctorDeath]

I agree whole heartedly about Adelphia! But Verizon lies, cheats and steals too. Their internet lookup for DSL availability said it was available for my phone number. After 5 postponements pushing my start date back, they finally cancelled my order with no explanation or anything. When I called to find out why, they tell me it isn't available. After talking to a dozen different people and departments, some of them promising to call me back with a reason (never did) all I could get was I was to far from their central hub. No explanation as to why the internet service said it was available. So now I am stuck with Adelphia and their outrageous rates and increases.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Monkelectric]

Nah, not in this case. They took away cinemax and hbo from basic cable and moved them to digital. Curiously, they did it *THE WEEK OF THE SOPRANOS SERIES FINALE*. Thats no co-incidence my friend :)

And BTW, BZBOYZ is bullshit :)

Re:Deregulation is working

[Douglas Simmons]

Bundling is the anthesis of a free market.

Bundling is *not* the antithesis of a free market. Not being able to offer bundled services is.

Now, that one can't find what they're looking for like unbundled and cheaper services, as in this case, that suggests that the market is young and not enough competition has moved into town. Also, keep in mind for these larger providers that providing someone with one service in addition to the other, both of which they are mass providers, may not add much to their overhead; so to debundle and offer something at half the price might narrow their profit margin.

So, if you think there are enough people like you who are getting the shaft and that there is demand for what you want, start your own ISP or whatever and tap that market yourself. If you do and you don't make money, well, it looks like the ISPs were making the right business decision regarding their pricing models for their services.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Penguinshit]

No flame at all.

And you don't think that price decrease is because the technology is pretty much ubiquitous and widely used? Sorry bub, but deregulation has exactly *zero* to do with the decreased price of broadband.

Just look what deregulation did for California's electricity customers...

Re:Deregulation is working

[wfberg]

So, if you think there are enough people like you who are getting the shaft and that there is demand for what you want, start your own ISP or whatever and tap that market yourself. If you do and you don't make money, well, it looks like the ISPs were making the right business decision regarding their pricing models for their services.

Sure. As soon as you sign up your first million subscribers paying in advance you can start rolling out your own network.

Unbundling is also about allowing competitors to use the ILEC/cable operators network at a fair price (as opposed to "whatever the market won't bear" - ILECs aren't that stupid).

And get this. Unbundling works. I've got DSL through my ILEC, but I could go with 2 or 3 competitors. As a result, my ILEC hasn't started charging through the roof (like they actually DID do until the competition showed up).

Of course, that's only in Europe..

Re:Deregulation is working

[rmayes100]

I've had Comcast cable and internet for years and I finally cancelled the cable and got a dish but kept my cable modem about a year ago. They never started charging me the +$10/month I should be paying for not being a cable subscriber. You can also sometimes call and threaten to cancel your cable modem (I'm getting DSL!) and they'll give you 6 months for $20 or some such.

Re:Deregulation is working

[letxa2000]

And you don't think that price decrease is because the technology is pretty much ubiquitous and widely used?

No, that has very little to do with it. Competition drives prices down, not whether or not the technology is widely used. If it were widespread usage that drove prices down Windows would be cheaper than Linux. :)

Re:Deregulation is working

[nelsonal]

Deregulation works if the transition is accomplished properly. The electricty markets were never deregulated. If they were powerplants would call you regularly to get you to switch to their power. A new different set of regulations was swapped for an older set and it was termed deregulation. It has worked very well in long distance (when I was a kid LD phone calls were pretty rare and costly) when my parents were kids they were a luxury. Now they are free, sure your local line is still expensive, but overall per minute costs have pretty steadily declined since the monoply was broken up and the industry was deregulated.
Airlines are another success story, while some people whine that the riff raff now rides the airplanes and service has crapped out, they were usually travel agents or exceedingly wealthy. Both arguements are true. Airlines were regulated with a minimum selling price, that was set just after the barnstorming days. As costs fell, prices couldn't (due the the restrictions) so airlines offered all sorts of services to compete. Tickets were hideously expensive, and service was wonderful. Just one problem, most people didn't value the services at anything near what they cost (look at how many airlines continue to offer the same level of white glove customer service they did in the 70s). Now lots more people can fly and people pay for the services they want (even food and movies appear to be pretty marginal valued services--how much more could a ticket cost to include a meal and movie?).
In a deregulated electricity market, you would rent your line from the power company figure likely for something between $10-$40/mo and then you would buy power from any power plant that was connected to your grid regardless of location and you could change your supplier as easily as you change your long distance company. If you don't have that you continue to have some level of regulation, don't blame deregulation for high power prices. Your prices would fluctuate with market prices for electricity but the line price would remain constant.

Re:Deregulation is working

[IvyKing]

That same FCC decision, IIRC, also allowed the local baby-Bells to charge whatever they want for access to their networks by other carriers. That effectively *destroys* competition for last-mile service.

A little clarification - the FCC decision affects UNE-P access, but not UNE-L access. The difference is that UNE-L is just the twisted pair from the CO to the premises, UNE-P is where the CLEC would be using the ILEC's DSLAM or switch. Unfortunately the FTTP and FTTN would be covered by the UNE-P rules.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Ranten_N_Raven]

Just look what deregulation did for California's electricity customers...

Horsepucky.

California did something they called "deregulation," but it was actually screwed-up re-regulation. They actually forbade local power companies from entering into long-term contracts. This forced them into the spot market, where prices rise fast. Enron took advantage of that -- they were under no long-term contracts for that power, so let the buyer beware. Negotiated, long-term contracts would have saved the CA public $Billions, but the legislature said "no,"

The government set the rules in a way that ensured somebody would get rich off the taxpayers. Isn't that how it always works?

Don't blame "deregulation" when real deregulation had nothing to do with it.

Re:Deregulation is working

[Penguinshit]

And what allowed the competition to traverse the last-mile lines? The regulation forcing the baby-Bells to give access to the competitors at wholesale rather than market rates.

Now that the last-mile price barrier has been removed, I expect to see prices increase.

The baby-Bells inherited a local monopoly. You can't very well take it away. But you can otherwise force them to allow for competition by forcing wholesale rates.

Your "Windows" analogy doesn't work at all. It actually proves my point, because Microsoft has a monopoly on consumer OS products, and has been allowed to keep it (despite overwhelming evidence of illegal predatory marketing practices).

Re:Deregulation is working

[BryanR1977]

"I'd also like to point out that regulating all broadband providers to offer 512/128 service at $30 would create a ton of very profitable high speed options at the same price we pay now for that speed." That's a joke right? As I CLEC I know 1st hand what the costs are involved with delivering DSL. $30 for 512/128 might work for the ILECS, but we're charged $28/mo per copper loop to deliver DSL, now that the FCC has taken Line-sharing out of our hands the telso's won't provide it (because the no longet have to). Think about it all but $2 of your proposed price point just cover loop charges. $2/mo isn't a lot of money to cover bandwith/staff/co-location facilities. Now before the FCC stepped in and diluted the 1996 telco act we could get loops for ~$9/mo and lineshare at $0/mo and would have been happy to provide DSL at damn near dial-up prices, instead we're locked into 256/1500 @ $40/mo with slim margins (dial-up is more profitable at $15/mo) The only way we can increase margins now is to bundle it with our local phone service. Too bad we just got a letter from the ILEC saying that they will no longer allow that practice in 6 months, we can however resell their service for a (substansially) higher cost. Bottom line, if you're not Verizon,SBC, other ILECs, the FCC has made it so you can't play ball only 8 years after making it look like you could.

Re:Deregulation is working

[daviddennis]

Pacific Bell (well, SBC but I still like to call them by their old name) was forced to offer their services to wholesalers at giveaway rates to produce "competition". Considering that the same network was being used, I'm unsure as to what kind of benefits this really provides; it's still SBC's lines and network no matter who you use, and lower rates for the free-riders like MCI make it harder for Pac Bell to invest and maintain their network. The only real consequence of this "competition" is marginally lower prices and annoying telephone calls asking you to switch your local service.

If there was some way we could encourage parallel networks to be built and create real competition, I'd encourage it - and in fact, we have this with telephone and cable companies fighting for our business with separate networks.

This massive investment proposed by Pacific Bell gives me real hope for huge speeds right to my door, letting me run a serious web server farm or whatever else I wanted to do. (And yes, that's permitted under their DSL contract for my $79.95 a month static IP, 1.5/256 service). If I could get 25mb/3mb service instead, you can bet I'd be pleased as punch. And you bet I'd be grateful for the suspension of this "competition" rule that allowed SBC to make this enormous investment.

Although I know SBC is a wretched monopoly, I've always thought it as best of the Bells. Their DSL technical support may be abysmal, but service and speeds are a heck of a lot better and cheaper than I got with Covad.

At least from my point of view, Hurrah for the Evil Monopoly - sometimes, even thought we may hate to admit it, they're better than their competition!

D

Re:Deregulation is working

[IvyKing]

Some definitions.

ILEC: Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier, i.e. "The Phone Company", be it SBC, Verizon, etc.

CLEC: Competitive Local Exchange Carrier would be upstarts such as Covad, or long distance companies such as AT&T.

UNE-P: Unbundled Network Element - Platform, which is the twisted pair from the Central Office (CO) to the premises plus the switch, DSLAM or whatever to make it a live connection rpovided by the ILEC. Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) and Fiber To The Node (FTTN) would be covered under UNE-P rules - thus pretty much locking out outfits such as Covad from the very high speed DSL market.

UNE-L: Unbundled Network Element - Line, this is just the twisted pair from the CO to the premises, with the switch, DSLAM or whatever provided by the CLEC. Northpoint (RIP) typically used UNE-L's to avoid problems with line filters.

Re:Deregulation is working

[AhBeeDoi]

Just look what deregulation did for California's electricity customers...

California didn't deregulate utilities, it just removed consumer protections. It reaped what it sowed.

Re:Deregulation is working

[letxa2000]

That's besides the point, anyway. We're talking about competition on the last-mile copper pair that terminates in consumer households.

True, but I'd say there are limits to what the Baby Bells can charge for the last mile when other delivery forms (cable, satellite) are there too. They can price themselves out of the market even if the alternative providers don't use their last mile of copper.

We can go 'round and 'round with opinions, though. I'm going to wait to see how the price is affected. My prediction is that the consumer will be adversely affected.

I agree, we can go round and round. We'll have to see what prices do.

Re:Deregulation is working

[fingusernames]

AT&T was given a government mandated monopoly. They were given access to public ways often for free. They were given all sorts of benefits with the aim to provide telephone service to every last house in the nation. I find it difficult to feel that it is 'their' network.

Today, the network built over the last century belongs to the dwindling number of Baby Bell (RBOC) descendants of AT&T. The public deserves to get something back in return for all the benefits accrued to the RBOCs over nearly a century. Mandating that that network be shared in order to promote the public interest is an insignificant price to pay.

Agreed, however, PUC mandated rates are sometimes too low, sometimes too high. Public commissions deciding tariff rates is a problem.

An infinitely better solution would have been structural separation years ago: force the Bells to separate into multiple companies. One which manages the physical network infrastructure and charges all competitors the EXACT SAME rate for access to that network, and other company(ies) that provide services to business and consumer customers.

The fact is that for a long, long time, competition was ILLEGAL. RBOCs had a protected monopoly. Forcing other companies to build parallel networks rather than forcing the sharing of the existing network built with public legal protection and often public funds along the limited public right-of-way in our alleys, along our railroads, and beneath our roads is just wrong. It is a viewpoint which is oblivious to the history of the regulated and subsidized telecommunitions history of this nation. The Bells were given those protections because it is terribly expensive to build those networks. Same for the monopolies given to cable companies. Yet now we expect new entrants to the market to incur those network costs, sans the decades of monopoly protection to recoup the investment?

The only saving grace is that wireless technologies will be able to provide competition without needing to string wires all across the nation again. Hopefully it will be true competition, among multiple nimble local/regional competitors, not national goliaths like Comcast or SBC, which will be only too happy to stamp out all other competition and maintain a duopoly.

And one last comment. SBC in Illinois claimed that the POTS line (UNE-P) lease rate of about $12/mo paid by CLECs was *FAR* below their cost, and they lost big money every month on that. Looking at my SBC bill, I pay $5.61 for my line charge, and $4.50 for my "federal access charge" which is actually money SBC gets but they get to call it that. Everything else on my bill is option and tax (though some of that goes to SBC too).

Yet, did SBC lobby the PUC to raise the tariffs for what they charge me? No. They're apparently at least content with my $10.11 a month. I'm sure they make most profit on the extra optional services, but I'm also sure they squeak out at least a little from my $10.11.

So what did SBC attempt to get the CLEC UNE-P lease rate set to? Nearly TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS per month. Well over twice what SBC charges me, the consumer. My total phone bill, for TWO lines, including local long distance, with caller id, name display, second ring tone, taxes and fees is less than $35 a month from SBC. With SBC's proposed rate hike, a competitor would have had to charge me nearly $50/mo, BEFORE extras, taxes, fees and so on to provide the same.

In the end, the rate hike was to $19/mo. Meaning that a competitor would have to charge a bare profitless minimum of $38/mo to pay SBC for what SBC gives me for $35/mo total.

Yes, I feel so sorry for poor, poor SBC.

Larry

I hope they include firewalls

[PornMaster]

I sincerely hope that SBC includes managed firewall appliances with the service. Pricing should be high enough to include a minimally managed CPE for those who want one.

-PM

and a price increase?

[WormholeFiend]

My cable ISP is offering me an upgrade from 3 to 5mbps for a 50% increase of my bill...

Piracy

[xplosiv]

The MPAA is going to love this, NOT. I can imagine the day already where they will convince ISP's (or lobby the right people) to slow down network speeds in order to curb piracy (just like most cars have speed governors, eventho it is mostly for safety reasons).

Re:Piracy

[thedillybar]

>just like most cars have speed governors, eventho it is mostly for safety reasons

They're not exactly governors, but the speed-limiting devices on automobiles these days are for safety, because automobile manufacturers fear lawsuits. They're set at the maximum speed that the tire manufacturer (original tires) will certify their tires to withstand over a long period of time in less-than-ideal circumstances.

As soon as ISPs start being held responsible for their customers downloading movies, they will consider bandwidth limitations and other methods to prevent customers from downloading movies. Until then, I doubt they'll even think twice.

Re:Piracy

[NanoGator]

"The MPAA is going to love this, NOT."

The attitude in general they have pisses me off. They don't see a new broadcast medium that offers exciting new capabilities, they see their customers magically becoming thieves. Then, they cause that prophecy to become fulfilled by airing anti-piracy commercials that inform people they can download movies for free of the internet.

Hey McFly?!

Bottleneck

[blackmonday]

With all those zombies mailing out spam, I have to wince at the possibility of removing the 128k upload bottleneck. Stay in your seats, more spam is on the way. On the good side, with a static IP address you can now host an (amateur) radio/video site from home, thats important to me and my band.

Re:Bottleneck

[trentblase]

They constantly need to be updated with new address lists and new spam messages to be effective

That doesn't seem to stop them from sending me the same offer a few times a week.

Re:Bottleneck

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, some engineers at SBC are working this very moment to implement an opt-out outbound port 25 blocker. With proper advance notice, all customers will have 25 blocked on the router (except to our SMTP servers), and a simple web page will allow customers to enable this if they choose. This works on the assumption that if someone needs to hit an alternative SMTP server, they are probably competent enough to keep their systems clean. Even if optted-out customers do get zombified, they will be a very fraction of a small minority.

(Posted anonymously because I work for SBC Operations, and don't want to pass this by legal)

Re:Bottleneck

[BitchKapoor]

Why can't the zombie program just connect to the website and enable port 25? Many people probably have their browsers remembering their passwords.

Fiber

[L. VeGas]

I guess it's true that fiber is good for you.

This would be an awesome upgrade

[TheMadPenguin]

I currently run on a 3MB/256k cable connection for home usage and it works well, so I can only imagine what a service like this would be like... and COST. It seems to me that it would be out of the price range of most home users for quite some time. I definitely don't see myself running out to buy one anytime soon, even though the added bandwidth would be nice. I run a VoIP connection for our phone service (which utilized 90k up/down total) so it would be nice to beef up the upstream. This is lacking on most providers from my experience. Everything works great for me unless I happen to be talking on the phone and uploading large files to the Internet at the same time... then it makes for hard conversation as the upload chokes the phone.

Re:This would be an awesome upgrade

[pubjames]

and COST

The thing you have to bear in mind about the services that the telcos provide is that the price you pay doesn't actually have much relation to the cost to the telco. So just because an X bps connection costs Y today, doesn't mean that 10xX bps connection will cost 10xY tomorrow. At least where I am, the streets are full of dark fiber (fiber optic cable that is not being used).

I wonder if I'll have to pay for the upgrade?

[MacGoldstein]

I've RTFA, but couldn't find any information to answer this:

As an SBC user currently considering switching to cable, I'm wondering if, when they upgrade the lines, I will be upgraded for free, or if they'll charge me for it. I can probably assume it's the latter, but I can only be hopeful until then.

Then again, if I can get 25 Mbps for a few extra Franklins a year, who really cares?

If anyone knows any information about the upgrades regarding pricing for users (SBC has always been really dodgy about discussing pricing) I'd be happy to know.

15-25mbps...

[__aambat2633]

15-25mbps...
Here in Sweden we have had 24mbps dsl network for quite some time now... both vdsl and adsl2+

Re:15-25mbps...

[Paulrothrock]

Yes, but Sweden is a very small country compared to the US. I doubt I'll ever see a 25Mbps DSL line in my neighborhood, being 17,000 feet from the CO.

Re:15-25mbps...

[magefile]

As an American, I would kill for BBC. I'd give up cable (TV) if I could get BBC over the internet. That is, if any of the US ISPs would sell me DSL/cable without cable TV or phone service.

Re:15-25mbps...

[AKnightCowboy]

15-25mbps...

Here in Sweden we have had 24mbps dsl network for quite some time now... both vdsl and adsl2+

And in Tokyo the porn stars personally come out to give you the blowjob.. it's that fast.

Re:15-25mbps...

[NanoGator]

"Here in Sweden we have had 24mbps dsl network for quite some time now... both vdsl and adsl2+"

I have 3 megabits now, and at my previous job we had a 7-megabit line. I've only run into a couple of sites that could saturate either one. (Microsoft has kick ass hosting, btw.) Have you found a lot of benefit for having that much speed? (I imagine that in Sweden, you look at different sites than I do?) Just curious if you'd notice the difference between the two. I saw a huge difference going from 768k to 3 megabits, but not 3 megabits to 7 megabits here in the USA.

Re:Pedantic

[b1t r0t]

I don't know what conventions you've been going to, but a small "b" means bits, and a big "B" means bytes.

About fsking time, but don't hold your breath

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Anyone remember Pacbell's (aka SBC) 80's statement that "Fibre to the Curb" was just around the corner. Well, I'd say it's just about time.

Re:About fsking time, but don't hold your breath

[j-turkey]

Anyone remember Pacbell's (aka SBC) 80's statement that "Fibre to the Curb" was just around the corner.

When they said "just around the corner", they failed to mention the 20-year straightaway that preceded that corner.

Re:Gonna be tough to utilize

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because there isn't a need now doesn't mean there won't be in the future. If they have the money to upgrade their networks, let them! Let them plan for the future. What harm can it do?

Re:Pedantic

[ackthpt]

Occasionally you'll see people saying that MB or Mb is megabyte and Mb or mb is megabit, but obviously this is far from consistent. The above is the most common that I've seen, or just avoid the whole subject and explicitly say 10mbit.

And here I wasted my time in college learning 'M' is the abbreviation of Mega (million) and 'm' is the abbreviation of Milli (thousandths).

Imagine the disappointment of subscribers finding that they get millibits per second.

"Look, Dad, somethings coming in on the Teletype!"

Re:Pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

M = mega
m = milli
B = byte
b = bit

mkay?

Where? When?

[crotherm]

Being an SBC DSL customer, this would be welcome news, but the question I have is, Where will this happen, when? Living in a neighborhood that is not quite on top of the charts, I wonder if it may take years before I see any activity in this area.

Are there any SBC folks who would know of any pending time schedules?

heh

[TheHawke]

We'll see this in about 5 years or so once sbc get's done with the litigation with the ILECS and CLECS regarding the so-called "free" useage of sbc's equipment. By that time, the last mile may be owned by either cable, ElectricDSL or wireless. Here in the rural areas, it maybe ten years before we even get to see the entire community sees full coverage by the CLEC, particulary how sbc is dealing with their repair crews and logistics.

They baited my company with their sales pitch, saying that DSL was available at the new office we were moving into, then a week later, the day before opening day, the tech comes in and shoots us down, saying that we were 19,753 feet from the CO.. I turned to cheater (Charter) cable and they bent some corporate rules getting us a business account forged and a line put in the next day. The reserved IP was assigned that same day, just needed to feed them the MAC address of our router to make it formal. We opened our doors a day late.

The day I trust a telco to do their job properly will be the day I die.

Re:Gonna be tough to utilize

[LincolnQ]

/agree for the most part. When I am downloading a file from random website, the bottleneck is usually them, not me, on my 3mbit cable. But a lot of stuff I do crushes my 256kbit upload. For example, the World of Warcraft beta was distributed via Bittorrent, and most of us can't get decent speed downloads because 90% of the peers are stuck at 16 or 32kb/sec. If people had more upload bandwidth across the line then we would have a much easier time. I like to host files for my friends to download off my home server, but it's unpleasant to move anything of significant size at 32 kb/sec.

Faster drop-outs, too?

[Penguinshit]

Does that mean I can expect a commensurate increase in the frequency of network outtages? I consult for an SBC (PacBell) customer. Most of the employees there also use PacBell DSL at home. Every one of them, including the business account, frequently drop off the 'Net for periods ranging from 5 to 45 minutes at least once per week. SBC-Yahoo-PacBell doesn't seem to see this as a problem.

It was also an exercise in frustration to get the business account (one of PacBell's first business DSL customers) switched from an all-copper-to-the-CO connection to a short copper run to the fiber BBox in the parking lot. The original line had been moved so far down the chain that the signal had degraded to the point that the SiNR was well below minimum service level. It had been this way for quite a while (before I started servicing this small office). It took me a year to diagnose (by working with the local technicians responding to my trouble tickets) and get PacBell to do anything about it. At the suggestion of one of the field techs I worked with, I actually had to drop the original account and sign up for "new" service (which would automatically be assigned a circuit routed through the fiber drop less than 100 meters from the customer).

PS: I've advised the customer to switch carriers, or at least get a dedicated line (so as to combine voice/data, solving a whole host of other issues) but the owner is a cheap-ass (who I know doesn't read Slashdot...) and doesn't want to "change email addresses".

<Sigh>...

In related news

[MacGoldstein]

NTT DoCoMo announces they'll be upgrading Tokyo and the surrounding areas' lines to 15-25 tbps.

Just a way for the phone company to do cable TV

[shoppa]

Remember all the companies in the late 90's announcing that backbone bandwidth will be cheaper than air? (QWest, etc.) Here we are in 2004, and Slashdotters reading the press releases seem to assume that their cost for bandwidth to the backbone will be nearly free, yet a T-1 (1.5 Mbps, a tenth of what the article is about) is still realistically several hundred dollars a month. Yeah, if you buy a T-3 or OC-whatever that peers to the Internet then it gets cheaper in volume, but not by a whole lot.

I mean, it's great that we are making progress in bandwidth and reducing cost to get from the phone office to the house, but with connectivity to the backbone still costing as much as it does, do we honestly believe that the effective bandwidth to what we now call "the Internet" backbone will be so cheap that we can ignore it?

I see this as just a way for the phone companies to become another media company and sell the usualy junk on commercial and cable TV, with the phone company now getting some of the profits (where some == "as much as they can gouge the user for").

Just me being cynical.

Re:Just a way for the phone company to do cable TV

[shdragon]

My office has a T1. We pay the premium for the guaranteed uptimes. Without an uplink to our home office, we can do NOTHING. The last time the link went down, Sprint was calling us within 5 minutes to explain the problem and give an ETA. Not that I don't personally think we're getting ripped off, but the last time my DSL service went down, nobody was calling me with an ETA....

Re:Locations?

[lurker412]

According to an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the first trials will be in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Re:Deregulation is working (If your in the city)

[PepsiProgrammer]

Out here in the more rural areas of our nation, we're still struggling to get halfway decent modem connections. Deregulation may be helping people in the city get boatloads of bandwidth, but those of us unfortunate enough to live in the boonies have to fend for ourselves.

Re:Service woes

[silas_moeckel]

SBC is CT is pretty bad for corperate and home customers. Tech support is in Flordia and dosent have a clue whats going on and they have a ho hum additude about fixing even corperate leased lines. I'm a network guy that had been working in the CT area for 15 years or so. SNET was the same before them.

Personaly I changed over to cable and while there were piles of issues to start (leaving rg59 access cable in did not help) but since then it's been rock solid. This is compared to DSl with an outage generaly state wide once every few months.

Re:Oh goody

[putzin]

No, this is a marketing ploy. They say they increase the speed, then give you the run around when you subscribe so you never actually get the service, and SBC essentially becomes a bank. They keep your money for a while, take the interest, and then eventually give it back when they can't deliver or stall anymore. Not a bad deal if you ask me. They are guarunteed not go out of business for doing this, and they can probably turn millions on the interest payments alone. Nice racket if you can swing it.

That said, my list of complaints with SBC and the laundry list of issues I've had with them have nothing to do with this post. The couple of months that I had DSL service (well, sorta, I think it worked on alternate thursdays between 9am and 2pm) was the best SBC service I've ever had. And yeah, I still use them for my phone (My roomate's fault). Nothing beats customer service reps giving an audible "Wow" every time they pull up my records.

Block incoming ports

[Twillerror]

These ISP should consider blocking incoming ports for homes, minus ports need to say run an IP over phone service. Of course smart people will use the port, but if the port is actually rated differently then they might not.

This would stop the spread of viruses, because no one could be connected to. I'm behind a firewall, and except for my Overnet forwarded ports I have no need ( and you know that I really don't need Overnet ).

This would be the biggest difference between home and business accounts. On the home side opening up a port for their IP phone based service would be key. They could allow unlimited calls in their network, and charge lower fees for others.

If made standard enough then a whole slew of other companies could compete against each other. You pay SBC for the open port, then pay the other provider for the phone services. 5 bucks a month for the port, and then the rest based on usage with the actually phone company. Phones calls made to other Voice-IPs on a different network are rated lower, then those with a normal POT line.

At the same time they should allow ports to be opened, and then charge bandwith. So you could run a web server they open up port 80, at the same time you actually get a free firewall of sorts.

Piracy would not happen so much if the entertainment industries would get there heads out of their buts and offer good digital forms of albums and movies at affordable prices. The fact that no one has come up with a good "record" file that contains all the tracks of a record is proof of this.

Being able to download movies that are playing in the theatures for 15 bucks is essentially the same thing as going to theature. Yes you loose some money when two or more people see it, but you don't have to pay to distribute it, or take cuts from the venues themselves.

Chances are you might loose some DVD sales, but people buy DVDs to have a permanent high quality copy of video. I'd still buy the DVDs so I could then encode them to Tivo like device ( at the least my current favorites ) and then be able to do it again when I upgrade, or the hardware fails.
Backing up 100s of movies can be kind of a daunty task for a technical person, and impossible for your average consumer.

Even if the viewer program deleted the file after 2 weeks that would keep most people from keeping them forever, most people feel better about doing something the right way.

In short I think we need to find a balance. The wild west days of the internet need to stop for better security, and better QOS. Yes I think we need the ability for people to distribute information more freely, but that is what bloggs are doing. How many of use really need to run a web server on the internet anymore, especially with all the blogs, and free web space provided by ISPs. The answer is your really don't, except that it feels like freedom is being taken away by not having them. Freedom comes with cost, and the cost of this freedom has shown to be great, the cost has been spam and worms.

Re:Gonna be tough to utilize

[GPLDAN]

99% of home users cannot use that much bandwidth regularly. But I think some of this will be licensed by Covad and other national DSL providers to provide business class service over.

If you look at Covad's web site, they have restructured the business offerings to offer DSL and Fractional T1 as EQUAL alternatives. And the large reason, I feel, is that DSL has issues with troubleshooting and reliability. It's hard to offer an SLA on DSL, when it was designed to adapt for noise. I've seen people get 8k of throughput on a 512k DSL line, just because the line has so much interference or has been bridged tapped too many times, that it is almost not useable. Almost. it costs money to train help deks to go into CPE and look at the db levels. With T1, it's a bit more cut and dried. You may need to adjust the CSU for power, but once it is going - well, that's what it is. ESF is going to give you the number of channels x 64k (56k if you need bit robbing).

But T1s get expensive as you start to bundle them. Multiple CSUs start adding up. Covad has them equal for now, because the fastest business class DSL they have is also 1.5Mb/s. Probably because they backhaul it over DS1.

With offerings of 25Mb/s, I know alot of companies that would like to get that for ROBOs. Very attractive. An office of 50 people can use that much bandwidth, I've seen it happen.

This is just a lobbying piece

[Animats]

This isn't a product announcement. It's a lobbying push. SBC is trying to make unbundled fibre, "naked DSL" and third-party ISPs go away. Again.

It's the same bogus promises the telcos have been making for years. If only they were given unregulated monopoly power, they'd provide more bandwidth.

Here's SBC's announcement of fibre to the home in 2002. Where is that now?

What will the cap be like?

[mikep554]

Comcast already harrasses the 5% of their users that rack up the highest transfer totals. This is generally acknowledged to be about 90 gigs/mo. If SBC suddenly starts giving out 25 mb/s down, you could easily go over this limit in less than a day. What will SBC do when users start topping 1 terrabtyte of transfer each month? It's all well and good for them to say they are going to give me a gb/s 'net connection, but are they going to cancel my service for violating their purposefully vague terms of service when my transfer rates break their ROI calculations?

Speed Freaks

[Ag3nt]

This news most definately has online gamers cheering. Now it won't be just the dedicated servers that have low-latency. My only concern is...cost. Speed like that doesn't come cheap, making this new network pretty expensive on the grounds of a monthly fee. I would be willing to pay it if the speeds are guaranteed and the bandwith is acceptable.

Better phone quality?!?

[Controlio]

I can't wait for FTTP, if only so it lowers the buy-in cost of upgrading the phone system as a whole.

I mean, come on. It's 2004. Why is it that we have private individuals developing spacecraft, yet it still takes me an entire sentence to describe to someone on the other end of the phone whether I said "S" or "F"?!? It makes no sense.

Increasing the quality of the telephone should be a major priority, for a great deal of reasons. Reduction of errors in transmission or understanding, safety reasons (911 calls or voice matching a criminal), far superior modem capabilities... the benefits would be endless.

And before you say "no one would spend the money on a better quality phone line", think about all of the people who make money off of phone calls. Broadcasters who have reporters do lives from a phone line to save costs on microwave trucks, radio call-in shows, news services who rely on phone-in reporting... a lot of people would help invest in a better telephone network - mainly because they would all benefit greatly from it.

If we finally get FTTP, and the majority of the phone network becomes packetized (VoIP or not) so that you're only transporting data and not voltage, the buy-in and initial investment in getting "Hi-Def Phones" to work will be minimal, and maybe it'll push things along much quicker.

That would explain the questions...

[DaoudaW]

That would explain the questions I was asked before I could get help for my sbc telephone account this week. I called the help desk regarding long distance usage and they started asking me all kinds of question about whether I use cable or satellite for my television. No. No. How much would you be willing to pay? Etc, etc. It bugged me at the time, but if they're willing to give me that kind of bandwidth it'd be worth the price.

Interesting part of the article...

[GPLDAN]

The Microsoft TV IPTV platform would make it possible to deliver standard-and high-definition TV programming to multiple TV sets in the home over an FTTN network while leaving ample bandwidth available for super high-speed broadband and Voice over IP (VoIP) services.

A motion JPEG stream of a NTSC signal takes about 8Mb/s. With Divx and Xvid and other newer MPEG compressions that may have come down.

Cable's value is that it can package analog or digital offerings on the same coax that brings you data digitally. DSL was just about data. But with Video Over IP and de-regulation, we reset the table. Now Telcos have an advantage again. Converged services over IP, esp. voice and video. This puts Vonage and their ilk and Comcast in a position to ward these off. Why use Vonage over the Internet with no service levels, when you can use IP telephony over the DSL provider network with service guarantees? The only reason would be cost.

Comcast may fight back with partnerships to offer voice in a bundle. Vonage's offering already goes a long way to destroying the E.164 convention. I live in one state and have 4 phone numbers on my line, the last 3 being in different states so people can call me without toll to them. International prefixes and U.S. area codes will simply vanish.

SBC distracting its customers....

[NeoSkandranon]

SBC is basically providing an "OOOoh shiny!" to its customers to cover for its absolutely pathetic service. I have friends in kansas city and texas who have SBC DSL, and I'd be willing to wager it goes out at least once a day if not more so, for often enough to disrupt downloads and instant messaging, if not for hours at a time

Not quite true...

[sterno]

While that may be the trend, it's because of lack of competition more than anything else. Historically, there's been very few ways of getting information into people's homes. At first there was only phone lines, then cable came along and more recently wireless has started to show up.

Ultimately if you control those pipes and you are the only game in town, you have no incentive to innovate. Why upgrade your network to charge another $5/month for services when you can just charge another $5/month.

I don't believe regulation in the sense that you are suggesting would be a benefit. What you'd have it a bunch of people trying to hit that 512/128 sweet spot. So you'd end up with having that bandwidth being about as cheap as possible, but anything more than that would be terribly expensive.

Frankly, I think the best form of regulation would be to say that any company providing a pipe into a home cannot offer service itself but can charge a percentage of the retail price of the services that go over their network. So, for example, you get DSL service, you pay $40/month and SBC get's 10%. Now, why would SBC have an incentive to improve their network? Well, if they do that, your DSL provider can charge you $60/month, and everybody is happier.

Putting them in the position of just running the pipes gives them incentive to be open with their network and to provide the best service possible to the carriers who run over their pipes.

SBC = huge spammer

[mabu]

Let them pump broadband wherever they want. It just means they connect to my mail server a little faster before I refuse to accept their mail and hang up on 'em. SBC has been one of the largest sources of spam in the last year.

They'd be wise to spend some of their resources to stop the huge flow of spam across their network first and foremost. Or their broadband customers will be further alienated from the Internet proper and all that bandwidth won't make a difference.

Timothy needs to learn how to use SI Units

[bohnsack]

This is the second story from Timothy in just a bit more than a week where SI units are used incorrectly. See the previous story.

In this story 15-25 Mb/s is expressed two ways:

1) 15-25Mbps
2) 15-24mbps

Both of these are incorrect. Here's an reference on how to use SI correctly to back me up.

In short:

a) There's always a space between the number and the units.
b) "M" is mega and "m" is milli. There's nine orders of magnitude difference between to two.
c) "per" is expressed with a "/".

I just want freaking DSL...

[silicon not in the v]

of ANY kind to my house--I don't care what speed. I'm stuck with ^%&*#$ CableOne internet for $45 a month, and DSL isn't supported on my line. Qwest just started offering unbundled DSL service for about $15 a month (plus a few bucks for a cheap ISP), and I can't get it!

This is Boise Idaho, so we're not exactly on the leading edge of technology.

WHATEVER.....

[4ginandtonics]

Yeah, WHATEVER, SBC...

I'm still waiting for SBC's Project Pronto.

Where'd that go? Well, it went nowhere fast

Sometimes I wonder if SBC says these things just to scare away their competition.

15-25Mbps? Pathetic...

[The Lynxpro]

SBC should be able to do better than that. Surewest Broadband here in Sacramento is fibre to the house. They hit 100Mbps.

Further proof that the dinosaur Bell telecos need to be taken out to the dustbin of American history once and for all.

Kind of off-topic, but..

[thisissilly]

Do any DSL companies offer DSL in a "reversed" asymmetry? For instance, 256Kb down, 1.5Mb up?

It would be nice for those of us who want to serve (legitimate) files, as opposed to download tons of stuff.