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

[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

[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.

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

[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)

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: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!"