100Mbps Home Internet Service Next Year in Finland

Listen Up writes "According to an article on CNN, broadband Internet access via cable modems in Finland will be able to hit 100 Mbps as early as 2006. That would be 50 times faster than the average broadband speeds now offered to cable TV homes in Finland. Do you think this technology has the possibility of reaching U.S. shores? Or do you think the already deeply entrenched U.S. politics are going to keep this technology from ever reaching us? There are already thousands and thousands of miles of 'dark fiber' underground around the U.S."

Comments

why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

100Mbps fiber to door was available in Japan since like two years ago; about a year ago in metropolitan areas they even rolled out 1Gbps service. Finland makes the news because...?

Re:why is this news?

[timeOday]

Finland makes the news because...?

because it offers the promise of 100 mbps over existing TV cables. That is the key right there, because it means the masses (most of us) might actually benefit.

Of course if you live in a single-broadband-provider city like I do, it's hard to imagine why they'd bother.

Not fully usable, obviously

[Peter Cooper]

Having 100Mbps would be great, but it's not as if you're going to be able to pull files off of some Web server at the full speed. Many busy servers only have 100Mbps connectivity in total themselves.

You might suggest that 100Mbps would be great for BitTorrent and the like, but the flaw is that ISP's backbones and peering arrangements are measured in gigabits, not terabits. Even an OC-48 can only take 24 customers maxing out their bandwidth on this system. A big European ISP like Demon only has 2Gbps going into the LINX.. enough for, wow, 20 customers to max out their bandwidth.

The ratio of guaranteed bandwidth to advertised bandwidth on this offering is crazy. Backbones just aren't there yet.

The problem is the last mile...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already thousands and thousands of miles of 'dark fiber' underground around the U.S.

So what? The problem is not bandwidth in total, it is making the connection to the home to the nearest big fiber point. DSL and cable are popular with ISPs because the cables already go to the customer. Running broadband over a phone line or cable costs next to nothing. The big cost was digging up the street to put in the wire. After that, the operating costs are minimal.

If you go to a big US colocation facility, you will find that a lot of bandwidth is really cheap, because the fiber is already there. If you want a fiber connection to your home, you will have to pay an arm and a leg to put the fiber in the ground.

Wireless ISPs have a big potential advantage since they can avoid the last mile problem.

Re:Completely different scale issues

[EiZei]

FYI Finland is even more sparsely populated than the united states.

Re:Dark Fiber

[dsginter]

Dark Fiber as nothing to do with home broadband.

Both DSL and cable internet are provided by way of fiber - its just cheaper to convert to another medium for the "last mile". See Comcast's recent dark fiber aquisition.

Re:What is the

[willpall]

Bandwidth is not free, people. Home servers that need more than 256 kbps upload speed generally use the bandwidth on a consistent basis. The service you get residentially is extremely cheap compared to business-class circuits, and this is why. You get the speed benefit (down) of a fat pipe but you won't get the volume that a more expensive circuit would offer. This is not because your ISP is evil, simply because, gasp!, they intend to make a profit.

I know there are better ways to control the aggregate amount of bandwidth being consumed, but this is a simple way of doing it that is acceptable by a huge percentage of the consumers buying cable or DSL service. Those who really would like to have parity between their down and up speeds are exactly the customers ISPs don't want on residential service. They will lose money on you.

There's nothing evil about that.

(I know the parent poster didn't say they're being evil, but that's the general impression I get on these threads sometimes.)