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Increased Bandwidth Irrelevant?
halbert writes "ArsTechnica has a story about AT&T COO Randall Stephenson telling folks that there is 'no discernable difference' between AT&T's 1.5 Mbps service and Comcast's 6 Mbps, because the backbone is slowing everything down. The main argument from the article is that fiber to the home is not necessary. How about letting the consumer decide that?" From the article: "This is a direct response to the criticism that AT&T has suffered for deploying a fiber optic network that reaches only to the local node, not directly into a customer's home--which means that the 'last mile' connection is still copper wire. Verizon, by contrast, is deploying fiber directly into the home, making for much higher speeds. AT&T argues that its model is cheaper, faster to deploy, and just as capable as Verizon's, which currently uses much of its massive bandwidth to distribute RF TV channels."
So, the COO of company A who provide a worse service than company B says that there's no service-level difference in practice. Well, he *would*, wouldn't he ? It's always worth remembering the wisdom of ages... "cui bono"
IMHO (and it's only a single datapoint) it's certainly worth it for me... I have servers located in the UK on a 100mbit link, and at least 80% of the time I can download at ~500 kBytes/sec (sometimes more) from there to San Jose (CA). Since I transfer large numbers of multi-megapixel images, it's important to me that I have a fast link.
So, basically, picture me blowing a loud raspberry at Mr. Stephenson, thumb on the end of my nose, and waggling my fingers at him. I'll take the Comcast service, thanks.
Oh, BTW, you can get HDTV down the same wire too
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I have the 15Mb/s down 2Mb/s up package and it is fast as hell!!!! I routinely get 14.6Mb/s downstream when downloading from fast sites (like Microsoft.com). I'd say their backbone is working just fine.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Hey, so maybe you should... oh, I don't know... fix your backbones?
I've got 6Mb DSL from Speakeasy, and I'm pretty certain there's a huge difference between 1.5Mb and 6Mb. Apparently the backbone isn't a problem for Speakeasy, either, since I regularly get between 500 and 700K/s download speeds. (That's bytes, not bits.)
Sounds to me like AT&T is doing what they do best... absolutely nothing, while they sit on their ass.
Ummm, just a thought, but in France we get 20Mbps adsl2+ that really is 20Mbps (well, when your phone line is good enough to get that high a rate), or at least most of the clients get a good 10Mbps, and get a stable download rate that's consistant with their synchronisation speed.
We have IPTV too. And the fiber only goes to the local node, not to the home. And you're talking about FTTH doing only 6Mbps? Did I read that wrong or are you really talking about a technology that is being used waaay below its real potential? AT&T's offer ought to be way above what it is, way above comcast's actual offer of 6Mbps (which should be at 100Mbps).
I'm afraid I still haven't gotten used to the turnaround with internet speed. We're all so used to looking at american connections and drooling it seems odd to hear you talking about connections we had a few years back...
ATSC channels (USA over-the-air digital broadcast) have a total data rate of a little over 19.5Mbit/sec. Using MPEG2 video compression (see below), most stations fit a main HD feed (their network feed) at either 720p or 1080i and a standard def subchannel at usually 480i, maybe 480p if you're lucky, into that channel.
However, using h.264, HD 720p video can be run at rates as low as 4Mbit without significant artifacting, mostly due to h.264's incredible behavior when presented with resolution bumps. SD channels can be run as low as 384kbit (yes, you read that right...) at acceptable quality. However, set-tops capable of decoding HD h.264 are currently expensive and not widely deployed, and currently employed digital cable and broadcast standards in the USA call for MPEG2, so this is not likely to be used when compatibility with existing infrastructure is required.
However, even using h.264, 15Mbit leaves you with room for 3 HD channels and no extra internet bandwidth. That's really pushing it. The cable companies have really got the edge in infrastrcuture here. Their infrastructure was built to move high-bandwidth signals directly into the home (most cable systems have an available bandwidht of at LEAST 400MHz), while the telephone infrastructure was originally designed to carry only baseband voice (bandwith ~= 10kHz).
Your wrong, but only slightly.
Here's AT&T's project lightspeed in a nutshell:
25 MBit/sec service to the home.
1.5-6 MBit/sec reserved for internet.
12 MBit/sec reserved for 1 HD stream.
Remainder split up among a maximum of 3 SD streams, and phone service. Yes, this means you can't have more than 1 HD stream on project lightspeed. And you can't have more than 4 video streams, total.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
You really want both as the formula is fixed_latency+data_size/bandwidth.
The last part is not insignificant - for a chunk of 8KB the pipe with 1.5Mbps contributes 44 milliseconds while a pipe doing 6Mpbs contributes only 11 milliseconds.
It is important to note that the speed loss described in the article is in single point to single point communication. If you are downloading multiple pieces of a file coming from many different locations (read: bittorrent) you will be able to acheive much higher speeds on fibre as each individual incoming connection travels a seperate path through the connected networks.
I have NTL cable in the UK and get a consistent 10Mb/s on torrents and downloads from fast servers.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
I have 30Mb/5Mb Verizon Fios (Fiber optics to the house) and i absolutely love it. To say there is no difference is absolutely retarded. You cant pull 30Mb/s from easynews.com with AT&T's 1.5Mb or comcasts 6Mb service, but you can with Fiber.
You not only can upload faster, but you also do not get capped for using your service. Try that with a cable broadband provider. Sure they may advertise 6/1, 10/1, even 15/1 and 30/2 now (optonline) But if you use that upload bandwidth for even an hour straight, you will get capped down to ridiculous levels and your bill will not reflect it. Nothing is worse than having Optonilne's 30Mb/2Mb service and realizing you've been capped down to 6Mb/15KB/s AND you're bill is still the same $60 a month price.
For some reason cable broadband providers love to charge you full price even though they've capped your service down to near 56k speeds.
Fiber is the future. Anyone claiming other wise is not up to par and is affraid of it. They cant deliver the speeds the market demands. Frankly the market demanded it years ago, and only a few have stepped up just recently. Verizon being the major player. Bravo Verizon.
Coax can do a lot of things but everyone should laugh at these companies when they tell us that we dont need speed.
The net would be so much more if we had faster speeds.
Just look at what verizon is doing. They're delivering HD TV through Fiber to the house at a much cheaper package price than cable providers.
The sooner we get faster speeds, the sooner we have a more advanced civilization with new developing markets and utilities that make our lives far better than yesteryear.
Anyone holding us back, should be left to die like the peice of shit company they are. No hand outs. You suck. Build up your infrastructure or find a different market.