2.5Gb/s Internet For French Homes

Erick Lionheart at www.gamersloot.net writes "Presence-pc at reports that France Telecom just announced they are offering 2.5 Gb/s Internet connections to select cities in the Paris region. For ... $85(70 Euros) a month you also get free phone and TV. From the article (in French): 'The historical operator opted for a GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) FTTH architecture (Fiber To The Home). This technology allows up to 2.5 Gbits/s download and 1.2 Gigabits/s upload.'"

Comments

Define "free"?

[etherlad]

For... $85(70 Euros) a month you also get free phone and TV.

Ummm.... if it's $85/month, it isn't really "free," is it?

Re:Define "free"?

[Valdrax]

Compared to Comcast, where you can "save up to $100" by buying a connection that is a fraction of that for $33 along with $33 for TV and $33 for VoIP, it doesn't seem all that disingenous.

When you consider the bandwidth used by VoIP and IPTV over a 2.5 Gb/s connection, it IS practically free to provide. I would pay twice this price to get this here and more than willingly make this my largest bill. Where I live, the best that I can get is 6 Mb/s / 384 Kb/s for over $80 month.

It's disgusting! What country invented DSL? America. What country is in dead last place among the industrialized world for DSL speeds? America.

But, oh, our poor widdle local monopolies can't compete against all that howwibble competition. It just makes me mad enough to spit.

Re:Define "free"?

[SpecTheIntro]

It's disgusting! What country invented DSL? America. What country is in dead last place among the industrialized world for DSL speeds? America.

What country has the largest square footage of industrialized space in the world? America. I share your outrage at the lack of reasonably-priced high-speed internet, but there are some real geographic concerns with laying down wire in the States. For one, America is a lot more sprawling than any other European or Asian country. Even American cities tend to occupy much more space than their European counterparts--not just because we have more land, but because our culture has given rise to a conception of "personal space" that is vastly different than what Europeans or Asians believe. They're much more tightly packed than we are, so laying down fiber in major cities has a much greater profit/sq. ft ratio than a telco could get in the US.

But really, we have government regulation to thank for our laughable phone and data networks. By trying to encourage phone companies to lay out phone wire where it would not be profitable in the 40s and 50s, we granted them monopolies, and now they've become as poorly managed as the airlines.

Re:Define "free"?

[Valdrax]

They're much more tightly packed than we are, so laying down fiber in major cities has a much greater profit/sq. ft ratio than a telco could get in the US.

I've heard this argument before, but there are places in New York and other large metropolises that are just as packed as some of less dense Asian cities and even they don't have bandwidth to compare.

By trying to encourage phone companies to lay out phone wire where it would not be profitable in the 40s and 50s, we granted them monopolies, and now they've become as poorly managed as the airlines.

I would point out that most phone companies in European countries are also monopolies. The difference is that they're government regulated and partially (or wholly) government funded monopolies. It's that lack of state intervention that makes the huge difference. On the one hand, Americans have never really had to wait long times to get phone service for decades. On the other hand, our internet growth has become a quagmire.

I think some sort of boost is needed, but I'm not sure what. Obviously, the market is providing enough incentive to innovate and expand services.

Re:Define "free"?

[josecanuc]

But really, we have government regulation to thank for our laughable phone and data networks. By trying to encourage phone companies to lay out phone wire where it would not be profitable in the 40s and 50s, we granted them monopolies, and now they've become as poorly managed as the airlines.

Interesting you mention airlines. Telecom and airlines are both industries that are either government-run or government-subsidized in the typically social-leaning European nations.

For good or bad, those are the kinds of industries where it's difficult to continue operating at a profit without some outside help (financial or regulatory). In the U.S., telecoms do have all kinds of protection through regulation, but it's silly regulation that tries to maintain that there's some kind of difference between data and voice these days.

</ramble>

Re:Define "free"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What country has the largest square footage of industrialized space in the world?

Every time some other country's telco produces a better service than our own, this comes up. It didn't explain why consumers can't get 100mbps in our most dense cities, or 1gbit, and it still doesn't explain why we can't get 2.5gbps now. Even in the places that already have fiber to the home, the best I can do on FiOS is 30M/5M for $180. Meanwhile ATT seems to be giving up on SBC's fiber deployment, at least for this iteration. According to that article they're possibly hoping to come out ahead sometime in the hazy future with 100mbps connections.

If things are going to get better, we must not settle for the same old tired excuses. Isn't it funny how in the intarweb of tubes, the ISPs are handing out tiny little coffee stirrers for their users to sip through, then whining that they have to break network neutrality and double charge companies for the bandwidth they already paid for to keep those little straws from clogging up? Stinks of artificial scarcity and greed to me.

You mean?

[abscissa]

You mean when you don't devote all the country's resources to war, you can actually spend money on developing infrastructure at home and abroad that improves the lives of citizens?!?? AMAAAAAZING!!

Re:You mean?

[OlivierB]

Get over it man. That whole "surrendering" thing is getting old.
I'm not even sure that you know what started it all, nevermind who helped the pilgrims settle in the US and fight for their independence against England.

So do us a favour, pick up a history book and learn something for a change.

Re:You mean?

[William_Lee]

You mean when you don't devote all the country's resources to war, you can actually spend money on developing infrastructure at home and abroad that improves the lives of citizens?!?? AMAAAAAZING!!

How the hell does this parent get modded insightful, and not -1 Troll? The current state of America's high speed (or lack thereof) infrastructure has nothing to do with war spending. It has more to do with the current competitive landscape in the telecom/Baby Bell sector, and the politics of telecom and cable tv. It also has to do with the physical size of the US compared to a small European country, and the fact that at this point, the US doesn't believe in a near completely state run socialist infrastructure to implement new technologies.

Re:You mean?

[kabocox]

You mean when you don't devote all the country's resources to war, you can actually spend money on developing infrastructure at home and abroad that improves the lives of citizens?!?? AMAAAAAZING!!

Um, no. We actually spent the money to have "hispeed" like 45 MBps to all of the US through tax cuts and deregulation of the Baby Bells during the Clinton/Gore era. Those that have paid for telephone services from I think it was around 1993-current have been basically given their phone companies more profit rather than government taxes and a regulated phone industry. It was a massive bait and switch, they promised something like this French system, and after the Feds gave the Bells their carrot, the Bells gave the Feds a stick and said we can't/won't roll out/upgrade fiber to the door and will instead offer DSL. From what I've since, DSL is ok for those who can get it. The Feds were promised more than 30 times the speed of DSL though both up and down stream to us. This is something that should have been built during our 1997-2000 the internet is the wave of the future time. The Bells have screwed us. I'd actually love for the Feds to fine each one of the billions in back taxes with interest for not providing services to us and then regulating the phone industry to bring it up to spec.

Re:You mean?

[andyclements]

Actually, the Clinton/Gore era gave the American telcos $200 BILLION in tax breaks so that we would have fiber and coax to our homes, at speeds of around 45Mbps. A decade later, we are still stuck on copper, paying insane amounts for abysmal performance. See the new networks site for more.

Re:You mean?

[bombadillo]

Yeah, too bad all of that "infrastructure" spending hasn't helped their 9.1% unemployment rate.

Take away the extreme amount of home construction the past few years in the U.S. and I think you would find U.S. unemployment at a similar if not higher rate. We are very fortunate to have large amounts of spare land to buoy the economy. Europe on the other hand does not have this luxury.

Re:You mean?

[WalletBoy]

I don't think it was the intention of the OP to make a crack about France surrendering as much as it was making an observation that a country might choose to spend its money on infrastructure to improve its quality of life for its citizens instead of billions of dollars a week for the past 3+ years on a war of questionable motivation.

Re:You mean?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Here in the US the unemployment measurement doesn't count people who were looking for jobs but gave up because they could get one. When you count those people too, we're about 10%, last I checked. Just like all statistics, the way you count and collect your data can make a big difference.

Re:You mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it werent for the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans France would have to speak German.
If it werent for the French Americans would be speaking Cree.

Re:And look here:

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...that's completely unrelated to Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality has to do with the priorities of packets, not connection speed. This is just a case of lower population density making it not worth it in most areas and low competition making it not worth it everywhere.

The weakest link

[blantonl]

For some reason, when I read news releases like these, I get all excited about the possibilities of a tremendous amount of bandwidth available to me in the home -- then realize the reality.

You are only going to get the bandwidth that you are being served.

With that said, if I'm downloading a huge ISO or other multimedia file from a site on my 2.5GB connection, and the remote site is sitting on a 256K upstream cable modem, then I'm going to get no more than 256K.

While YOU might have 2.5GB of downstream available to you, most providers these days serving upstream content don't have anything close to that availability.

And furthermore, I seriously doubt that many PCs today even have the ability to CONSUME 2.5GB of bandwidth. Are they making 10GB ethernet cards for the consumer market? Ummm... no.

Re:The weakest link

[Wojski]

More importantly, where do we find a hardware firewall that would handle that kind of bandwidth? Be pretty funny watching a Linksys trying to coup with that kind of bandwidth.

Re:And look here:

[krem81]

Net Neutrality will accomplish the exact opposite effect, in this case, as there won't be any incentive for ISP's to upgrade their networks if that bill is passed.

p2p is legal and they have 1.2 gbs up...

[kemo_by_the_kilo]

All i know is, p2p is legal and they have 1.2 gbs up... you cant beat that with a stick.
we cant even get FTTP in San Fran where its offered
when it does come to america please invest in cisco.......

Covering all France would cost less than you think

[OlivierB]

What's expensive with FTTH is the termination of the fiber to the homes, not so much the backbone.
French experts agree that getting all the homes connected in France would cost approximately 30bn (with an average cost of 1500 per house).
That may sound like a lot but in fact it's only the price of 500KM of new highway.

I think that this infrastructure should be paid for by the state and allowed access to private companies against a fee for TV, Internet and phone services.

True Story

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So my father invested in France telecom. Bought at 128, the all time high I think. They went down to 70, 40, 30. At one point they were down to 9. At that time, the company released its finacial report detailing how they had taken in I think 23 billion in revenue, and had made a loss of 1 billion.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that their expendature had been marked as 12 billion in running costs or some such, and the other 12 billion was marked as "captial infrastructural development", or some such. The main telecoms provider in france had just invested 12 billion in its infrastructural development as was down to 9 per share.

I advised him to remortgage his house and put it all on France Telecom.

He did no such thing. I believe he sold what he had at 15. The shares are now worth about 22.

As I tried to explain, that 12 billion infrastructural fund wasn't to repaint buildings. France Telecom were giving the French telecoms system a serious upgrade, and as you can no doubt see, it's already paid off. The French can now get their phone, TV and internet over the same line. The company was never, ever going to go under as anyone who knows anything about French big business will tell you.

That's what a high bandwidth network for 70 million people costs. 12 billion, give or take. And it doesn't require any extortion policies from telecoms on internet businesses. It took a 1 billion loss in one year, and the French now have the best telecoms infrastructure on the continent, if not the world. Say what you may about the French, but when they do big infrastructural projects, they tend to get it right; TGV, Nuclear power, Millau Viaduct, etc.

Re:Sweet Mother of Potatoes!

[tolan-b]

Yeah quite! Good luck finding a server willing to give you 2.5GBps!

Re:And look here:

[Danse]

Net Neutrality will accomplish the exact opposite effect, in this case, as there won't be any incentive for ISP's to upgrade their networks if that bill is passed.

Who believes they'll upgrade anyway? They've said that before in order to get tax breaks, but they lied then just like they're lying now.

What do they do with that bandwidth?

[massysett]

Thanks for the link to a French article. At any rate though, what will people do with all that bandwidth? What do they do with it now? No, seriously I'm just wondering. I have about 12 megabits download speed right now, and honestly I don't really need that much. I do wish my 600 kilobit upload speed were much faster. But what would I do with a gigabit of download?

Re:Internet, Phone and TV for $85.00?

[sanjal]

I hope your hate will not be the reason to occupy Paris and kill a dozen hundred thousands of french civilians.

Re:And look here:

[evanbro]

Net neutrality has everything to do with this. ISPs are claiming that they need the extra income from the second-tier extortion fees to be able to provide high speed access like that.

Re:Sweet Mother of Potatoes!

[William Robinson]

Well, at least bittorrent and some download managers will have nice time, which make parallel connections to different sources for dowloading.

Also, you might not lose quality of Video/Audio chat if you are doing something else on net as well.

TOR server, FreeNet server, I2P, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, for the love of freedom, if you have one of these connections, donate some of your spare bandwidth to anonymous browsing services.

If a good upstream connection (with no bandwidth caps) were affordable where I live, I'd be doing it today.

STILL WANT.

[Valdrax]

In other words, each endpoint gets around 80 Mb/s downstream and around 40 Mb/s upstream. 2.5 Gb/s is the downstream system capacity between the optical line terminal and optical network terminal, not the service offered to an individual customer.

Oh, well only 80 Mbps. I'd still take that. I'd still just about kill for that, especially if it was affordable.

Re:And look here:

[masklinn]

As if they would upgrade their networks without net neutrality...

See, the issue is that the telcos have way too much power, things started going very good for us french (as far as internet connections go) around 2000 when the Free ISP appeared: their customer service sucks (and has always sucked), but they immediatly set extremely agressive prices for high speed and a usually good enough reliability (when they appeared, their offer was something like 512/128 for 30/mo, when you couldn't get 256/64 for less than 40 from France Telecom -- french historical telco, and free then promtly upped their offer to 1024/256 a year or so later -- without changing the prices). And they kept at it, Free mostly appeals to students & techies (if only because their customer service sucks so much that if you ever need them better stay on your own), but the other ISPs had to follow suit and up their offers every time Free upped theirs, they had to add a phone when Free added it, and TV when free added it, ...

You don't have that kind of disruptive ISPs in the USA, if only because your telcos are not required by law to let any and everyone use their pipes, and they can therefore strangle any ISP they don't like by fucking up with their customers. Or arbitrarily refuse to let other ISPs take control of the pipes.

The phone network should be owned by your state/federal govts, and leased to both telcos and ISPs. This would effectively remove all the power the telcos use, and allow for the birth of disruptive/innovative/low cost ISPs.

Re:Sweet Mother of Potatoes!

[manno]

I can think of a number off the top of my head.

1. VPN
2. VNC
3. Game Servers - Battlefield 2 reccomends a minimum of 64kb a player for a 64 player map that's 4Mb. If you want to eventualy double players to 128, or go crazy with 256 you will need 8Mb, and 16Mb respectively.
4. HD video from youtube/google.video
5. VOIP telephone banks
6. Website hosting
7. Remote backups
9. Anything that is bandwidth intensive

Asking what use this would have is kind of missing the point. You put this type of bandwidth in every home, and uses will be made the download speed is nice, but it's the bandwidth up that's going to cause HUGE changes.

Make no mistake the US being this far behind is hurting us, how much does it cost for a US based buisiness a month to get a 40Mb of upload? literaly Thousands if not tens of thousands. It costs, a French company less than $90. Yes I would like to get this to my home, but the bandwidth gap in the home is not what concerns me. The US had better get its but in gear or else we will be left in the dust on this whole information age thing. It's still the wild wild west out there and anything can happen. French companies now have a huge leg up on thier US counterparts.

-manno

Really Far Behind

[tonyr1988]

I don't think everyone realizes just how far behind America is in the field of Internet access. Yes, our broadband connections are significantly slower, and we're falling further back every year.

But a lot of us don't even have broadband access. As I'm sitting at home, my laptop is connected to my local dial-up ISP at 31.2 Kbps and I'm downloading a codec pack at 3.3 Kbps. I have never once broken the 4 mark.

The worst part is that we can't change. We're forced to buy phone service, even though we always use our cell phones. Together, we're paying $100 a month for dial-up. Why? Because the nearest broadband provider (Cebridge), stopped laying cable .5 miles away from our house.

I don't mean this to sound like I'm whining and complaining. In fact, I'm moving in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to fall in love with high-speed. I'm just pointing out that not only are our broadband connections a problem, but so is the broadband availability.

Re:Sweet Mother of Potatoes!

[LunaticTippy]

It would be very useful for residential homes, even with current usage.

Instead of paying for cable, phone, and internet it could all be internet. 2.5 gigabit would feed several HDTVs with multiple receivers, several phone lines, and several fast computers easily. The main thing is what hugely increased bandwidth will lead to. There is something that will fill these pipes, if history is any gauge.

Re:Sweet Mother of Potatoes!

[manno]

...And at one point in time 1GB of hard disk spaced seemed like more than I would ever need.

Trust me people will find awesome uses for 40Mb of bandwidth up. I honestly believe VPN for home will catch on, or a service with remote storage that works similarly. with 80Mb down, 40Mb up and a VPN connection to your home PC from anywhere an OS from MS/Apple/distro-of-the-day could create a way for you to set up a network share that would allow you to treat your WAN like your LAN. You could download your media collection from your home PC to wherever you are. Personal Video/Music on demand. Think TIVO-to-go no need to use email to transfer files from one PC to another one located at a remote location. VPN will become seamless in the not to distant future. It's that way for me already, if you haven't tried it out yet, use OpenVPN. If you use it in tunnel mode on Windows XP you can make it start up and connect to your VPN server automatically, and treat your network share as a mapped drive or folder... The only drawback? US DSL/Cable upload bandwidth. I'm talking working on remote files at local speeds.

A more likely scenario would be a company like Google offering 50-100GB of storage, and you'll log onto it with every PC you use to get your music, videos, everything. Thinking about a 80mb down/40mb up in terms of "it's like a 6mb down 0.375Mb up only faster" is wrong. If French telecom can manage to deliver 50% of that bandwidth "to the jack" this is going to be HUGE. The key hear again is UPLOAD.

Speaking as a US citizen to the other US citizens - We are shooting ourselves in the foot leaving our national IT infrastructure in the hands of people spending more time on finding a cheaper easier way to line their pockets rather than the old fashioned entrepreneurs who would find an undeserved market, and offer them a fair service at a fair price. If not addressed soon this will be a huge problem. Again home bandwidth would be nice but it's business BW that's really going to screw us over in the long run.

-manno

Re:2.5Gbps?

[ivan256]

Heck, we still have people without cable TV here in spots

And hopefully they never will...

It's a waste of resources and one more company that has waiver to tounce all over private property to have infrastructure that is completely unnecessary. Laying cable for a uni-directional service is rediculous. That's what RF broadcasting is perfect for. Those people should get a sattelite dish; even if they have to put it at the top of a 50ft pole to get line of sight.