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2.5Gb/s Internet For French Homes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gentlemen-start-your-envy dept.

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.'"

12 of 536 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet Mother of Potatoes! by Cap'nPedro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh the sweet, sweet pr0n! Holy crap, I wish I lived in France!

    Wait, did I just say what I think I said...?

  2. Define "free"? by etherlad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    --
    Soylens viridis homines es
  3. offering 2.5 Gb/s... by kzharv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But I notice they are using GPON. I have 1Gb/s GPON in Japan (free, comes with the body corp fees) and 1Gig aint "1Gig". Yeah looks good but I would prefer dedicated 100Meg than 2.5Gig GPON.

    1. Re:offering 2.5 Gb/s... by justaphoneguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      GPON provides 2.5 Gb/s downstream and 1.2 Gb/s upstream, shared among 32 endpoints (currently; the technology is supposed to evolve to support 64 endpoints). 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. In addition, the back end of the optical line terminal is typically a single GbE port into the carrier's backbone, so there's a contention factor which limits the total bandwidth available to the subscribers served by the OLT to less than 1 Gb/s.

  4. 2.5Gbps? by Primis · · Score: 5, Funny

    And what, in 40 seconds you've hit your monthly cap?

    Seriously though, it' s trade-off. We could have this sort of thing in parts of North America, but it would require consumers and gov't to stop moaning and griping about where telecos and cablecos pick to choose their deployments. Cherry-picking, if you will.

    Because in case you didn't notice, all these Asian and European plans that seem so fast (and than always get everyone green with envy) always have the disclaimer "in select areas/markets" on them. Which means "deployed to a very few affluent areas that can likely afford it", a concept which seems to go over OK in Asia and Europe, but not so OK in North America.

  5. The weakest link by blantonl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Lindsay Blanton
    RadioReference.com
  6. FT by lovebyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    France Telecom/Orange better improve their current offers. They are eaten alive by other ADSL providers. FT/Orange gives you 18Mb/s ADSL for 40 euros a month (includes TV channels AND NO telephone) when other providers gives you 24Mb/s for 25 to 30 euros which includes TV AND free phone calls to Europe, USA, and other countries. They lose thousands of customers per month.
    Let's hope that they'll compete by innovating, but I doubt it.

    --

    I'll do it for cheesy poofs.

  7. Internet, Phone and TV for $85.00? by twmcneil · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, a real reason to hate the French.

    --
    "The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
  8. Sigh.... by Nonillion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And here in America, we STILL fall further and further behind in broadband. Where is this 45+ M/bit sync fiber connection the telcos promised 80%+ of Americans were supposed to have by now?

    --
    "I bow to no man" - Riddick
  9. Re:And look here: by jakarta-milwaukee · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just to make you feel better: here in Indonesia we pay $60 for a 128 kbps cable modem connection.

    --
    google: verb - to search for information on the Internet.
  10. Covering all France would cost less than you think by OlivierB · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
  11. Re:You mean? by OlivierB · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity