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World-First VDSL2 Demo Gets 500Mbps Data Transfers

Posted by timothy on from the right-quick dept.

pnorth writes "Ericsson has achieved data transfer rates of more than 500Mbps in what it said is the world's first live demonstration of a new VDSL2-based technology. The demonstration achieved data rates of more than 0.5 Gbps over twisted copper pairs using 'vectorized' VDSL2. Vectoring decouples the lines in a cable (from an interference point of view), substantially improving power management, and reduces noise originating from the other copper pairs in the same cable bundle."

110 comments

  1. Well thats great by 0racle · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now I know what will be deployed around here 300 years from now. I can't wait.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  2. Never see it in the US by ender06 · · Score: 1

    Too bad the US will never see it.

    1. Re:Never see it in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And to all you EuroTrash: you are welcome you are not speaking German now. (Well, except Germany).

      Ungrateful shits.

      Signed,
      The USA

    2. Re:Never see it in the US by Shakrai · · Score: 1

      And to all you EuroTrash: you are welcome you are not speaking German now. (Well, except Germany).

      Actually they'd probably be speaking Russian now, because the Germans bit off a bit more than they could chew with that one. Point still stands though.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    3. Re:Never see it in the US by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      And to all you EuroTrash: you are welcome you are not speaking German now. (Well, except Germany).

      Anybody notice these kind of "historians" usually lack any real understanding of history? I notice they often do not understand Nationalism or Patriotism if not equate the two! Besides being the center of the world, they think the USA did all the fighting in WW2.

      Aside from the fact that hardly anybody posting online was involved in WW2 and can't legitimately take credit for a previous generations' efforts helping another previous generation.

      Naturally, the USA would have been able to take on Nazi Russia (or Communist Germany) when they invaded the USA a few decades later with The Bomb we didn't develop in a panic because we stayed out of the war and they had the time to complete their research. (If Hitler didn't run his nuke program like competing corporations they would have gotten further.)

      --
      Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
    4. Re:Never see it in the US by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>Too bad the US will never see it.

      You're probably right. In many urban areas across the U.S., they are skipping DSL entirely and going directly to FiOS (fiber optics). Also, the U.S. is no more "behind" than the European Union. Overall they both average around 6-7 Megabit/s. In fact many U.S. states are faster than EU states:

      1 - Sweden (11 Mbit/s)
      2 - Delaware (10)
      3 - Washington (9)
      4 - Netherlands,RI,NJ,MA (8)
      5 - VA,NY,CO,CT,AZ,Germany (7)

      If you live in Delaware, Washington, New Jersey, Massachusettes, Virginia, et cetera, the average internet speed is faster than your cousins in England, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, et cetera.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    5. Re:Never see it in the US by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>can't legitimately take credit for a previous generations' efforts

      Yes we can. We're still paying off the accumulated debt from World War 2 and the Cold War. Our parents and grandparents borrowed the money, and the children are left with the gigantic debt. Yay.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    6. Re:Never see it in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What involvement would that be? The last few years? That is very little involvement in ending the war. Only fucktarded USian schools teach otherwise.

      BTW, there are continents other than America and Europe.

      Signed,
      The rest of the world.

    7. Re:Never see it in the US by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      P.S.

      >>>Too bad the US will never see it

      I still think DSL is the answer to getting highspeed internet to isolated locations like Wyoming or Idaho or Montana. The copper lines are already underground or in the walls of the farmhouses. All the telephone company needs do is install the DSLAM for any customer that requests an upgrade (as mandated by a new law). Even if the wires are relatively poor condition, they should be able to handle 1000 kbit/s speeds, which is far superior to current dialup maximums of 50. And most importantly: It's a cheap upgrade that minimizes the burden on taxpayers.

      BTW my current speed happens to be 1000k, not by limitation but by choice. $15 a month is all I'm willing to spend.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    8. Re:Never see it in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, so what are the European countries if not capitalist? I mean granted they have a pretty stupid brand of capitalism but it's still capitalism.

      BTW -- I hate you.

    9. Re:Never see it in the US by poopdeville · · Score: 1

      What involvement would that be? The last few years? That is very little involvement in ending the war.

      America sent 16 million troops to Europe and the Pacific. That compares to 3.5 million from the United Kingdom, and about a million from France.

      America was only involved the last few years, because America ended the war.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    10. Re:Never see it in the US by XcepticZP · · Score: 1

      We are very grateful, thank you.

      Signed,
      Countries destroyed by the USA

    11. Re:Never see it in the US by wimg · · Score: 1

      >>>can't legitimately take credit for a previous generations' efforts

      Yes we can. We're still paying off the accumulated debt from World War 2 and the Cold War. Our parents and grandparents borrowed the money, and the children are left with the gigantic debt. Yay.

      You should visit www.iousathemovie.comthen you'll understand you haven't got a clue where your debt really comes from...

    12. Re:Never see it in the US by DavidRawling · · Score: 1

      Hey those are interesting numbers. Where do they come from? I'd like to see where my country (Australia) comes in - though I'm thinking top 50 is a bit much to hope for.

    13. Re:Never see it in the US by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Top continents (rounded to the nearest whole integer):

      1 Europe and N America - 6 Mbit/s
      3 Australasia - 5 Mbit/s
      4 Asia - 4 Mbit/s
      5 S America - 2 Mbit/s
      6 Africa - 1 Mbit/s

      Australia by itself is 5 Mbit/s so comparable to France or the UK.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    14. Re:Never see it in the US by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Yes I do. I've seen U.S. Comptroller General David Walker on Glenn Beck, and it's quite scary. Our nation owes $110,000 per home. It will be $130,000 by the next presidential election. We are deep, deep "in hock" to the Chinese and other foreign nationals.

      We need to learn to live with less and stop borrowing.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    15. Re:Never see it in the US by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      I AM speaking German. And I like it. You insensitive clod.

      Also, your country nearly voted to speak German too, back it the very old days. ^^

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    16. Re:Never see it in the US by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Oh, and in civilized countries, the population can actually speak more than one language. And I don't mean C/C++!

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  3. Yay! by pete_norm · · Score: 1

    Ericsson has achieved data transfer rates of more than 500Mbps in what it said is the world's first live demonstration of a new VDSL2-based technology.

    That should improve their mobile phone business a lot!!!

    What?? a cable trailing behing me you say?? I have no idea what you mean!

    1. Re:Yay! by zwede · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ericsson is not in the mobile phone business. You're thinking of Sony-Ericsson which is a different company (spun off from Ericsson yes, but now independent). Ericsson makes network equipment. Switches, base stations, etc.

    2. Re:Yay! by ivan256 · · Score: 1

      Don't count on it. There won't be enough cable to trail...

      The operating distances are too short to matter for most of the US (geographically speaking), and drop non-linearly to less than 10% of max performance when the distance is doubled.

      They should ditch this crap, and give people the fiber that we already paid for. Tarring and Feathering for CEOs of US telecom companies that even think FTTN.

  4. Most informative quote from TFA by foniksonik · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Where the technology does have great applications is among Fibre-to-the-Building deployments in commercial areas.

    "You might have fibre connected from the DSLAM to the basement of an office building," Goodwin said. "You can then run bonded VDSL2+ up into all the other floors.""

    Apparently it's cheaper to roll out fibre to the home these days for new installs and the existing copper to the home is insufficient for last mile where there is fibre to the street (junction)...so looks like it's great for business use or specific regions which fit into some window of installation where they put in redundant copper to the home with fibre to the street.

    --
    A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
    1. Re:Most informative quote from TFA by Em+Emalb · · Score: 1

      Not only that, but you can use the existing cable more than likely already in the building.

      --
      Sent from your iPad.
    2. Re:Most informative quote from TFA by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>Apparently it's cheaper to roll out fibre to the home these days for new installs and the existing copper to the home is insufficient for last mile where there is fibre to the street (junction)...so looks like it's great for business use or specific regions which fit into some window of installation where they put in redundant copper to the home with fibre to the street.
      >>>

      I wish I understood what you just said.
      This must be some kind of advanced grammar
      that follows rules different from English circa 1400 to 2010.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:Most informative quote from TFA by afidel · · Score: 1

      Hmmm, perhaps this will make AT&T's Uverse offering useful after all depending on what kind of throughput it can achieve over the distances to the average remote shelf. I still wish they would roll things out like Verizon did with true fiber to the home.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  5. Wee bit limited by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FTA: "It showed aggregated rates of above 0.5Gbps at 500 metres, bonding six lines."

    So if you happen to have six unused lines lying around and happen to be within half a kilometer of the fiber node and nothing else goes wrong you could get 500Mbps. Realistically you won't be that close to the node, you won't have that many spare lines, and for the sake of a "consistent user experience" (hi AT&T!) you'll get the same craptastic service that someone at least 1km out with at most two pairs would get.

    But some PHB will decide to deploy it because his spreadsheet says that FTTH is too expensive, even if it is a one-time expense, and marketing swears that most people can't tell that their upstream is slow and their HDTV channels have been recompressed into mush. The only people who would notice are the ones who'd buy high-end service tiers if they didn't suck...

    1. Re:Wee bit limited by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

      The node however, will still only have a T1 uplink to the internet

      --
      Nullius in verba
    2. Re:Wee bit limited by TheLink · · Score: 1

      If they're bonding six lines and all that, I think an important question is: "What's the latency?"

      --
    3. Re:Wee bit limited by wimg · · Score: 1

      In Belgium, VDSL2 connections are always hooked up to the closest street cabinet, which is usually less than 500m away. At that point, your connection moves on to fiber to the first node (usually 1 o 2 per small town).
      Bonding six lines is a bit tricky though, as most houses have only 2 pairs connected. Though I wouldn't mind getting those 2 bonded ofcourse ;-)

      FTTH is not just expensive, it's impractical, since it means opening up not just the streets, but entry points into each house (or worse, appartment buildings that don't have proper tubes).
      And HDTV looks just fine on VDSL2. 720p is no problem, even while recording 1 channel and watching another one, while surfing the net.

    4. Re:Wee bit limited by Jay+L · · Score: 1

      So if you happen to have six unused lines lying around

      I built a suburban house in VA in 1996, and in MA in 2000. Both times I asked Verizon to run a new 5- or 10-pair cable (roommates, faxes, spares, all that stuff we no longer need), and both times they were happy to oblige. Sounds like that's an unusual experience?

    5. Re:Wee bit limited by magus_melchior · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid a company full of PHBs beat you to the punch. Pity, too; they've monopolized my area.

      --
      "We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
  6. And the point? by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It will just be throttled.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:And the point? by rpmonkey · · Score: 1

      The point is you can reach your monthly download cap up to 333 times faster!

  7. *snorts* by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

    People keep complaining about the US...

    But frankly, the Japanese show us how fast and cheap it can be. And what do we have? 25MBit downlink is considered the best you can get without selling your first-born here in Switzerland.

    It's nice that humankind as such is able to transmit data like that, but unless the populace gets to enjoy that technology at a reasonable price, I don't quite see a point in getting excited.

    1. Re:*snorts* by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      Not to mention how many of our ISPs block inbound connections including ssh and http(s). They may build it, but we won't need it when it arrives.

    2. Re:*snorts* by Spazztastic · · Score: 1

      Not to mention how many of our ISPs block inbound connections including ssh and http(s). They may build it, but we won't need it when it arrives.

      Is that a problem in Europe? I've run a SSH server for over a year now along with a simple website for my IP address. I've never heard any complaints, any e-mails, etc. The most I would expect is for them to tell me to upgrade to a business account if I want to run services like that.

      --
      Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
    3. Re:*snorts* by tepples · · Score: 1

      Not to mention how many of our ISPs block inbound connections including ssh and http(s).

      Only on the cheapest residential tiers. Once you upgrade to "business class" service, these blocks disappear.

    4. Re:*snorts* by Shakrai · · Score: 1

      I've run a SSH server for over a year now along with a simple website for my IP address. I've never heard any complaints, any e-mails, etc. The most I would expect is for them to tell me to upgrade to a business account if I want to run services like that.

      I wouldn't try to run a website on my residential connection but I've run SSH for years and never heard any complaints. Of course I keep it firewalled off and only open it up using port knocking, so unless they are illegally wiretapping my connection they have no way to know that I'm running it anyway.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    5. Re:*snorts* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the US, I believe that wiretap refers to voice. Data lines are regulated differently. You need to consult your contract about how they will monitor traffic.

    6. Re:*snorts* by billcopc · · Score: 1

      Not true. At least where I live, every single ISP has network-wide blocks on FTP, SMTP, SSH, POP and WEB. Even the business cable at our office is crippled, so we use non-standard port numbers for remote access.

      It's friggin' weak sauce, but that's what happens when you let a telecom get too big.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    7. Re:*snorts* by Shakrai · · Score: 1

      I don't give two shits what my contract says. Here is what the penal law of the State of New York says:

      A person is guilty of eavesdropping when he unlawfully engages in wiretapping, mechanical overhearing of a conversation, or intercepting or accessing of an electronic communication.

      My service provider doesn't have the right to monitor my traffic.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    8. Re:*snorts* by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure who has problems with using SSH (unless they're using some cheap service) because I have BT which isn't the greatest but the modem has built in dynamic dns support and built-in presets for various servers. So my Ubuntu machine is set up so I can ssh, remove desktop or acess my tomcat server from anywhere.

    9. Re:*snorts* by DavidRawling · · Score: 1

      Not true. At least where I live, every single ISP has network-wide blocks on FTP, SMTP, SSH, POP and WEB.

      So no-one in your country can receive email or host your own web server? Not even large companies and government departments?

      I call bulldust.

  8. Yawn by dmomo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's blazing fast for dsl, but it's still dsl. You might find a way to make a snail slide along at 3 mph. That'd really shake up the racing-snail community, but don't think you'll be entering that snail into a horse race any time soon.

    All fun aside, I suppose this is useful to a lot of people, and a great tech achievement. I'm just pretty confident that by the time it's consumer-ready, there will be much faster alternatives in place.

    What is the role DLS today in the broadband world? Is it merely a bandaid for places with no other options, or something more that I am missing?

    1. Re:Yawn by epdp14 · · Score: 1

      I live in an area where I have two choices: Comcast and ATT DSL. I don't feel like paying $80 a month for Comcastic service and speeds... so the $45 a month for direct dsl at 6mbs isn't a bandaid, its the best choice. The cable conglomerates need competition. If that competition comes from FTTH, dsl or any other technology so be it, but cable is not the answer.

    2. Re:Yawn by CXI · · Score: 3, Insightful
      What is the role DLS today in the broadband world? Is it merely a bandaid for places with no other options, or something more that I am missing?

      Around here, cable internet is absolute crap due to all the students sucking the bandwidth dry. I don't care what they claim to provide speed wise, it was always slow. The connection would also just disappear for over an hour at a time most nights around 10PM. DSL doesn't provide the theoretical rates of cable, but what it does provide is a fixed rate and the phone company, as much as they suck, sucks a lot less than the cable company when it comes to reliability.

    3. Re:Yawn by causality · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What is the role DLS today in the broadband world? Is it merely a bandaid for places with no other options, or something more that I am missing?

      Around here, cable internet is absolute crap due to all the students sucking the bandwidth dry. I don't care what they claim to provide speed wise, it was always slow. The connection would also just disappear for over an hour at a time most nights around 10PM. DSL doesn't provide the theoretical rates of cable, but what it does provide is a fixed rate and the phone company, as much as they suck, sucks a lot less than the cable company when it comes to reliability.

      You make a good point. I use DSL as well and I generally don't have the problems with unpredictable slowdowns or outright downtime that most of my friends with cable Internet are experiencing. True, they do have higher maximum throughput but I'm satisfied with the speeds I experience and especially with the consistency. Additionally my ISP does not block any ports and does not cap or throttle my connection, which is also nice. I know people often dislike DSL but really, the benefits of a dedicated connection over a shared connection are not to be underestimated.

      The few times I had to call technical support really weren't that bad either, especially not for a major telco. The folks I talked to still had the annoying habit of following their "script" too closely and disregarding the fact that I already tried basic obvious things (such as power-cycling the modem/router) before I asked for help. I realize their position and that they feel a need to do that because of the tremendous number of frankly incompetent/ignorant users who will incorrectly perform those basic tasks. However, when it's apparent that I'm at least as knowledgable as the front-line tech support person (whom I generally only call when the issue is on their end and so I cannot solve it myself), I don't consider it unreasonable to expect them to stop making such assumptions. Anyway, I just described front-line tech support in general and did not mean to give the impression that this is unique to my telco.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    4. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might find a way to make a snail slide along at 3 mph. That'd really shake up the racing-snail community, but don't think you'll be entering that snail into a horse race any time soon.

      Can anyone translate this for me? I work in the auto industry.

    5. Re:Yawn by LordKaT · · Score: 2, Informative

      DSL is for:

      -People who don't care how fast their connection is so much as that the connection is up and running

      -People who want a generally fast Internet connection that provides a reliable amount of bandwidth

      -People who don't want, or can't afford, to put up with download caps

      -People who are not serviced by a cable company (rural farmers, people who don't live in a big city, etc...)

      -People who want a static IP address without buying into a business package (depends on the DSL providers, of course)

      -People who are sick of paying $90/month for 20/1 cable service when they only get 7/512 on the best days because the local cable loop is over saturated, so they opt to pay $120 for 15/1 ADSL2+ and generally get more bandwidth

      -People who are not going to pay ISDN prices to get more bandwidth than 56k dialup.

      -People who don't care about their Demonoid share ratios and don't make piracy a necessary part of their lives.

      -People who realize that while they could download that latest UBuntu ISO faster on a cable connection, they're still going to forget about the download and do something else, until tomorrow when they suddenly remember "oh yeah, that Ubuntu CD..."

      -People that actually like gaming and don't want to be throttled back by their cable company for "unusual traffic usage patterns"

      -People that runs servers as a hobby and don't have the means to pay for a full business class service (and, in reality, don't need to)

      Generally, DSL isn't for the person who absolutely needs to use every ounce of bandwidth available to them. If you need to listen to streaming radio, while sharing 75 files on BitTorrent, playing YouTube videos on a second monitor while you run around WoW leveling up.

    6. Re:Yawn by daoine_sidhe · · Score: 1

      You know, people keep saying this as if the experience in their local area is the same everywhere. It's not. The maximum available (from the one single cable provider) bandwidth in my area is 6Mb/s, at $60/month. I've used it, at peak times it drops to around 1Mb/s, and the upload never exceeds 2Mb/s. My DSL service (I have a choice of three DSL providers; I use the smallish local one) is 10Mb/s, and I routinely download at a stable ~900KB/s - 1MB/s, which is around 80% of max. DSL's role (in my area) is to provide the competition and thus superior level of service that cable doesn't.

    7. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, In spain if you choose not to have a highly-asymetric (6Mb dn, 300Kb up) ADSL line (which costs 40â/month) you must have a 56k modem that never ever connects at more that 44000bps.

    8. Re:Yawn by techdojo · · Score: 1

      True that. I'm a network engineer and during the course of troubleshooting, I'd start pinging something and forget about it. 40,000 pings later, I'd have dropped about 400 pings during my cable-modem days. I switched to Verizon FIOS and when I'd do the same thing, I'd have dropped ZERO packets.

      Likewise, we're using a VOIP solution in our house and when I was doing the cable-modem thing, for some reason, my ATA would lock up and I'd have to power cycle it at least once per week. When I switched to FIOS, the problem went away. I have no idea why it would make any difference, but it really has. Knowing what I know now, even if the prices and speeds were the same, I'd still switch to FIOS.

      My only frustration is that I've got 5Mbps upstream and the places I try to upload to cap their downstream (cough)HOSTROCKET(cough) so I'm still pushing content at 1Mbps. This is despite their swearing that they aren't rate-limiting... That kind of stuff may have been OK in 2004, but five years later, I'm a whole lot less forgiving.

      ____________________________________
      http://techdojo.org/

    9. Re:Yawn by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

      Yeah! The rascally evil students are wasting all the bandwidth on things like youtube, games, iTunes and Netflix movie downloads, etc. Perfectly illegitimate uses, the cable company should cut them off.

    10. Re:Yawn by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Spain must have really lousy phone lines. I get 53,000k every time (the maximum possible).

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    11. Re:Yawn by mstrick44 · · Score: 1

      I take your point, but please remember there are some countries -- or at least regions of countries -- where DSL lines are the only option. Most of South America falls in this catagory.

    12. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is the role DLS today in the broadband world? Is it merely a bandaid for places with no other options, or something more that I am missing?

      DSL is crap in the US, but not everywhere in the world.
      Here's what my DSL looks like (in France, and it's rather average) :

      - sustained 8mbps down / 1mbps up (they advertise "up to" 20mbps)
      - no caps that I've ever heard of
      - 40 euro / month or so (includes unlimited land phone, and a couple TV channels)
      - some ISPs block a couple ports (mostly email and http servers)
      - pretty good reliability (only had a couple hours of outage this year - it can go for months at a time)

      From what I hear, it's better than most US cable plans.

  9. Blu-ray in 10minutes by davegravy · · Score: 1

    That's a blu-ray movie download in 10 minutes.

    They're missing the tightly integrated monitoring/filtering scheme that will have to exist before the MAFIAA lets deployment occur.

    1. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well lets go back in time to get a perspective.
      We are talking about Average Home use not corporate high end use.

      1992 9600bps 3 megs an hour
      1994 14.4k became the norm. 6 Megs and hour.
      1996 28.8k became the norm. 10 megs an hour (after 14.4k we rarely ever got full speed connection over the modem)
      1998 56.6k became the norm. 13/14 megs and hour that much more flaky.
      2000 Cable Modem/DSL started to enter the market. In my area peak speed was about 500kbs so about 225 Megs an hour
      2002 1mbs
      2004 2mbs
      2006 4mbs
      2008 8mbs
      2009 we are at about 10mbs/15mbs (with paying extra for 15mbs)

      So roughly we double in speed every 2 years. So I doubt we will see 500mbs for home use until...
      2010 16mbs
      2012 32mbs
      2014 64mbs
      2018 128mbs
      2020 256mbs
      2022 512mbs

      2022 Wow. All my predictions are seeming to fall in 2022 lately, Real Time Ray Tracing, Dukenukem forever, Now home use at 500mbs. 2022 will be a cool year.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      speak for yourself. im on 768/320kbps

    3. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 2, Funny

      All hail 2022! And with these new DSl speeds, we will actually be able to stream in real time the new Duke Nukem Forever game, which will also have Real Time Ray Tracing! Huzzah!

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    4. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Shakrai · · Score: 1

      1996 28.8k became the norm. 10 megs an hour (after 14.4k we rarely ever got full speed connection over the modem)

      That wasn't my experience. Living in town with a fairly decent outside plant I had full speed connections most of the time on my v.34+ (33.6k) USR Courier modem. Occasionally it would connect at 31.2 but that was rare. Even when we lived out in the sticks I always got at least 26.4 but usually 28.8 or 31.2.

      On the other hand, v.90 was a joke. Even in town with the good phone lines I rarely got connections faster than 45k and they seemed to deteriorate to <28k as time went on. I actually had better luck with the old school banks of analog v.34+ modems vs the digital trunk lines/v.90 setup. Particularly when downloading compressible data -- I can recall a few times that the speed of the serial port became the bottleneck.

      Ah, those were the days. My first IT job was working for the small town ISP. Before the digital trunks came in we literally had banks and banks of USR Couriers plugged into actual phone lines. At one point we had almost 700 pairs of copper coming into our building and represented >40% of the installed phone lines at the local CO.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    5. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...Linux on the desktop?

    6. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep wishing.

    7. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by jon_cooper · · Score: 1
      2010 16mbs

      2012 32mbs

      2014 64mbs

      2018 128mbs

      2020 256mbs

      2022 512mbs

      2014 + 2 =

      Answers on the back of an envelope, please.

    8. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by wimg · · Score: 1

      Just to compare (not meant to make you guys depressed), in Belgium :
      1997 : cable 10Mbps/768kbps (upstream limited to 128kbps) - ADSL 8Mbps/630kbps (limited to 1Mbps/256kbps)
      2009 : cable 25Mbps/1Mbps - VDSL2 17Mbps/512kbps

      Cable should move to EuroDocsis 3.0 by 2010, allowing for 200Mbps/30Mbps, but in reality they'll cap it, so they can gradually give customers more.

    9. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Dag Nabit, When counting evens I always skip 6. 2,4,8, not 2,4,6,8. It must be all that binary in college.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    10. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt you will see 500Mb/sec on copper in a realisting deployment anywhere.

      Copper pairs in the street will not be able to handle it - the noise from hundreds of VDSL/ADSL/ISDN/POTS/Frame-relay circuits will kill the high-speed components of the signal.

      Nup - Fibre to the home gents - stop fannying about with copper and move into VCEL Lasers and 9um fibre to the home - 1GB/sec in an INSTANT.

    11. Re:Blu-ray in 10minutes by lamapper · · Score: 1

      ...2014 64mbs...

      Who wants to wait until 2014 to have speeds slower than what our Telecoms should have been providing by the year 2000?

      As of these years: these speeds should have been available as others in the world were offering them; thanks to government intervention that is to break the Telcom Monopoly / Oligopoly practices:

      2000: 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps ($55.00 per month)

      2008: 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps (less than $55.00 per month)

      if you did not already know this, you are not alone, now please tell everyone that you know about it so they will stop accepting the industry FUD and excuses on the issue.

      This is even more insulting once you realize that the American companies have been taking BILLIONS (of tax payer money) since the early 1990s with promises of offering High Speed Internet. Even getting our legislative officials to accept a pathetic excuses, pass laws accepting a very, very low speed definition as acceptable High Speed Internet, its insulting.

      Instead of building out their networks with Fiber as they promised, they did what the Financial and Banking industry is doing today, bought up competitors and limited competition while spreading FUD why they could not build out their networks.

      --
      Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
  10. Capped Connections by sam0vi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Too bad that when the day this technology is deployed monthly bandwidth caps will probably be the rule. It would be nice being able to run a proper server at home (can't afford T1,and adsl here in Spain have very restricted upload capacity), without worrying about hogging your bandwidth with pr0n and torrents. We'll see how this goes.

    --
    When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
  11. Improved distance from the DSLAM? by transporter_ii · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A much greater distance from the DSLAM would be much more needed than the improved speeds. Many people in rural areas can't get anything and would be happy with 5 Mb down if they could just get it.

    transporter_ii

    --
    Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
    1. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by adh72 · · Score: 1

      I'd be happy with anything above 28k. It sucks living in a rural area served by AT&T. 1 county to the north a small phone company that serves primarily rural areas has DSL available to every home they serve. The also just announced that they are rolling out fiber the the home over the next 5 years to every address in their area. ATT will never do that because they only see profit margins while the small companies who provide the same services just sees profit.

    2. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of mobile phone services do you have available out there? It might be worthwhile and faster to just upgrade your cell service and use that as a modem instead of paying for dial-up.

    3. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by powerlord · · Score: 1

      Good idea, but most mobile internet Terms of Service specifically prohibit using it as a "replacement for a landline" (WTF?)

      Some even throttle you back (for a month or so) if they've seen too much traffic on one tower for too long.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    4. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5Mb? I get 1.5Mb and am happy about that. My sister lives 5 miles away (by road, it's about 1 mile cross-country) and still can't get DSL at all. Yes, this is an area that doesn't have cables even run to it.

    5. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by adh72 · · Score: 1

      What's mobile phone service? You mean people can actually use their cell phones in areas where they live? I am shocked.

      Sarcasm aside I understand that I live in a rural area and I won't have access to the most modern of conveniences. As matter of fact I never expect to have broadband or cell signal at my home unless AT&T sells my area to a smaller company or I move. I am however calling attention to the fact that many people consider speeds that are 1-2 generations ahead of what I have slow. While the rest of the country keeps getting upgrades and the internet evolves I am left to wonder at what point does the net become completely unusable for me?

      I have looked into alternatives such as ISDN, T1 and satellite but they are as follows:

      ISDN: Unavailable without 3rd party support so I have to pay 2 bills for it-one to AT&T and one to the 3rd party which is none existent where I live.

      T1 : Can't afford $600/month

      Satellite: A friend has it and I found it just as slow as dial-up but with bandwidth caps and 3x as expensive for the lowest tier.

    6. Re:Improved distance from the DSLAM? by akarnid · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the answer lies in DSL repeaters. We are starting to use them here in Iceland to serve rural homes that are between 5-10 km from the DSLAM. The plan is that these homes will be able to get 2 Mbps down/512 up which is way better than crappy old ISDN. I've seen DSL, throttled back to 512 kbps down on lines that were over 15 km long so it's not unheard of to see DSL on such long lines.

  12. Doesn't solve the real problem by Chrisq · · Score: 1
    From TFA

    "Its speed is best over thye hundreds of metres," he said. "But beyond 1km you will find that ADSL2+ is actually faster."

    Which means that it will do nothing for the people who complain about speed now, either being unable to get broadband or only get a slow link. Actually it will probably make things worse for them as the web designers in "connected" cities decide that they can have high-definition video on their web-site front pages. Many people have to wait five minutes to see the existing flash pages.

    1. Re:Doesn't solve the real problem by causality · · Score: 1

      From TFA

      "Its speed is best over thye hundreds of metres," he said. "But beyond 1km you will find that ADSL2+ is actually faster."

      Which means that it will do nothing for the people who complain about speed now, either being unable to get broadband or only get a slow link. Actually it will probably make things worse for them as the web designers in "connected" cities decide that they can have high-definition video on their web-site front pages. Many people have to wait five minutes to see the existing flash pages.

      If the problem there is infrastructure, it makes me wonder whatever happened to WiMax? Isn't that supposed to address exactly the situation you describe?

      One would almost get the impression that we dislike broadband which does not come from a government-regulated monopoly.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    2. Re:Doesn't solve the real problem by Miseph · · Score: 1

      Look at it less as government regulated monopolies, and more as monopoly regulated governments, and I promise that you'll start to see a pretty clear pattern with these things.

      --
      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    3. Re:Doesn't solve the real problem by powerlord · · Score: 1

      If the problem there is infrastructure, it makes me wonder whatever happened to WiMax? Isn't that supposed to address exactly the situation you describe?

      One would almost get the impression that we dislike broadband which does not come from a government-regulated monopoly.

      No, we just like out TV better than our Internet.

      Some of the frequency blocks that were bought, in order to deploy WiMax solutions, are currently occupied until the changeover to Digital Broadcasting actually happens.

      Once that frequency range is open, hopefully Verizon (and the other players) will move quickly to start deploying actual products, I mean, they could have everything ready to go now, and merely be waiting until the June cut over date when the frequency is free to turn everything on and start offering WiMax come July (although I wouldn't bet on it).

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  13. mediaDSLAM anyone?! by carvalhao · · Score: 1

    There is this portuguese company called "PT InovaÃão" that developed a far superior technology that holds 100 Mbps@5 Kms. Whay should they be working on improving bandwidth in a technology with such short range capabilities? If you get fiber that close, you might as well go all the way to FTTH...

    1. Re:mediaDSLAM anyone?! by Smallpond · · Score: 1

      The problem is that nobody can reach their website.

    2. Re:mediaDSLAM anyone?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.ptinovacao.pt/

    3. Re:mediaDSLAM anyone?! by lamapper · · Score: 1

      ...go all the way to FTTH...

      LMAO, When they give us true high speed bandwidth / Internet at around $55.00 per month, I will give them a chance.

      I am so sick of being behind the Japanese in potential for innovation due to sllllooooooowwwww high speed Internet speeds. They have had 100MB / 100MB since 2000 and are now rolling out 1 GB / 1 Gb for less than $55.00 per month.

      How can they offer these speeds you ask?

      Because they cut the crap, the government intervened and forced them to de-criminalize their telephone monopoly (as the US should have in 1996 had the Telecom lobbyist not succeeded) and offer their fiber for competition.

      Normally I am for less government, not more, however the Telecom, Cable, Cellular, etc... industries have shown their unwillingness to offer reasonable services at reasonable and affordable prices, considering their monopoly for sooooooo long, the only solution is Government intervention.

      Worse than that, they have taken our tax dollars, government subsidies and gotten additional fees approved by our elected officials stating that one of the primary reasons is to deliver High Speed Internet. These promises, since the 1990s have not been fulfilled...to heck with them. Get in there government and force the issue.

      No more BS excuses....

      Had they invested in fiber back in the 1990s as they should have, we would all have somewhere between 100Mbps / 100Mpbs and 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps already. In fact we would have had those speeds as early as 2000.

      Yet another decade is about to go by without fulfillment of the promises they made and took money for...enough already.....

      I hope someone from the Democratic party reads this and forwards the many posts here on slashdot about the lack of High Speed Internet, the lies we have all been told for multiple decades (and that we are still told) even when evidence exists to disprove their FUD.

      Nothing short of government intervention will open up the Internet for innovative Americans, creating jobs, creating opportunity and insuring net neutrality.

      The definition of high speed Internet circa 2000 IS 100Mbps / 100 Mbps (anything less is FUD); the definition of high speed Internet circa 2008 is 1 Gpbs / 1 Gpbs (anything less is FUD). Anything less should be considered CRIMINAL. And since others can offer these speeds for under $55 per month and make millions, billions in profit; American corporations have NO EXCUSES.

      Eventually a competitor will offer Americans true High Speed Internet, when that day comes I hope every American votes with the feet, dollars and churn and NEVER GO BACK TO the American companies that have cheated, stolen, and spread FUD since before 1996 on this issue.

      FIOS IS NOT THE ANSWER. What is its max speed, like 10 Mbps or 20 Mbps and that is ONLY down not up....enough FUD.

      FIOS will be considered High Speed Internet when it offers 100MB / 100MB for less than $55.00 per month. That is the circa 2000 benchmark for success...FIOS is already 9 more years behind....

      Please stop spreading the telcom FUD! Anyone with half a brain is no longer accepting or buying this FUD!

      --
      Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
  14. Bonding? Boring. by GiMP · · Score: 4, Interesting

    VDSLv2 gives you 100mbps. Technically, they would only need 5 lines to reach 500mbps, but I imagine ther "500mbps" is actual throughput, thus the requirement of a 6th line to reach this figure. However, this is with bonding. They could have just as easily claimed 10gbps speeds, by bonding 20 lines. VDSL2 bridges are readily available and bonding isn't anything special. The summary, the article, and the whole press release is just bull.

    As for if this is good idea or not, it depends on the distance. This only makes sense for distances between 100m and 300m. Otherwise, there are better options. If your distance is shorter, run Ethernet. If your distance is longer, you're either going to lose performance or consider running fiber.

    1. Re:Bonding? Boring. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you missed the point of the article, its not about the speed they are getting, its the fact they are using DSM level 3 (vectorized dsl) to achieve those speeds. VDSL2 30A gives ~100mbit/sec symmetric @ 300m on a single pair, a situation you will never see unless you have a dslam in your basement. At 500m you are more likely to get ~70mbit/sec down, ~30mbit/sec up on a single pair. Simply bonding x times as many DSL lines doesn't give a linear increase in speed as you are increasing FEXT in the binder, the more lines you light up, the more FEXT you get. DSM uses optimal PSD masks and vectoring for each line, as a means to eliminate (or minimize) crosstalk. Basically a converse of Shannon's law, in the absence of noise, channel capacity can be greatly increased.

  15. Great for everyone that is 1,500ft from a CO. by insomniac8400 · · Score: 1

    For the rest of us, we still are OOL.

  16. Sweet! by shadedream · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now I can exceed my "realistic" 20gb cap in ~40 seconds...

  17. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by compro01 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not so spread out. Examine a map of population distribution. Note all the white and yellow around the middle and all the blue along the coasts and readjust your math.

    It's not as dense as Japan by any means, but upgrading infrastructure is plenty feasible, provided you can dislodge the incumbent interests.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  18. Bandwidth Caps Hinder Progress Anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does it matter? Some ISP will cap you anyway. Look out for the tax or the charging of going over your monthly cap.

    Going to play out just like the cell phone business.
    Pay for text, pay for bits.

  19. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by BlueParrot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh please, I live in Sweden. We have a population of a few million spread over a country that ranges from north of the arctic circle all the way down to Denmark and our connections are decent. Heck, my uncle lives in a tiny town with maybe 10.000 people in it, far enough north that some days during the winter the sun will never rise, and yet he has fiber running into his living room.

    Population density is the most rubbish excuse I've heard for why US internet is crap. Reality is that your ISPs are ripping you off because your government has failed at addressing abusive cartels and monopolies, even promoting them in some cases.

  20. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by pleappleappleap · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Oy.

    You gotta compare similar statistics. You're comparing one measure of urban population with a completely different measure of urban population. It's worse than comparing apples to oranges. More like comparing apples to lumber.

  21. Mandatory porn reference? by headqtrs · · Score: 0

    But then I could download my daily dose of porn in two minutes!

  22. exactly the same here by zogger · · Score: 1

    Rural area, att/bell south. Lucky to get anything above 28.8 anymore, and they have no plans whatsoever to improve service that I have been able to determine from them. The last place we lived, which was way, WAY the heck more out in the sticks and up multiple dirt roads, was/is served by a smaller community telco and unfortunately for me but good for everyone else there, just when we were moving that little telco ran really decent thick underground copper to EVERY residence in their area that needed an upgrade, so they could offer good quality broadband, etc.

    My conclusion is, if it is profitable for those little bitty service providers to do it, the only reason the larger ones don't is because they are complete jerks about things and outright lying about what it costs them.

  23. German Speaking EuroTrash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Darn, if only I had this argument ready when I had to learn the irregular verbs of German.

    Well, schoolers don't have that much choice anyhow.
    Nor Historico-Political hindsight.

    And no, we're not grateful. Basically because 5 years (three, in fact) of right won't correct the following 50 years of wrongs.

  24. Fraud! by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

    This is fraud because they bonded multiple pairs. Yeah I can run a hundred pairs of wire in parallel and get amazing transfer rates, but I can do that with current technology and transmission rates and it means nothing except that I can spell "parallel data transfer". Speeds should be measured by the single wire-pair circuit only! This used more wire pairs than most customers have coming into their houses.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  25. Memo: by Jawn98685 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    From: VP of Marketing, MegaTelco
    To: VP of Operations, MegaTelco
    CC: VP of Research and Development, MegaTelco

    Gentlemen,
    Congratulations to the R&D boys who have come up with this wonderful new technology.

    Now, please make certain that this is kept under wraps for as long as possible so that we can squeeze as much money as possible out of our current customers who are paying for "special" data circuits. We'd like to continue to keep them bent over and taking it deep for as long as possible. We don't want to cannibalize our revenue stream until the competition forces us too and we are positioned to then squash that competition through a combination of lax regulation and our monopoly status. It's our wire, god dammit, and we're not going to let "innovation" give our customers anything better until we're good and ready to let them have it.

    1. Re:Memo: by DavidRawling · · Score: 1

      Dammit, where's the "+1, Despondently Truthful" option when you need it ...

  26. You can use your existing cable! by symbolset · · Score: 1

    And in the future after you've invested in this technology that approaches the limits of copper, you'll find that your neighboring building isn't finding any such limit because he did what you should have done: drag the damned fiber optic cable.

    He'll save money too because he'll be working with commercial off the shelf equipment available at NewEgg. As his speeds go up to 100Gbps per strand you'll be standing there with your copper in your hand going "lol wut?"

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  27. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by CompMD · · Score: 1

    Allow me to introduce you to the contiguous states of Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Just those three states combined are larger than Sweden with a dramatically lower population density.

    I live in Kansas. Population density in the US *is* a problem for broadband. Most Europeans I know had trouble grasping the midwest until they actually came here.

  28. Sprint! by name_already_taken · · Score: 1

    Good idea, but most mobile internet Terms of Service specifically prohibit using it as a "replacement for a landline" (WTF?)

    Some even throttle you back (for a month or so) if they've seen too much traffic on one tower for too long.

    So far in my experience, Sprint does not throttle, cap or limit.

    They have something in their TOS about not using it to replace a landline, but I've had my Sprint card plugged into a Linksys WRT54G3G-ST for over a year on their $59.99/month unlimited business plan (the "business" part may be important, but you're a home business, right?) and I can report that it pretty much is unlimited, and they've never throttled it.

    One time I glanced at the usage part of the bill and wrote in the commas to separate the thousands, millions and billions on the "bytes used" - it came to something like 5TB that month.

    If you think about it, you're not using it to replace a landline, you're using it as something better.

    --
    Putting moderation advice in your .sig lowers your karma!
  29. I just have to ask by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    Why are we spending money to attempt to squeeze more life out of an obsolete technology? Twisted pair copper is an absolete technology and it makes no sense to continue to use it as the infrastructure is aging and not very reliable in some areas. No wonder we are behind the curve of Japan when it comes to broadband and communications. They have already laid fibre that is capable of similar data transmission rates. I never liked DSL anyway, it is slower than cable. A much better investment, and our sitting president would agree, is upgrading our infrastructure nationwide to fibre optics.

  30. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Calling a population of 10k a "tiny town" already reveals a disconnect.

  31. Where do you live? by cadu · · Score: 1

    "2009 we are at about 10mbs/15mbs (with paying extra for 15mbs)" wtf??

    i'm on 100mbit/100mbit unmetered FTTH :)

  32. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Huh, how does your argument explain the atrocious state of high speed internet access in high density regions like the San Francisco bay area, home to Silicon Valley?

    If you're lucky you get take it or leave it choices of slow DSL over decades-old copper, capped down to whatever the wires support, or $65 cable modem that becomes unusable in the evenings.

  33. Not At Home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This has no use for home users as you've only one TP into the house.

  34. Re:Don't hold your breath in the US... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Allow me to introduce you to northern nevada. I live in the only town within a 20k square mile area. you know the area on maps where it says less than 2 people per sq mile? what they mean is WAY less than 2 people per square mile.