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Alcatel-Lucent Boosts Broadband Over Copper To 300Mbps
alphadogg writes "Alcatel-Lucent has come up with a way to move data at 300Mbps over copper lines. So far the results have only been reproduced in a lab environment — real products and services won't be available for at least a year. From the article: 'Researchers at the company's Bell Labs demonstrated the 300Mbps technology over a distance of 400 meters using VDSL2 (Very high bitrate Digital Subscriber Line), according to Stefaan Vanhastel, director of product marketing at Alcatel-Lucent Wireline Networks. The test showed that it can also do 100Mbps over a distance of 1,000 meters, he said. Currently, copper is the most common broadband medium. About 65 percent of subscribers have a broadband connection that's based on DSL, compared to 20 percent for cable and 12 percent for fiber, according to market research company Point Topic. Today, the average advertised DSL speeds for residential users vary between 9.2 Mbps and 1.9Mbps in various parts of the world, Point Topic said.'"
It looks like they doubled the speed at 1km.
VDSL2 deteriorates quickly from a theoretical maximum of 250 Mbit/s at 'source' to 100 Mbit/s at 0.5 km (1640 ft) and 50 Mbit/s at 1 km (3280 ft), but degrades at a much slower rate from there, and still outperforms VDSL. Starting from 1.6 km (1 mile) its performance is equal to ADSL2+.
I have tried to get a VDSL2 for a few times during the past 5 years, but the prices are high and availability really bad. Even 100 Mbit/s fiber is a lot more common. ISP's also always responded that I live too far away from the center, even while it really was only about 1-1.5km (but that would had got me "just" 50 Mbit/s anyway, now with this 100 Mbit/s)
The nice thing about VDSL2 is that unlike ADSL, it's symmetric. The 300Mbps over a distance of 400 meters is damn good too, but theres no centers in every corner.
This is great news but I would like to note that:
1) Japan was offering DSL speeds of 60 Mbps back in 2007:
http://www.yugatech.com/blog/telecoms/japans-leads-in-internet-speeds/
And according to TFA:
2) The speed drops to 100Mbps at a 1 km distance.
3) TFA also states "over two copper lines". It sounds like 4 wires are required (1 line=2 wire). If this is indeed the case, might as well bring the fiber into the house instead of a second pair of copper wires ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
May the gods bless these magnificent researchers with a bountiful harvest, many wives and obedient children.
Seriously, what pisses me off more than anything about the past 10 years of broadband was we were moving towards such a bright future with the ability to choose from dozens of DSL providers in some areas until they stopped upgrading the DSLAMS in my area and we were stuck at 8 Mb/s. I checked recently and the fastest I can get at my new apartment is 1 Mb/s for DSL.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
About 65 percent of subscribers have a broadband connection that's based on DSL, compared to 20 percent for cable
My cable is made out of copper...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Hey guys! We just developed a way to make our motorcar go twice as fast as it did before!
What's wrong with gigabit?
Too much attenuation?
Qwest is still too cheap to put in a new DSLAM to give me 1.5 Mb. Where I live in the middle of a city of about 60,000, it might as well be a giant trailer park for all the service we get here. On the other hand, Comcast has the whole place wired to as fast as possible.
The problem with all copper lines is capacitance,
which acts as a low pass filter. The longer the line the more high frequencies are lost, which in effect takes the "edges" off of the pulses, making differetiation difficult. No ammount of technolgy is going to change the laws of physics. (:
All kinds of tricks are use such as QAM and different forms of compression to cram more down a copper pair.
All POTS work on 2 wires. Even if one has several pairs coming into the premises it is unlikely that there will be enough spares all the way to the exchange.(Would you put in double the ammount of copper needed on the off chance that it might be needed later.
The extra incoming wire are mainly for spares in case of faults.
Here in .au I have ADSL2 which at my current location provides 15mb/s.
If this really is as the article states, then it is 12x faster than AT&T's quickest version of uverse and at much greater distances. Currently, you have to be within 3,000 feet of the CO to get uverse, which is much less than dsl, which can go out to around 15,000 feet or so.
They so often say you need to be 1 km from the CO. But a loop extender or node can be used to extend it to areas far beyond 1 km distance, in fact, to extend service many, many miles away, even dozens, basically which rejuvenates the signal, and possibly connects to a fiber trunk, although electronics can probably be developed to regenerate the signal even over a very long copper run, which is made even easier with the digital signal. The investment in that is far less than laying all new cable. It requires perhaps some electronic equipment every mile or so. This would, it is often forgotten, cut down on the cost needed to extend broadband to remote areas. It is probably the cheapest way to do it as much of the infrastructure can be reused. Its much better than the insane and crazy idea of BPL which is unfeasible and has so many more technical problems (RFI).
At what rate does VDSL2 degrade. With ADSL 2+ it degrades beyond a point of usefulness at 4-6 KM, Once you get past 2 KM the curve increases lowering speed significantly.
I live 3.3 Kilometres from my telephone Exchange and can barely get 3 Mbit/s. For the most part I get 1-1.3 Mbit/s. Can VDSL help extend the useful range of DSL?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Sounds nice for those with short lines...
I live about ~3km from my exchange (in Australia), which unfortunately reduces my 24 Mbps (max) ADSL2+ service to 6.2 Mbit (without interleaving) or 7.7 Mbit (with interleaving). Any technology that can squeeze a bit more out of my old rusty copper wire sounds nice to me, at least until the national broadband network (fibre) gets rolled out in 3-4 more years.
Having said that I have a funny suspicion this won't help anyone stuck on a longer line (i.e. any line that wouldn't really support VDSL now). The move from ADSL1 to ADSL2 and ADSL2+ improved the 'max' speed of the service for those close to the exchange, but any xDSL technology seems to hit a certain distance where that benefit is lost.
This graph shows this nicely - ADSL2+ (in green) is way faster than ADSL1 (blue) for shorter/less attenuated lines. But beyond around 4km, it offers virtually no improvement at all. And I suspect the laws of physics are at play here such that this new VDSL variant wouldn't be any different.
I guess these aren't the guys who liscence stuff, how could they? It's not like they were handed, oh, $200 billion dollars, say.
A friend from Korea reports that the multi gigabit stuff is all the rage.
Guess what! People have copper!
300Mbps/64Kbps would be rather boring.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
but what does it do at 3500m?
(Guess why that interests me).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Alcatel-Lucent surely isn't the first one to implement bonding, and it has also been used with ADSL2+. And they are not the first ones to come up with vectoring, that is used to reduce crosstalk. The article makes it seem like Alcatel-Lucent has done something incredible, even though there will be ITU-T standard and equipment from at least Ericsson.
Called the UK.
In some ways I am lucky, I live in the south-west, a city called Exeter, 40 miles from Plymouth and the Mayflower Steps for the yanks. In some ways this is lucky because this region is used to market test many products and technologies before they get a nationwide launch.
In 2001 BT first offered ADSL, it was 128/512 kbit, and used the green alcatel stingray / frog thing.
In 2004 Telewest took over the cable TV/telephone company, and put in the internet as a cable option, I switched.
Today I can get either max 8 mbit adsl over (twisted pair) copper, or max 50 mbit cable over (coax) copper.
Due to traffic shaping and throttling and oversold contention ratios, I can max out the 8 mbit adsl at a rock solid 6 mbit and actually achieve a greater throughput than I can from the theoretically far faster (up to) 20 mbit cable package.
The only other alternative was either ISDN or horrendously expensive leased line, which started at around 30k bucks per annum for 2 mbit.
I spent 5 years up until 2004 trying to convince the cable company to provide internet over their pipes, and quite frankly even though I was talking to senior managers they just didn't "get it".
I have to tell you that nothing has changed, they still don't "get it", "it" being the internet.
They still think in dial up terms of pence per minute, or utility terms of pence per kWh or cubic foot.
Frankly speaking the UK economy is fucked, and none of the politicians get it either, especially not the pirate party, in the run up to the general elections.
What we need is a MASSIVE public works deal, just like the yank New Deal when they built the interstates, and roll out SYMMETRIC cable AND ipv6 to every home, set a target, project to be completed within 3 years.
Since we are starting today we need to future proof, so it has to be gigabit each way.
It has to be fibre / laser, not anything on copper, or anything wireless.
It will have the same effect as the building of the interstates, it will open and enable markets that previously did not exist.
Even allowing for overspends, it would come in at less than 50 billion UK pounds, and that spread over 3 years.
All slashdotters, ask yourself this, can you see any opportunities for yourself, and your company, if you were told this was being rolled out in your area? project starting in 4 months and completed in 40?
gigabit up/down and ipv6, does this enable anything you can't do now? things that will generate revenue and stimulate the economy? things that will have a benefit for society that can't just be measured in dollars and cents?
discuss.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
For those who want to see things be "open" so that multiple providers can use the same wires, you need to have an infrastructure in place that has not been paid for ONLY by private companies, and that is where the problems come from. For DSL service here in the USA, much of the copper infrastructure for the telephone system was subsidized by the US government in the push to put telephone coverage in EVERY house. This is why for DSL, you CAN have multiple providers in a given area in the USA. For cable and fiber on the other hand, the US government has avoided getting involved in ANYTHING of a technical nature for a long time now, so we won't see fiber or cable going to every house for Internet, and it becomes more difficult for the government to force private companies to do things with lines that have been placed and maintained by private companies.
The USA is a BIG country with a lot of very rural areas, and without government involvement, it is not going to be profitable to run high speed Internet to many rural areas, just due to the maintenance costs compared to how much money they can really charge for the service in those rural areas($50/month in West Virginia is too much for many people just for Internet access for example). In smaller countries like Japan, it becomes easier to bring high speed to EVERY home, just because the country is so small in comparison. What some people don't realize is that New York State alone is larger than many countries, and the state government is BROKE, with no money to spend on projects. The FEDERAL government is also broke, but just keeps printing money and spending, so they act like someone with an Amex platinum card who go on a spending spree for one month, and then end up in debt for the rest of their lives.
Great, now the ISPs will have even higher speeds to lie to us about in their advertising.
Seriously. All this means is that we will hit our caps faster, and/or will feel the throttling more painfully.
When you are being throttled to 25Kb/s, it dosen't matter how fast your last mile can go - It becomes all about
making long-haul ISP links cheap as dirt so the ISP dosent feel a need to throttle their oversubscribed backhaul link to the 'net.
Considering that people use unmetalled roads mainly for walking, or the pony and trap, which is not that demanding. The major high capacity loads are transporting foodstuffs. Therefore I doubt that widescale metalled roads and interstates will do much to boost the economy.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
It's always been possible to transfer large amounts of data over relatively short distances. If you shorten the distance to bus length you can transfer dozens of gigabytes per second. 400 meters is almost no distance as far as telco wiring is concerned.
The problem that has existed since the internet began (and since I was an ISP tech in the late 90s) is that the central office to subscriber connection is slow, operates over short distances, and is handicapped by the desire (on the phone companies' part) to use existing infrastructure.
The public telephone network was built at taxpayer cost and "inherited" by the various post-bell system phone companies. They didn't pay for it in the first place and they're not going to pay to replace it if they can help it. They have some of the most legally protected profit margins anywhere... imagine if you were handed an infrastructure with thousands of subscribers, guaranteed no competition, and otherwise allowed to make as much money as you can in exchange for some occasional government regulation... it's every businessman's dream (provided they're not completely ethical). Having the gravy train rolling in doesn't give them any incentive to build out the network, especially to the less populated areas. They get the same money anyway provided they lie well enough to the government to keep additional regulation and competition away. The only way for them to make less money is to spend it on major improvement projects like replacing the old copper pairs to each house with fiber, especially if you do it in areas where people can't or won't pay a premium price for the service, IE the areas that don't have high speed internet now.
The same telco companies have even requested money from the federal government in tax breaks and outright subsidies over the years to "bring internet into rural communities". I have to laugh when I hear that. Many rural communities in the US still have dial-up only. The telcos go on their merry way and pocket the money.. after all, that's what they're good at.
Greatly expanded speeds over copper for a relatively short distance are pointless because it doesn't help with the access problem. All this improved technology means is that for a small subset of DSL users in densely populated metro areas where the telco is willing to upgrade equipment a speed increase to the telco will be seen. Who knows if the bandwidth exists at the central office to make it worth it? The telcos aren't going to spend money to link multiple intermediate sites together with the high speed tech to extend service out to sparsely populated areas. Sure, it would work technically, but it costs money for little return. Despite the fact that they're effectively subsidized by the taxpayers, they're under no obligation to help the taxpayers.
What's really needed to kick off broadband development is someone other than the phone companies taking on network service delivery to the home, without using the public telephone network and without handing money to the telcos. Like Google is trying to do... I guess if you get enough money on your side in this country, you find the power to do things. Too bad the government can't do things like that itself. Change, pfft. It's too late.
Now, a communications break through that lets 10 mbit bidirectional data be delivered over, say, a 10 wire mile distance (50,000 feet).. that would be a game changer. What's needed is a moderate speed tech that costs the phone companies very little to implement but works over long distances.... something cheap enough for the telcos to preserve their precious profits but still install it and provide service farther out.
Erik
How is this modded insightful? If anybody knew anything at all about VDSL and VDSL2, they would realize the technology is symmetric in nature, meaning that the connection speed per end-point is equal for up and down. So it'd be 300Mbps/300Mbps, you insensitive clod.
Unfortunately, this is pretty useless for the US.
The US has far longer telephone/DSL local loop lengths than almost any other country. Average US local loops are over 4 km, compared with 3 km in the UK and France, or under 2 km in Germany and Italy. And unlike most European countries, almost no loops in the US are under 1.5 km, and the US is one of the few countries to have significant numbers of loops (10% of customers) over 5.5 km. Data source here.
Although people have also pointed out that it is symmetric over 4 wires. Does that mean 2 wires in, 2 wires out? If so, that sounds like the real answer is 300Mbps/0bps. :-(
Dont worry I get them every 2 days, so it wont be long!
No worries kindy boy, I will have lots more soon.
I am quite happy to use them to mod you to oblivion, it is exactly the sort of things moderation is for.
Silly silly kindy boy.
Thanks for playing!
Poor little stalking AC, you dont know anything do you? At least you spare us any attempt to look intelligent, but then again with what you post I doubt your IQ is above single digit.
I qualified as a Telecommunications tech in 1979,
so I dont need to read reviews on other websites.
Very poor effort at trolling me by the way, maybe you will be more sucessful with someone in your own age bracket.
TATA, thanks for playing!
More amusement from kindy boy, you do realise that there was no email in 1979 dont you? Oh of course being 10 you wouldnt.
Could you at least try and post something that actually might even begin to be a clever insult, or is this piss weak attempt at trolling the best you can do?
Thanks for the laughs though, I havent had so much fun for ages!
So there was world wide email in 79, available for everyone. Each time you post your ignorance comes out a little more.
Trolling the troll! Does it get any better?
One of us is looking like a fool for sure, but it isnt me who is incoherent and ranting wildly.
I suppose I could bold things and type in caps to try and look more *credible*, oh wait that just makes one seem juvenille, so I will leave it to you.
Trolling the troll- fun fun fun
Im just a trollin the troll!
(To the tune of walking the dog)
do you think ANYONE believes that which I quote of you above, after reading the URL below it?
Frankly I doubt anyone but me is even bothering to read your copy pasta troll.
I am but just so I can;
"Troll the troll"
(This time to the tune of Can the Can)
Even the reception kids at my schools do netter at annoying me than you AC, all you have done so far is amuse greatly. With the reliable networks I supervise, Ihave nothing to do at work most pf the time.
Please keep digging yourself deeper and deeper into incoherence it really is priceless!
I dont think anyone reads your copy pastas kindy boy. I only do for the humour-and so I can reply and waste as much of your time as possible, whilst collecting my pay-just doesnt get better!
All the bold letters in the world dont mean that you have landed a blow, they just show your frustration that you can do nothing other than greatly amuse me!
A good troll could at least come up with a different response occasionally.
You are slowly getting a bit more coherent though,
Maybe in a few more posts you will actually struture a valid sentence in English.
Its nice I can help improve your writing for you, but you need to work on originality.
I am impervious to this troll, (As I said i work with primary kids all the time, just water off a ducks back) there is nothing he has done or said that has done anything other than amuse me greatly.
The longer he tries the funnier his thrashing around gets! He simply cannot make me angry.
I thouigh that the idea of mod points was to improve the discussion, and modding spammers like this baby to the hidden zone is exactly the kind of thing it is for.
A far as Hotmail is concerned, why should I worry if the IP address of my works proxy server, which covers 20,000 people is revealed? Gues who controls the IP logs, and mails from a printers static IP behinfd a router? It is all covered fine
There was and is no way I can be personally connected to that account, so its no big deal
My point in that post was to warn others that those who do have trackable IP should be cautious with their info at ElReg.
Advice from Ac's is utterly irrelevant to me.
Oh yet another copy eh, boy you will really upset me by posting the same thing over and over!
Come on try something new, I have got all the laughs I can get out of this one, we even made it almost comprehensible!
Thanks for the concern, but its ALL covered nicely.
The thing is the registration for hotmail was in 1995 and the now "false" info was true back then.
I just like a degree of privacy, in fact I do no "dirty tricks" on the net, and so have nothing to fear.
I do have the knowledge to do things like the printer thing, as a product of the need to maintain the security of my networks.
Interesting that you would automatically think I would need to worry.
Old BOFH friends in the ISP/NOC/Telecoms business are handy in terms of technical tips in such matters too.
You could zoom in a lot closer by reading what I posted-it defines my location to miles.
Its a pity you choose to spam/troll this way, there must be a backstory to all this eh?
When you try you can put together a good paragraph or two!
Ooodathunkit?
The rest of you, sorry people I will STFU now. ):