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.'"

Comments

Re:Great news but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still cant get over 1.2 Mbps at my house. Palo Alto, California. Silicon Valley, USA.

"That's the best we can do with the old wiring in your neighborhood." Yeah, Thanks.

1 KM really does not exist.

[Eravnrekaree]

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).

Re:Great news but...

[NoMaster]

However, standard practice here in Australia, as required by telecommunication's law is actually 2 pairs. Red & Black and Green & Black I think. Never was a techie, just did line programming & cable records.

I was a techie (exchange mtce), then got suckered into liney-land via DSL installs / faults.

2 pairs - White & Blue, Red & Black (mostly) - but that's only for the lead-in from the pit to the NBP (first socket / external J-box), or maybe from the building MDF or IDFs to the unit/townhouse. In theory, internal stuff should be at least 2pr, but you've gotta remember 90+% of it these days is installed by builders (i.e. as cheaply as possible) & signed off by their pet electricians, so that's not a given. Plenty of single-pair in internal cabling, although that's rapidly being superseded by CAT-5 - which they usually manage to put a staple through, crush under sheeting, or just plain stretch so you're *lucky* to get a single pair that works...

(Seriously - I've forgotten how many brand-spankin'-new installs I'd attended where I had to split all 4 pairs differently around the house just to get a single line to all points.)

And let's not talk about the so-called "technician" contractors Telstra passes the lead-in installs & replacements to. I've seen lead-in buried solid (with just short lengths of conduit at the building and pit end end so it passes inspection), and CAT-5 lead-in that's such crap it's gone low IR 40 minutes after getting damp...

Besides, as a cable assigner you'd know the real problem is the lack of free/working pairs in the mains to the pillar, or especially the O-side street cabling. A 2pr lead-in is fine, but there's nowhere near enough capacity to extend 2 pairs for more than a few people all the way back to the pillar, let alone the exchange or local cabinet...

Notes from a small island

[GuyFawkes]

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.