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DSL modem standard gets final approval from ITU
drama writes "The International Telecommunications Union today gave final approval to a long-awaited digital subscriber line standard that could hasten consumer use of high-speed Net connections." The article has some interesting information. Essentially, they've approved the G.lite standard, which is a lower-cost version, meaning that the consumer can buy the parts at the store, rather then the phone company needing to send people out - does that mean I can have DSL before 2020, please? *sigh*
So far (at least in the US) it seems that there are relatively few areas where you actually have a choice, so the question is academic for most of us.
However, the tradeoffs are roughly as follows - ADSL is generally a bit more expensive (though dropping), and has lower nominal bandwidth. HOWEVER, it is guaranteed bandwidth, whereas cable is a shared bus, so if there are other heavy users on your segment, performance suffers. Also, I believe that there are at least some cable implementations where the cable is used only downstream, with upstream traffic going over the phone line, so forget about having a web server on your box, and even Quake etc wouldn't be helped. (There are cable implementations that run both over the cable, though)
Anecdotal evidence in my area indicates that DSL has much better availability - I am only aware of 2 brief outages on my DSL link, whereas a friend with cable has regular service interruptions.
For a typical user, either is likely to be satisfactory. I have 384 DSL through US West (downloads actually reach better than that) and performance is basically the same as being in the office (10mbps local, T1 to the net).
I like my cable modem fine, 5 IP addresses 5 Email addresses 3m downstream 768k upstream. On my 486 (linux) I have seen data transfers over 100K a second which is as fast as I could want. All of this for 28$ a month. I host my own website (apache) and setup sendmail (8.9.3). Everything works great. I couldnt ask for more. With my 8 port hub people come over and do FTP installs of linux instead of waiting for a CD from cheapbytes.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
mmm... DMT.
-l
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They asked me the same thing, but I told them to keep their grubby paws off my machine, because I didn't want their noses poking around my computer.
It took about three seconds to compile tulip.c into my kernel and turn the computer back on.
I've got nothing but high marks for Pac Bell.
-mattyj
Just a note....There is absolutely nothing your ISP can do to get you DSL quicker, I work for one and believe me we'd love to be able to offer DSL, but the phone company has us just as tied up as any other customer. Ranting at your ISP will not solve the world's problems.
I looked into getting PacBell (my crap phone lines can't do better than 28.8K), but I couldn't get it because I was too far from the main office (This is in Los Altos, CA the left ventricle of Silicon Valley!)
:-) :-)
You lucky BASTARDS!
Well, the landlord decided to sell the house, so I would have been out $130 anyway...
Do they enforce it anyhow? Like making you route everything through their proxy and/or port-scanning you. The latter is fairly easy to over-come.
I'm with a CLEC, so the ILEC tech's had to come out and extend an unbundled loop to my house as a second line. But the process was identical to installing a second phone line. If my "main" phone line had DSL hooked up to it, I would not have needed anyone to come out. The Nortel equipment (which is rock solid, BTW) could be based on g.lite, but I don't know.
I had a cable modem with Road Runner in San Diego and ADSL with PacBell in the SF Bay. They were both $50/mo. Availability is better with ADSL than it was with the cable modem. The cable modem used to be a little flakey.
There are two things that really sell me on xDAL vs. cavle modems:
1) Guarranteed bandwidth. The cable modem was fast - I once saw 200 kB/second. However, almost all of the rest of the time I never saw above 30 kB/second. With ADSL, if I am connected to a fast site, I will always get 145 kB/second. I also don't like the security implications of the shared bandwidth nature of cable modems. About a month after I started using linux, my (stock RH 5.1) machine was broken into by what seemed to be a warez kiddie from inside the cable modem network. (though it could have come from anywhere, really.)
2) This is probably more of a provider issue. Road Runner (cable modem) used DHCP, so that you could not have any internet services hosted on your machine. Pac Bell gives me a fixed IP address (I have yet to use that, one step at a time I guess). So, for the same price, ADSL gives me more bandwidth, and a fixed IP address. To me, the choice was clear.
I sincerely hope that cable modems do not dominate over xDSL, because I like the idea of DSL much better.
I received the same package. For some reason, they gave me something like 5 filters, which is more than a bit excessive. I put a splitter at the demarcation jack, plugged the modem into one side, and a filter into the other. I then plugged all of my voice lines into that. 1 filter needed, as easy as can be...
It's not a bug, it's a feature...
This is actually why I prefer the DSL to the cable modems. Sympatico here has no "No Server" clauses in the contract. They mention in the documentation that you can't run servers, but only because of dynamic IP's. Apparently, they haven't heard of Dynamic DNS :-). The one disadvantage is that they enforce the use of their proxy web server (for port 80, at least). So hopefully Mozilla clears up the proxy problems soon...
It's not a bug, it's a feature...
I infer from a brochure they have on it that it might be, at least, similar technology. Unfortunately, their name for it doesn't include the string "DSL", so it took a bit of work to find info about it under Nortel's "Products & Services" page - they call it the "1-Meg Modem" - but I finally found their home page for it; under it is The 1-Meg Modem Bulletin (which is a PDF document, so you'll need a PDF reader to read it), which says, on page 7, in a sidebar:
Where in Canada are you? Here in Vancouver, BC, BCTel still requires to come over to your place, fiddle around with the existing wires, install the splitter, and test it out on HIS/HER laptop. All the computer setting is done by yourself. However, we still have to pay $100CAN for the installation fee. (BCTel has said that this is refundable if you stay on for 1 year. This is not a 1 year contract.)
There ought to be a way to switch the speeds, so the 640k is outbound from the user, and the 90k is inbound. That would be great for home servers, or webcams, etc. In fact I can't see why this couldn't be done dynamically, in response to load.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I've been on the net since like 94 and i am tired of hearing how some magical day i will get high speed access. I have no dsl no cable and isdn for way to much, I guess i am supposed to move or something. The only thing holding high speed back is greedy telephone companies. They are upset that someone is upsetting their monopoly and I am sick of it. Meanwhile every damn site has like 150kb of ads 200kb of java which is crap and i mean worthless crap, when all i want to do it read the freakin news, yes i also use lynx but how fun it that? O.K. I'm done.
College towns have 2 things going for them to get high speed/availability first. Number one, most of them already have existing large pipes to the backbone that they can let an ISP have bandwidth on to share costs. Number two, they have large numbers of people in a concentrated area that want access. In College Station, TX (Texas A&M) they have DSL (ADSL?) and a good cable modem service. Why? Because most of the town is students and faculty of the school. The school modem pool can't possibly handle the 45,000+ users so the need was there. If you are the only person in a 2 mile radius begging for these services they aren't going to rush them to you.
Another possibility regarding the cable is the fact that there is no competition in cable companies. I live in Montgomery County, MD. We have millions of people living there and (I think) _ONE_ cable company. How are they supposed to serve everyone at once?
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
I have the US West service, and it rocks. They a dvertise it as 256K up/down, but they actually provide 640K down / 272K up.
My signup date is the 29th here in Portland, OR and the cost breaksdown like this:
69.00 - Activation fee
29.95 - US West 256K up/down DSL
18.00 - Local service provider
21.00 - phone line (incl tax/fees)
50.00 - external Cisco and 3Com905BTX NIC
----- or $0 for internal combo NIC/Modem
187.95
You can opt for a tech to come hook it up for $149. This is on special until 7/2/99. Normally they charge another $200 for the modem. he startup cost over $500 was prohibitive...under $200 is not...at least for this bandwidth starved user.
Face it, I think that "modem" is going to be the term of choice for the hardware that interfaces computers to external internet services.
...
Yes, G.lite doesn't modulate/demodulate like every analog modem since the days of ARPAnet, but it's such a useful term that I doubt it will disappear. Who besides a slashdot geek will want to use a term like Adaptive Transceiver Unit/Remote? Sounds like technobabble from Star Trek to most people.
"Sir, the aliens have interfered with our Adaptive Transceiver Unit, remotely!" "Red Alert!"
Especially for something going to the retail market, it's important to have a Name for the Thing. It's already been extended to "cable modems" and "ISDN modems". And if real analog modems (and the POTS they depend on) are living on numbered days, why not steal the term?
This is the way languages evolve
(By the way, thanks for the first-person tale of working with Rhythms, I have been giving them a very close look!)
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
USWest recently lowered their DSL price to $29.95/mo. If you use their ISP it's an additional 17.95/mo. I haven't had a problem and have had the service at two seperate locations, very impressed, 640k down/256k up (Q3 + V3 + P3 + DSL = what's a "sun"). They offer services up to 7mbs for bidness (we're going with 1mbs for $125).
+&x
amen bruddah!
I'm currently logged in as my redundant backup account as my primary failed over.
And you'd use that extra bandwidth for ... what, exactly? Running a porn site in the basement?
I'm a power user, and I can't imagine that my upload bytes are more than 10% of my download bytes. Even if I include my web page at my ISP, it's perhaps 20%. So if you host your own website, maybe you'll need symmetric, but probably not. And if you're hosting a business website, then you're not a "home user" and your plea is misdirected.
As for the internet being a broadcast medium, dude, that doesn't depend on the technology. That depends on the customers. Most of whom are not going to be broadcasters themselves. The "modest" interactivity of chat, e-mail, etc. is plenty for them.
Besides, as I used to tell people before they'd really heard of the internet, The Internet is just a wire. What you can do with it depends entirely on what you choose to try to do with it.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Are you a member of Team Slidewayz? Just wondering.
I'd buy it in a second if Bell Atlantic would only
extend DSL coverage 40 miles north or so. Cmon
Bell atlantic, when can I get DSL in Baltimore?
ISDN sucks and cable modem is a bit expensive.
Was hopping competion would lower the price of
cable modem.
It was funny and I laughed.
It was posted by an AC and it wasn't a half-page long-winded essay, so it was moderated to -1.
Slashdot is great. It's best when people don't take it too seriously, though.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
GTE is capped and breaks down at least a few times a week. It's always "We are having problems with our California bla." No explanation following.
It's like they're cursed.
Hmm, what sort of equipment is needed for the ISP end of the DSL line? We aren't the phone company, we just provide the access to the net, so what in terms of hardware are needed (links will earn you a cookie!). Thanks 8)
- b00tch
> G.Lite doesn't require a truck roll (i.e. a visit from an engineer), since it doesn't have
> a 'splitter' that separates the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System, i.e. phones, etc.)
> frequencies from the xDSL frequencies.
Too bad they forgot about ISDN. Sure, in the USA almost nobody has ISDN, but in Europe most people who would like to get ADSL currently have ISDN. If they just changed a few of the frequencies in the spec, ISDN and G.lite could be carried over the same copper as well, but they didn't. So G.lite will probably fail in Europe. See also Orckit .
Living is a horizontal fall
I live in a Rural area (about 90mi from a true metro area, 15mi from a city of 40,000). I moved from Nashville TN where I had used @home for nearly 2years. Now I am stuck with 56k (actually the best connect I ever get is 36k). This really sucks. I love the area where I live (great schools, quality of life is good, low crime, etc.) but I am truly in a digital backwater. Unless someone comes out with a 2way satellite setup that is affordable or a wireless system I don't see broadband ever coming here. The telcos, cable cos, and everyone else only focus on the supposed major markets (even though there is no competition out here in the rural world).
Oh well, its still worth living here even with the limited tech options...
When I signed of for DSL from USWest, I was able to save myself about $100 by doing the install work myself. Saved myself the hassle of setting up a time to meet with the technician. Installation proved to be a no-brainer.
The only time I dealt with a technician was when I called my ISP to get a static IP number.
While the whole process was not plug and play, it didn't require a technician.
"Mom! Tell Billy to stop playing Quake! I'm trying to talk to my boyfriend, but there's not enough bandwidth!"
What ever will we do? Have to find a place to get rid of our sisters...
-Chris
So? When I got on the Net 300 baud was fast and most people had 110 baud. Then those University hotshots got 1200 baud.
...
... while using a 56K on the voice band at the same time ...
How old am I? Well, I was a teen then, so you do the math. Just one word, ARPAnet
Nowadays I upload at 272Mbps and download at 720Mbps
Will in Seattle
Will in Seattle
*mutter* ... If only they would service my neighborhood....
/Furor
I've got ADSL with the full 1MB downstream/384K upstream using Nortel's 1 meg modems. Awesome! Pages load instantly now. I also have a voice line on the DSL circuit so I can surf and talk at the same time. (Porn and 1-900, hehehe).
Ender
Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...
Nothing to see here
Getting my ADSL line installed tomorrow, assuming of course that PacBell manages to show up.
;)
Needless to say, extensive Q3A stress testing will be required...
Now, that depends on your provider. I have ADSL from Bell Atlantic ( they ran a promotion last month ), and including ISP, they're charging me 50 u$s per month. They charge 50 u$s for the modem but they have a 50 $ rebate ( so it's 0$ ). The only catch is that you must agree to one year service ( you have a 30 day-trial period though).
Now, I don;t know if other Bell Atlantic customer is reading this, but up to now I'm very happy with the service. And yes, I also hope that they'll not try to change my modem at the end of the year for the new ones.
I live in the philadelphia area, and signed up for an SDSL setup from Flashcom about two months ago. Well yesterday I finally got all wired, but now my DSL modem is apparantly timed out, but it got as far as to connect to the central office and download software (sort of like flashing your BIOS). They claim to be able to have the problem fixed by tonite, but then again two months ago they claimed they could have it installed in 10 working days.
ARRRGGGGGG.... Need.... Bandwidth
Tell a man that there are 400 Billion stars and he'll believe you
I don't see the technician's role ever being eliminated. When the telco installed adsl at my place, they had to muck w/ the wires outside. A simple modem standard isn't going to make this plug 'n play.
Hope it becomes more popular though, it's fast as hell : )
seek counciling please
One of the previous posters said he pays $50 a month for DSL. Now I know the cost varies depending on what speed you choose, but are there any other (hidden) fees? Im assuming you probably have to pay for the equipment, or at least lease one from them, but are there also fees for using the phone line or anything like that? I thought ISDN users had to pay for the line along with their monthly fees...
Bellsouth sucks....
refuses to put DSL or cable in anywhere that isn't close to Louisville....
Lexington has a little but it's so spread around it's impossible to get any information about it or when it will be in your neighborhood.....
Bellsouth should eat shit and die
Well im sure ill be old and grey before hellsouth decides that they will offer anything more than ISDN here... places like Nashville already have it but the tennessee public service commission is much better than the bastards in alabama. Im sure ill get raped with charges that rival leased lines whenever DSL comes out... or maybe they'll try and meter every bit that squeaks through. Im getting raped now with ISDN and bellsouth im sure will rape us on DSL. bellsouth is like an out of control rapist/mistress. Microsoft is not who should be under scrutiny for anti trust it should be bellsouth!
cluster
We've heard the promises before of high bandwidth. Will it ever materialize? Not unless the people who want/need it start letting cable, telephone, and other companies know its needed, and there's large amounts of motivation for the utilities to provide it. I live in an area serviced by GTE and I recall them stating that they are rolling out ADSL based the on customer demand. Sure. What I've seen so far is that they are in college towns/cities deploying DSL. That makes little sense, because almost anyone in those towns can go into the college and get what they need in a lab. How many college towns do you know of where there's two or less ISPs? There's an awful lot of people begging anyone for bandwidth. The telcos complain that they are losing money and in danger of their networks failing because of all the people who have more than one line so they can access the Internet. Duh. Give us real bandwidth and then your problems go away! All this beating around the bush is so the telephone companies can make money with all their fees for second/third/etc. lines. Folks, it's time to let your telco/cable co./ISP/etc. know you're tired of this stuff. Contact them, contact your public utilities commissions, contact your representatives, contact the Federal Commnications Commission, and get them to do something. Maybe if the people in government gave these companies a tax cut with the stipulation that they must provide high-bandwidth in a certain size area in a certain amount of time, the utilities would get up and get going.
Then again we all know that it's the Utilities Mafia (there is no Utilities Mafia [tm]) that's behind this.
...I'd call myself G. Lite.
G.Lite doesn't require a truck roll (i.e. a visit from an engineer), since it doesn't have a 'splitter' that separates the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System, i.e. phones, etc.) frequencies from the xDSL frequencies.
:) and require both ends to do a 'fast retrain' lasting 1.5 seconds. Also badly-behaved POTS equipment could disrupt things even more, and in-home wiring quality is a big factor.
This means you can just buy a G.Lite modem from whoever, plug it in, and start working (in theory) - the modem ideally is an analogue modem for when xDSL breaks and also so it can automagically request xDSL service for you via the modem link when first installed.
You may also be able to get G.Lite service at some speed (maybe lower than ADSL) beyond 18,000 feet from the central office.
The price you pay for this is that any POTS equipment's hook-on/off activity can disrupt the G.Lite modem (yes, it really is a modem
My prediction, FWIW: people will get sufficiently annoyed with the G.Lite data getting disrupted that they'll convert their whole house to Voice over IP - either buying IP phones and using in-home networking over the existing phone wiring. Or they can keep their existing phones and wiring and just have a VoIP card in their Linux firewall that acts as a home PABX as well - park, hold, etc. Though hopefully with a nicer user interface... The end result is that there is no POTS voice whatsoever, everything is IP data or VoIP, all on top of G.Lite, hence no disruption...
ADSL seems to be positioned as a premium service - due to the splitter being installed, it will cost more but will also enable pretty much guaranteed bandwidth independent of home wiring and on-off hook activity.
There's a good article in IEEE Communications Magazine, May 1999, called 'Residential Broadband Architecture over ADSL and G.Lite: PPP over ATM' - talks a lot about how PPP sits on top of ATM, and how the xDSL provider only goes up to layer 2, with any layer 3 services (ISPs, video, other content) being supplied via ATM links direct to the provider. Since I work for an IP QoS company, I feel somehow this should be doable with IP, but that presumes an all-IP world which this architecture does not.
In my area, DSL (3Mb/s min) costs $45/mon Can. The installation is around $25. I'm too cheap to get it, but from what I understand, that price is all inclusive. The only caveat I've heard on that is that you have to use the phone company (MT&T) for long distance as well. I can't imagine any other hidden costs since they are in STIFF competition with cable modem ($40/mon).
I'm sick of asymetric upload/download rates. Bell Atlantic is (trying) to install ADSL where I live and, while the download is fast (640K), the upload is only 90K. I agree that's better than modems, but come on! I don't want the internet to be a broadcast type medium, that's what TVs are for! I don't want another kind of TV.
Why is it so outrageous to allow home users to have decent upload speeds? I say demand symmetric DSL!
Both ISDN and HDSL use something called Pulse Amplitude Modulation which is the physical layer of the connection. By the time the digital signal reaches the receiver, the levels have diffused into eachother. An equalizer goes through and restores the levels to their original values. By definition, it modulates and demodulates, but not in the typical sense like an analog modem.
As for ADSL. ADSL does modulate and demodulate in the typical sense. A digital signal is encoded as a carrier wave and sent down the line to receiver. DMT or descrete multitone modulation uses the fast fourier transform as it's modulator and demodulator.
'ADSL modem' is a valid term in every sense of the word.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
I would never use a cable modem for non-secure
transmissions, even if they offered the service
free. Your neighbors can see every packet.
I just got DSL through FirstWorld, and absolutely no problems. As for PacBell, the technicians were great, and showed up extra early because they happened to be in the area.
Everything went so smoothly, I almost forgot the PacBell (commercial) ISDN installs a few years back. I say "almost" because I still have recurrent nightmares and flashbacks now and then.
(As for the pacbell.net ISP, I can't say, but it sounds as if you're router problems were there.)
Why only stop there? Bell Atlantic has already installed 7.1 Mbps DSL in Washington D.C. now, as for that system working, i dunno, but "supposedly" it is.
On another note, Bell Atlantic has such as small coverage area with their DSL systems and get so few customers, it'll be a wonder if the idea spreads out of the main cities (Bell Atlantic is basically screaming for help in D.C. ~ offering 640Kbps DSL for $10 a month).
Well, not to make this sound like an ad or anything, but you do know that the new standards aren't going to go anywhere in the consumer market if there is no show of interest in the test markets...
And just to say, i just woke up from my first sleep in 72 hours (ahh, the joys of school), so i wouldn't take whatever i say at face value, but you definately can if you want...
[mumble... mumble]
*insert pithy sig here*
At least I do... Up here in Ontario, Bell "Sympatico" charges my company (available at home to) $39.99 CDN per month for ADSL. Fast too!
This, was a hidden advertisement.
While all the Americans are jabbering on about their DSLs and ADSLs and things, are there any Brits or Europeans in /.-land who knows the current status on fast access methods in the UK?
I took a look at getting BT's "HomeHighway" ISDN product into the house about six months ago, but on examining the costings discovered it would about double my phone bills so I gave them the finger.
Does the ITU's apporval of a DSL-type modem standard mean there is *any* chance of these things actually being *implemented* in the UK?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
What is up with the ITU standard names?
How long before we see D.lite?
I signed up with PacBell too. I've never met such incompetent people in my life (except in Fry's). Of course the worst ones were the people I couldn't see. Why I had to wait 24 hrs for the router to allow me through is beyond my small little mind. Hell, I only waited 2 months for the techs to come out and give me the modem and splitter! You'd think the backend stuff would be done first.
Once I got it working I've had no problems. It is the best thing I've done in years. Q3A and tribes rock with dsl. One IP address is a little cheap though. Oh well. Hmm, where's that HOWTO for IPchains...
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Which is faster/cheaper?
Will I ever get either one?
Can I stay connected 24/7 with DSL?
cable modems are alleged to be able to
let me do this
First a word of clarification: There is no such thing as a DSL modem, just like there isn't such thing as an ISDN modem. The correct name is ATU/R or Adaptive Transceiver Unit/Remote.
The G.lite DSL article misses the most critical point regarding DSL: Availability and quality of service within the subscriber's area. We've used Rythms Net Connections (mentioned in the article also) ADSL for roughly a year (very happily) and we found that the ATU/R was the least of our worries. The real problem was dealing with Pacific Bell, our local carrier.
When we first requested DSL we had to wait until Pacific Bell installed the physical line, by far the biggest hurdle. Essentially, the telco must add a pair of wires to the local MPOE (minimum point of entry) to access the physical network. That installation took about a month. Installation of the ATU/R by Rythms technicians, including configuration (physical, IP,etc.) of all my Linux and Winblows boxes (6) took about 1 hour at no additional cost. This including laying the wires.
Over the year we experienced a number of outtages thanks to PacBell's ineptitude. We've been able to trace line problems to them 99% of the time, the most recent one took us off-line for 36 hours because some Dumb Ass technician disconnected our DSL line "because he didn't hear a dial tone."
Other problems included PacBell's reluctance to support anything other than Winblows or Mac and their condescending attitude, and their insistence on providing the NIC, hub, and ATU/R even if you already have the equipment (I had to install PacBell's ADSL at one of my developer's home and Rythms et. al. didn't service his area [Belmont, CA]). I won't even go into how hard it was for them to understand that my developer uses a laptop, thus his NIC is actually a PCMCIA card...
Our advise when installing DSL: Get your service, if you can, from someone other than your local telco. Third party providers tend to be more expensive, but they provide 7x24 support, including hardware replacement, and at least 7 IP addresses per contract. We run a full development lab on 644 kbps ADSL without problems, and we're very happy.
As for the ATU/R itself: We have a Paradyne Hotwire model 5446. It survived a surge PacBell sent up our DSL line without trouble.
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
For PacBell, there was a $200 installation fee (I think). Includes wiring, an Acaltel DSL modem, a generic 10/100BT network card.
Then per month it's $39 for the DSL line, $10 for the ISP. This is if you subscribe for at least a year. Charges are higher for month-to-month. Oh yeah, you still haveta pay your regular phone line charges.
"PPP over ATM' - talks a lot about how PPP sits on top of ATM, and how the xDSL provider only goes up to layer 2, with any layer 3 services (ISPs, video, other content) being supplied via ATM links direct to the provider. Since I work for an IP QoS company, I feel somehow this should be doable with IP, but that presumes an all-IP world which this architecture does not. "
I don't know about PPP over ATM (isn't there a lot of cell tax for such a slow connection). You are right that we live in an IP world. I know for a fact that there are routers out there that do the following:
It looks like ip, it goes in as ip, comes out as ip, so it must be ip right? wrong. IP over ATM (damm that was fast)
Here's the solution:
DMDS:
"The Newbridge DMDS solution enables service providers to realize the potential of ADSL to offer a complete portfolio of broadcast voice, video and data services."
-Martin Hall, chief technology officer, Stardust Forums and co-founder of the IP Multicast Initiative.
Bottom Line: Voice + Data + Video over xDSL modem. Using ATM Switching to deliver to the distribution node (local CO) then ADSL to the jack in your living room. Woudn't that be nice if the telcos all got this thing? Then there would be some competition for the cable tv companies.
Other problems included PacBell's reluctance to support anything other than Winblows or Mac
When I ordered my DSL install about 2 weeks ago, they asked me if I was on a "PC, Mac, or Unix workstation." Perhaps things are improving?
I suspect this has something to do with phone companies enjoying 'common carrier' legal protection. (i.e. phone companies don't get in trouble for content that passes through their line; if criminals talk over the phone, you can't hold the phone company responsible.)
The hidden costs are in freedom of speech: You usually get only one, dynamic IP address on which you are not allowed to run any kind of server.
I do this all the time.
...
Use the main line for either voice telephone or else to use the internal modem (56K) to dial into my oldest ISP and muck with the files there while my DSL modem browses the web site through its connection.
Sure, my speed drops, but since the pipe only goes 200-300 around here and I run 720, that only cuts me down to 360 and I'm still maxing the pipe.
Will in Seattle
hope my next house is in DSL service area
Will in Seattle