Slashdot Mirror
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*
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Regular phone line: approx $12 plus LD charges for voice calls
DSL Line: $39/mo
ISP [through Pacbell internet]: $10/mo
Setup fee: $198 1 time [I've never been charged for this]
The prices I got were on the condition that I sign a 1yr contract and used Pacific Bell Internet as the ISP. And includes the tech coming out to setup the splitter outside, wire the line inside, the DSL modem [Alcatel], and a Kensington PCI 10/100 card. Seemed like a good deal to me, and it's worked like a charm
Ender
I love the "swooshing" sound deadlines make as they go by.
Nothing to see here
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
In Southern California, I get my aDSL from Pacific Bell. The installation charge was $200, but if you sign up for a year (which I did) they waive that. The equipment (splitter, modem, NIC) was $199, but you can provide your own. I couldn't get the same stuff for cheaper, so I just got it from them.
I pay $39 a month for their service. If I wanted their ISP, it would cost me another 10 bucks a month, but I basically have a $9.99 email address that I don't want to give up and use my localhost for everything. It works out really nice.
The phoneline is a completely different thing. The DSL is charged to your regular phone bill (in fact, they $199 is spread out over four months), but it doesn't interfere/affect DSL at all.
There is a VERY GOOD HOW-TO on DSL that should be in all the normal Linux places (at least on the SuSE CD's) that takes about 90% of the document to explain what DSL is and how it works, and the other 10% to tell you how to get it working on your system. It explains more than you'd ever want to know about it, and if you're thinking of getting DSL, it's a worthwhile toilet read (took me two sessions.)
-mattyj@cts.com