VDSL Demoed

coaxial writes "According to Techweb, STMicroelectronics and Telia Research AB demonstrated VDSL (Very-High-Bit-Rate DSL). Supposedly it will allow 60Mbps and be available by 2001. " I've heard rumours of demonstrations to be down at Comdex in couple weeks. Need to keep my eyes open for that.

Comments

DSL: Bah, humbug

[davie]

From the article:
VDSL technology has an aggregate capacity of up to 60 Mbits/second over short distances...

DSL is a pipedream until the distance-sensitivity problem is solved. I also read (I think it was on C|Net) recently that there are a lot of complaints about poor implementations (braindead admins, most likely) and less-than-acceptable throughput.

For what it's worth, SWB just rolled out ADSL in our area (NE Oklahoma) and we're about 2k ft. too far from the C.O. SWB tell me that they will be upgrading to a technology that will allow them to move the service points out closer to the customers some time next year, but I'm not holding my breath. They keep promising cheap, fat pipes, but we're still stuck with $150 a month ISDN (128K) or $1,000+ a month T1 (yes, I know T1 is sym. therefore better) if we want bandwidth.

Is it just me, or are the telcos and telco/cable people (since AT&T swallowed up TCI) just stringing us along so they can squeeze every possible penny out of T1, etc. before they make consumer broadband a reality?

Re:DSL: Bah, humbug

[Goonie]

The "distance-sensitivity problem", as you put it, is a fundamental technical limit rather than something that's going to be solved by some clever encoding algorithm. As I understand it, the permissible bandwith of a cable reduces proportionally to its length due to signal loss and interference, and the maximum data rate is relates to the bandwith through Shannon's (?) Law (which I've forgotten the exact formula for).
In any case, I think the limit for VSDL-type speed is a few hundred metres - not particularly useful unless the telcos install mini-exchanges on every street.

FWIW, I'd be happy with 1mbit/sec or so, if our local Telcos/cable operators (which are basically one and the same in Oz) weren't charging 35c/MB for it!

Re:AGGH!

[Jordy]

What is a decent overcommit for high-speed users anyway? I've been hearing anywhere from 5:1 to 100:1 but nobody has good solid evidence one way or the next.

Nationwide the average ISP pays roughly $1000 per megabit for bandwidth to their upstream provider. There's additional costs involved in the circuit between the CO and the ISP, the circuit to their upstream provider, and tech support and what not.

But you can figure out for yourself roughly what the ISP needs to overcommit just to break even on bandwidth. 1.5 Mbps ADSL in Bell Atlantic territory averages about $40/month which means the ISP must overcommit 37.5:1 to break even on bandwidth.

Subtract roughly $5 per customer in tech support costs, 15% profit margin and it comes out to about 40:1 overcommit rate.

Of course that still doesn't include equipment, adminstrative costs, software development costs, management costs, etc.

It also doesn't take into account the 'free' outbound bandwidth which ADSL users can't use which you can use for web hosting and what not in attempt to recoup some money.

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Re:AGGH!

[tzanger]

Actually I work for an ISP and we're going around the telco. YES you'll need a seperate line unfortunately, but we're using SDSL modems (pairgain 300s') which, in our small town will do about 1.2mbit about 6km out, and up to 128k up to about 10 or 12km... That means we can link up the businesses and the like...

...and my house... :-)

DSL is good stuff, but it is a shame the distance blows large hairy donkeys. Cable would be nice if they didn't overcommit their bandwidth 300:1.

What is a decent overcommit for high-speed users anyway? I've been hearing anywhere from 5:1 to 100:1 but nobody has good solid evidence one way or the next.

Still waiting for BT to sort out ADSL

[Tet]

That's all well and good, but I'm still waiting for BT to get off their backsides, and supply ADSL. They've just announced that they're dropping the speed from 2Mb/s to 512Kb/s and putting prices up at the same time. According to my ISP, they probably won't be able to get me ADSL until March at the earliest (BT have were saying September, but decided to delay it, presumably to screw as much out of their kilostream customers as possible before ADSL). And when it does arrive, it'll probably cost the equivalent of over US$150 per month :-(

Bandwidth not so a plenty...

[Wiggins]

...I am glad to hear things like this are going to be demoed and such. ANd it is great that it will roll out by 2001, but the fact that I have no options for highbandwidth period and live in a fairly populated (no not New York, or S.F. or Dallas) but this is a silly subject to get excited about until someone comes out and says yes you to can have high bandwidth, and actually mean people who live in cities with under 1 million people. Until that day I will only hope, and be unimpressed.

AGGH!

[Signal 11]

God, not another "Wonderful technology YOU can't have(tm)". Only about 20% of homes in the US can get any form of DSL. Now they're talking about giving them another kind of DSL? How about focusing your efforts on reaching the other 80% of the market that wants it instead of the 20% that already has it?! *grumbling*

How many of you begged and pleaded with your local telco to get DSL? How many of you called up the PUC, or the CLECs in your area? How many of you honestly did the number crunching to see if you could get a frame relay to your house? Probably alot of you.

Great technology.... (bastards). Sorry.. I just get really emotional sometimes (bastards). *sigh*

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Density Matters

[IntlHarvester]

When the telephone system was being created, the thought was that it was such an essential service that the generally more well-off high density cities should subsidize the wiring to the generally depressed rural communities. This system worked wonderfully, providing universal access that was still affordable.

However, like many other rural subsidies (such as the highway programs), the net effect was that millions of Americans found it reasonable to move to areas of very low densities for quality of life reasons.

You have to realize that low density communities and anything that comes in on a wire do not mix well. The cable companies almost drove themselves out of business in the 1980s trying to provide universal service, and you can be damn sure that the DSL companies won't do the same thing.

Considering the short range of DSL, if you live in a community with 1 acre lots, I'd be suprised if you ever got the service. You made a lifestyle choice and you don't deserve it. And if you do get broadband, I hope you are paying the real cost -- not relying on subsidies from higher density areas that far cheaper to provide service to.


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Covad has been a nightmare.

[cpeterso]

I live in Seattle and I too live "too far" from the US West DSL hubs. Then I found out that Covad does support my area. My roommates and I immediately signed up for 784kbps DSL. Unfortunately, Covad's customer service has been horrendous. We signed up two months ago and still don't have DSL. Covad has postponed our installation date twice due to "facility problems". Currently, we're hanging in the wind with no planned installation date.

And where is Covad's network? Apparently, they get the "last mile" network from US West, the same US West that didn't want to give us DSL service but will give DSL network support to Covad for the same area!?

(sorry for venting, they're holding my bandwidth hostage :-)

One to fetch, one to carry?

[pq]

Woohoo! Even faster downloads on pr0n... some people will think that's a good thing, too.

I have this thought: how complex will it be to implement a cable/satellite + DSL system, so that downloads come over cable and uploads go out on DSL? And we get the phone line back when we'd much rather do the heavy breathing ear to ear instead of using chat boxes? (Flipness aside, I'm sure someone's worried about this already - pointers, anyone?)

Bandwidth isn't the issue

[blahtree]

Hmmm...I have adsl at home, and have no problems whatsoever with bandwidth. It's the servers that I connect to, and the routing to them, that is slow. In theory, I could transfer at 2.4Mbits/s, but I rarely get downloads this fast. I'm more impressed by advances in backbone/router technology, because it will prove to be a little more useful.

Re:Bandwidth isn't the issue

[blazer1024]

I'd say a big part of that is that some sites are hooked up with something like a T1, which is around 1.3 Mbits/s. So, if you're the only visitor, you get a nice 1.3 Mbits/s. But, if there are 100 visitors all downloading something, all you get is a measly 13kbits. Not quite so impressive. Sure there's probably a lot of problems with the backbone too.

I think it's not really worth it, because here at work on our fractional T1 I usually get anywhere from 3-10KBytes/s. Oh well.

My DSL provider is terrified of SDSL bandwidth

[schweda]

I'm not sure why this is exciting news.

Nevermind the obvious facts that (a) DSL is only available to a small percentage of the population due to the distance-from-CO requirements, (b) that getting DSL installed is a nightmare (Ameritech [for example] has to come out, install the line, then Rhythms, then you need to sync up properly, etc. etc.), (c) DSL pricing is still widely variable (I pay 49 bucks a months for 1.04/1.04 SDSL, yet a buddy of mine pays 185 bucks a month for 384/128 ADSL), (d) providers offering xDSL take anywhere from 4-12 weeks to actually the DSL working (because of, ahem, Ameritech fscking up the install, missing install dates, calling for additional $$$ for construction) -- nevermind these obvious facts, what makes this such uninteresting news is that unless VDSL uses some revolutionary sort of technology that means less expense for the telcos or that it somehow obviates the infamous "truck-roll" it'll only add more confusion to the already confused and expensive DSL market.

Not to mention that VDSL would probably only be affordable if it forces some sort of upload/download cap on the average home-user.

To me, a home-user, VDSL screams out a couple things: extremely fast downloads of MP3s and extremely fast downloads of warez, period. It means I can run a bigass server on a fat pipe.

So what?

I got an upload cap on my SDSL service (49 bucks/month which includes 1 gig upload w/additional uploads at 20 bucks a gig.)

Everyone is trying to limit everything -- downloads, uploads, the number of minutes for streaming video, etc. etc.

And what all this means is that everyone is terrified of bandwidth because bandwidth is expensive. So, please, you're gonna taunt me with VDSL but say, well, I'm capped to 20 gigs a month or capped to 10 mins a day of broadcast quality video, or use some weird-ass PPPoE protocol so that, well, it's DSL but it's not 24/7?

Please. Forget it.

why use dsl...

[cheese63]

when i can stick with that 10 mile long cat5 cable that i plugged directly into the hub at school?

interesting but...

[MillMan]

how much is it going to cost? And when will it be avaialable? My roommates and I pay about 80 a month for a 512 kbit line and 5 static IP's. This technology is currently WORTHLESS. Speeds this high won't even be offered to the average consumer for probably 5 to 10 years.

There are too many other hurdles to be cleared, political and economic. Technology is not even close to the limiting factor right now in consumer broadband.

Almost anywhere you go, the local cable and phone service is a monopoly. In some places it might be an oligopoly, I doubt you'll see more than 2 competitors anywhere in one market. Therefore, they can get away with price gouging, and hold back new technologies.

Why would these companies invest in their infrastructure to support this? These companies would rather charge you $20 a month for modem service that costs them probably 10 cents a month. Don't like that fact? Well, you can't tell your phone company to f' off, because you have no alternative. The telecommunications act a few years back only makes this situation worse.

I don't know why this company even wasted their time developing this technology (sounds like a "I've got the biggest penis" thing to me). They should be putting their money into political lobbyists to try and break this monopoly situation. As far as I'm concerned, this technology doesn't even exist. It won't affect me or anyone else for a long time.

Is the backbone ready for this?

[Greyfox]

Even with 2 gig lines on your backbone, it wouldn't take an lot of 60 MBPS users to fill it out. Up until a couple of years ago, the backbone consisted of 45mbps lines. In a few places, more than one, but still 45mbps lines. Though by the time this technology is even possible for the consumer, the backbone will probably be able to handle terabits per second.

But even if the backbone can handle the load, what about the telcos themselves? As someone recently pointed out, they're not going into DSL wholeheartedly at least partially because they want to protect their lucrative T1 business. You can easily squeeze T1 and faster speeds out of DSL and small to medium businesses are going to start waking up to that fact if they haven't already.

Fortunately, there's some competition in this area. US West has been blowing me off for about a year on the DSL issue. Just recently I checked Covad's web page and found that they would cheerfully install a line to my house, so I ordered one from them. Yay, competition!