So you're telling me that the only reason I don't go around killing people is fear of being caught? what utter BS! Most people have morals and ethics, by and large people do good things because they know that it encourages others to do good things for them in return. Yes there are people who do not have the best interests of society in mind, however to say that this represents the nature of humans in general, and that the only reason the rest of people don't do it too is because of laws is absurd.
There are many things that I never do that are not illegal, things I do simply because I don't believe them to be right. Conversely there are many good things that I do for others without any legal obligation, or direct benefit to myself in return. Have you ever helped a friend in need? ever had them help you? That alone proves that fear of being caught isn't the only thing making us "good".
As for harsher penalties. Studies have shown that increased penalties do not reduce the likelihood of offences being committed. States with the death penalty do not have lower rates of violent crimes than states without it. Countries with longer sentences for offences also do not have lower crime rates.
There are several factors that affect likelihood of people to commit a crime: 1) expectation of being caught (this differs from severity of punishment, amazingly people are less likely to commit an offence for which they know they will be caught and scolded for, than one where there is only a small possibility of being caught, but involves a fairly severe punishment) 2) agreement with the law (if people don't think the law is just, almost nothing will make them follow it. see violent revolutions to overthrow dictators. these people know that if they are caught (and there is a high likelihood of being caught) that they will likely be tortured and killed. but their disagreement with the law is strong enough to make them risk it anyway.) 3) social status. (desperation is a strong motivator. countries with smaller gaps between rich and poor, countries with lower levels of poverty, countries with higher levels of education, all have lower crime rates)
I would disagree and say that there IS a problem with traffic laws. that doesn't mean we necessarily know a better solution. but obviously there is something wrong with the laws as they are currently written, and they appear to need some tweaking at the least. (My preferred solutions include ideally eliminating all traffic laws other than dangerous driving. and enforce that one heavily (unfortunately it's easier to enforce arbitrary numbers) or if looking strictly at the speed limits, you could set the maximum on most roads up about 20km/hr from where it is now, and then enforce it with zero tolerance. make "maximum" actually mean maximum, as in never to be exceeded. (of course first you'd have to look at what a safe speed really is on a road in a modern vehicle, something that whoever sets the current limits obviously does not))
Any law that makes the majority of the population in to criminals is a bad law. Laws are supposed to be passed by our elected representatives to represent the will of the people. It is highly unlikely anyone would want to write a law that makes themselves a criminal, therefore any law that makes the majority a criminal is unlikely to be the will of the majority.
I should also mention that the price for phone+internet+tv is similar between the 2 companies, but the telco usually works out slightly cheaper (depending on features/channels ordered)
Sure it costs more to do it right, but you make up that money in customers... (maybe that's why our stock price is climbing while theirs is plumetting... or why our customer base is growing and theirs is falling...)
For our ADSL service we don't even sell 3 meg service anymore, we sell 6, 15, and 25. Most customers are on 15 meg service. and they get that full speed. Contrast to the local cable company that sells 10 and 50 meg packages, where their 10 meg is about the same as our old 3 meg service was, and their 50 is about somewhere between our 15 and 25 meg packages (with occasional bursts up to their advertised speeds when nobody else in the neighbourhood is around) It is VERY obvious that they oversell the last mile, especially in older neighbourhoods. I don't think either company oversells their backbones any more than is reasonable, (though with the cable company it would be hard to tell the difference between overselling the backbone or overselling the last mile)
That's not an issue of who's offering the service, it's an issue of the technology they're using to provide it.
What a load of garbage! It is 100% an issue of who is offering the service. If they choose never to upgrade their plant or equipment, of course it will be slow, but DSL is not to blame.
I install and repair DSL service. we provide ADSL2+ and VDSL service to our customers and we don't even offer a package as slow as 3meg any more! we sell mainly 15 and 25 meg packages (though we do have a 6 meg package as well), but because we also provide TV service over our DSL network the speeds going in to people's houses are about 34 meg (the technology usually reports an achievable speed of up to about 80 meg) and this is in all parts of the city and surrounding area, some parts of which had phone service originally installed over 100 years ago. Part of being a telco is plant maintenance, including replacing what needs replaced. it's a cost of doing business, and not doing it doesn't make the technology the problem, it makes the accountant who is saving small amounts of money today at the expense of large amounts tomorrow an idiot. Now in the new areas of the city (anything built in the past 5 years or so) we don't even run copper wire to the houses any more, it's all fibre optic, but in the old areas, we use what's already there, with appropriate upgrades. It has cost some money to do it, but that's just what you need to do to offer the service.
I'm not in australia, but I can tell you that where I am, speedtests show the full speed any time of the day or night on every line I've seen (and I've seen a LOT of lines!) And if a DSL reseller finds otherwise, I (or one of my co-workers) am dispatched to look at and fix it within 24 hours. Now sometimes I have proven the problem to be the reseller's modem, and then it becomes their problem again. but as an incumbent telco we are legally required to provide our competitors with the full service they are paying for, including rapid response to any reported issues.
Never take any one speedtest as right, but if several give you the same answer you'll have a pretty good idea.
I install DSL and GPON (fibre optic) Internet service, when I finish the install I always go to speedtest.net from the customer's computer, If I click "begin test" it always picks the local server, which can't handle our fastest speed connections. I know from experience to manually pick the one in the small town east of us instead, the ping time will be slightly worse (say 20ms instead of 5ms) but they'll show 23-24 meg on a 25 meg service where the local one will only show about 10 meg.
As for the original poster, it's hard to imagine any DSLAM being that massively oversold, he's talking about 100k on a 1.5 meg line, this sounds a lot more like a wiring issue of some form than an oversubscription problem to me.
I work for a broadband provider and telco. I can (and frequently do) guarantee any customer in our service area the exact speed they will get on our ADSL network before they sign up. Our systems know how long the line is to every house, what gauge of wire was used, how many bridge taps, and of what length are on the line, what type of DSLAM is available, etc. from there our systems can calculate the loop attenuation for every line, and from that calculate the theoretical maximum speeds on each profile we can use.
Based on that tool we sell people service. If it says they qualify for 19.52 megs we'll sell them a 15 meg connection, but say sorry if they ask for the 25 meg one. And we know that they will always get that speed. If they don't get that speed we will send out a technician to figure out why, and fix it (I'm one of those techs)
This is all very easy stuff for the telco to control/fix/maintain. And I know, I'm the one who fixes/maintains it!
That's my thought too, speeds that low are usually a result of errors on the line. The good news is that means they can be fixed! Call the telco every time it happens. To see for sure what's happening, lots of DSL modems allow you to log in and see basic line statistics... lots of incrementing errors means a line problem. no errors means a problem with either your computer, or their network.
That's not the correct solution (or even likely a reliable long term one). If your dsl goes out when it rains, the correct solution is to find where the wire is getting wet and fix it. Assuming your house isn't leaking, that involves calling the telco and getting them to fix it (ideally in the middle of a monsoon)
Maybe it's different in your part of the world, but around here the telco will send someone out to investigate these sorts of things (I know, I'm the one they send out!)
Too many people complain about their service in public, and change providers, telling everyone how awful the first one is, without ever giving the first one a chance to fix it. If you don't tell them it's broken, how do you expect them to know?
Call, every time you have a problem. It's the only way they will know and fix it.
(well... almost the only way. I work for an ISP, and we've actually just started to do proactive line monitoring where we call people and tell them that they are having trouble and arrange to send a tech out before they even call in. The frustrating thing is most of them know they have a problem, they just never bothered to call in about it (though you can bet they called all their friends to complain about the lousy service))
Anybody can oversubscribe their backbone, at least with DSL you know they didn't oversubscribe the last mile (unlike cable, wireless, cellular, or satellite)
So you were fed up with not getting your full speed on a dedicated technology like DSL, so instead you recommend a shared technology like cable where you're almost guaranteed never to reach your advertised speeds... wow... that made sense...
Maybe things are different where you live, but around here with DSL you get exactly the speeds you pay for, all day, every day. With cable you occasionally burst up to the advertised speed as long as your neighbours aren't home and using their connection. (the telco sells 25 meg service, the cable co sells 50 meg service. most people I've talked to who have tried both say the 25 is faster than the 50 most of the time) Doesn't hurt that the telco refuses to sell you a service your line can't support, so if your line is only good enough to handle 15 meg service, you won't be paying for 25.
DSL has a dedicated connection for the last mile, cable is a shared technology all the way. Anybody can oversell their backbone, but at least with DSL they can't oversubscribe their last mile.
Actually this is one of the selling features of ADSL when compared to cable. because it varies only with line quality, and not based on when your neighbour gets home and starts streaming stuff, you know that whatever speed you get is the speed you always get.
Granted I'm in a different country and with a different company than the OP, however I have advertised 15meg service, and I get 15 meg, 24 hours a day 365 days a year. similarly people paying for the 25 meg plan get 25 meg all day every day. People on the cable company on the other hand get "50 meg" service, that is frequently 10 or less, but occasionally bursts up to their advertised speed. (on a side note, the telco here will refuse to sell you a faster speed than they think your line can handle, so if you're line isn't high enough quality to get 25 meg, you won't be billed for 25 meg either)
Now any company can oversell their backhaul from the DSLAM (or whatever the cable co equivalent is) and that will cause issues, however if you're talking about which technology is more likely to give you your advertised speeds on a consistent basis, it's hands down DSL.
As for the original question, my first inclination would be to complain. the variation between his good speed and bad speed is rather suspiciously large, something is severely wrong there, and the telco should be willing to look in to it.
As much as I'd love to believe you, economics tells me otherwise. Companies want money from you to take your electronics for recycling. Around here it's done in the form of a government levy paid on new electronics purchases to fund the recycling of the old ones. Anything that doesn't have a levy on it, is almost impossible to get rid of for recycling without paying money. If it truly were cheaper to mine the materials from the used electronics than from the ground, they'd take them for free (or even pay me for them).
You'll also notice that while this is standard practice for propane tanks for barbecues, they never swap the tank on your vehicle if you have a propane powered car... probably because it's quite awkward to do so.
The bigger problem is that an easily replaceable battery pack means lots of wasted space. Manufacturers have trouble finding enough room to put in enough batteries to give a reasonable range. forcing them to all sit in one or two easily accessible packs for the convenience of swapping them would severely limit the options for fitting in more batteries. electric cars with reasonable range often shoehorn batteries in to every nook and cranny all over the car. Not really an option if you want to be able to swap them quickly.
I did specify that it is actually just a really big hill. But the radio effect is the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_Hill_Park The hill has an area of over 11 square kilometres, the top of the hill is at 1230m elevation, my house is at about 1100m elevation. The broadcast towers are on a different hill which has a highest point of 1205m however that hill is a ways away and the signals from it to me would have to travel through nose hill.
City population is listed as 1,096,833 in the 2011 census, that is only the city itself, and excludes surrounding communities.
The only competing DSL company with their own DSLAMs got bought up by the telco here, all the remaining ones use the telco DSLAMs wherever they happen to be. There are quite a few competitors, though their prices aren't really much different from the incumbent.
I didn't say skyscraper, I said mountain. They do a much better job of blocking signals than skyscrapers do. (Actually this is a large hill, not a mountain, but its really the same difference.) The hill is taller than the one the broadcast towers are on, and we are very close to the far side of it. (In the "shadow") Even if we could though, there are at most 4-5 channels to pick up, and the next closest place with OTA broadcasts is over 300km away.
Its still costly in terms of manhours, and a pain in outside insulated walls. And if you already have coax, and cat5, its highly unlikely you'll ever end up using it anyway. Might be good in a couple of isolated spots like a home theatre room, or some builders are running one from the basement to the attic, but I wouldn't be putting them at every outlet.
Conduits, even in new houses are expensive and difficult to install to every jack, and quite frankly, overkill. As a telco field installer here is my recommendation to everyone who asks about construction or renovation: - 2 cat5 and 2 coax to every place you could possibly ever want a TV or computer (and a minimum of one set to every room in the house) - drop ceiling in the basement. (if you finish the basement at all, and there better be one, at least a crawl space) - actual conduit, with as few bends as possible, as short as possible, and at least 1" diameter between the outside of the house where the telco connects, and the main panel in the basement where everything terminates - clear access and several square feet of free backboard where everything terminates. (and a power outlet, for the love of all things holy, let us have a power outlet!)
my reasoning: - Too many existing houses have only coax and cat5, any new technology that is wide spread WILL find a way to use it, or will go wireless, If they don't, they'll never get the market share. - It's amazing how much wiring you can do, even on the top floor of a multi-story house, as long as the basement ceiling is accessible, if I need to run new wires to somewhere I cringe when i see a drywalled basement ceiling. - This is the one place where it is absolutely critical to run conduit, luckily when done right this conduit is only 1' long. (and if you're one of those builders that puts the service entrance on the opposite side of the house from where you put the main panel... I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!) - This is where the changes in technology will be, and whatever the future brings, people will need to get at it and work on it. (You wouldn't believe how many people drywall over the termination block with the large sign that says "WARNING: leave free access to this connection point at all times")
As for racking, if you have the space, put whatever you want in it, but generally for the amount of equipment likely to be in your home, a shelf somewhere near the main panel is probably sufficient, even for a rack mount server and switch. I don't recommend doing anything that denies you access to the back of a rack, but often you can get them on swingouts of one form or other. We actually have a place in our city where our company has built what they call a WIC (Walk In Cabinet) which is really somewhat of a concrete bunker. It houses the telco end ADSL equipment, as well as other telco gear and such. The racks are all against the wall as the place is only about 6' - 8' wide with 2 rows of racks and a hall down the middle. all the racks have a hinge on one side and a wheel on the other so you can swing them open to get at the back (thereby blocking the aisle completely) (all cables properly dressed to the hinge side) these work well for the tight space (though I have some choice words for the person who thought this whole structure was a good idea... it has a ladder to get in to it for goodness sake, and the door at the top is only 3 feet tall! (not to mention that the punchdown blocks for the telcom circuits use a different punch tool than any other place in the city...))
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When you take all the people in to consideration, the majority never did own slaves, nor did the majority ever agree with the law.
So you're telling me that the only reason I don't go around killing people is fear of being caught? what utter BS! Most people have morals and ethics, by and large people do good things because they know that it encourages others to do good things for them in return.
Yes there are people who do not have the best interests of society in mind, however to say that this represents the nature of humans in general, and that the only reason the rest of people don't do it too is because of laws is absurd.
There are many things that I never do that are not illegal, things I do simply because I don't believe them to be right. Conversely there are many good things that I do for others without any legal obligation, or direct benefit to myself in return. Have you ever helped a friend in need? ever had them help you? That alone proves that fear of being caught isn't the only thing making us "good".
As for harsher penalties. Studies have shown that increased penalties do not reduce the likelihood of offences being committed. States with the death penalty do not have lower rates of violent crimes than states without it. Countries with longer sentences for offences also do not have lower crime rates.
There are several factors that affect likelihood of people to commit a crime:
1) expectation of being caught (this differs from severity of punishment, amazingly people are less likely to commit an offence for which they know they will be caught and scolded for, than one where there is only a small possibility of being caught, but involves a fairly severe punishment)
2) agreement with the law (if people don't think the law is just, almost nothing will make them follow it. see violent revolutions to overthrow dictators. these people know that if they are caught (and there is a high likelihood of being caught) that they will likely be tortured and killed. but their disagreement with the law is strong enough to make them risk it anyway.)
3) social status. (desperation is a strong motivator. countries with smaller gaps between rich and poor, countries with lower levels of poverty, countries with higher levels of education, all have lower crime rates)
I would disagree and say that there IS a problem with traffic laws. that doesn't mean we necessarily know a better solution. but obviously there is something wrong with the laws as they are currently written, and they appear to need some tweaking at the least. (My preferred solutions include ideally eliminating all traffic laws other than dangerous driving. and enforce that one heavily (unfortunately it's easier to enforce arbitrary numbers) or if looking strictly at the speed limits, you could set the maximum on most roads up about 20km/hr from where it is now, and then enforce it with zero tolerance. make "maximum" actually mean maximum, as in never to be exceeded. (of course first you'd have to look at what a safe speed really is on a road in a modern vehicle, something that whoever sets the current limits obviously does not))
Any law that makes the majority of the population in to criminals is a bad law. Laws are supposed to be passed by our elected representatives to represent the will of the people. It is highly unlikely anyone would want to write a law that makes themselves a criminal, therefore any law that makes the majority a criminal is unlikely to be the will of the majority.
I should also mention that the price for phone+internet+tv is similar between the 2 companies, but the telco usually works out slightly cheaper (depending on features/channels ordered)
Sure it costs more to do it right, but you make up that money in customers... (maybe that's why our stock price is climbing while theirs is plumetting... or why our customer base is growing and theirs is falling...)
For our ADSL service we don't even sell 3 meg service anymore, we sell 6, 15, and 25. Most customers are on 15 meg service. and they get that full speed.
Contrast to the local cable company that sells 10 and 50 meg packages, where their 10 meg is about the same as our old 3 meg service was, and their 50 is about somewhere between our 15 and 25 meg packages (with occasional bursts up to their advertised speeds when nobody else in the neighbourhood is around)
It is VERY obvious that they oversell the last mile, especially in older neighbourhoods. I don't think either company oversells their backbones any more than is reasonable, (though with the cable company it would be hard to tell the difference between overselling the backbone or overselling the last mile)
That's not an issue of who's offering the service, it's an issue of the technology they're using to provide it.
What a load of garbage!
It is 100% an issue of who is offering the service. If they choose never to upgrade their plant or equipment, of course it will be slow, but DSL is not to blame.
I install and repair DSL service. we provide ADSL2+ and VDSL service to our customers and we don't even offer a package as slow as 3meg any more! we sell mainly 15 and 25 meg packages (though we do have a 6 meg package as well), but because we also provide TV service over our DSL network the speeds going in to people's houses are about 34 meg (the technology usually reports an achievable speed of up to about 80 meg) and this is in all parts of the city and surrounding area, some parts of which had phone service originally installed over 100 years ago. Part of being a telco is plant maintenance, including replacing what needs replaced. it's a cost of doing business, and not doing it doesn't make the technology the problem, it makes the accountant who is saving small amounts of money today at the expense of large amounts tomorrow an idiot.
Now in the new areas of the city (anything built in the past 5 years or so) we don't even run copper wire to the houses any more, it's all fibre optic, but in the old areas, we use what's already there, with appropriate upgrades. It has cost some money to do it, but that's just what you need to do to offer the service.
Don't blame technology for business decisions.
I'm not in australia, but I can tell you that where I am, speedtests show the full speed any time of the day or night on every line I've seen (and I've seen a LOT of lines!)
And if a DSL reseller finds otherwise, I (or one of my co-workers) am dispatched to look at and fix it within 24 hours. Now sometimes I have proven the problem to be the reseller's modem, and then it becomes their problem again. but as an incumbent telco we are legally required to provide our competitors with the full service they are paying for, including rapid response to any reported issues.
Never take any one speedtest as right, but if several give you the same answer you'll have a pretty good idea.
I install DSL and GPON (fibre optic) Internet service, when I finish the install I always go to speedtest.net from the customer's computer, If I click "begin test" it always picks the local server, which can't handle our fastest speed connections. I know from experience to manually pick the one in the small town east of us instead, the ping time will be slightly worse (say 20ms instead of 5ms) but they'll show 23-24 meg on a 25 meg service where the local one will only show about 10 meg.
As for the original poster, it's hard to imagine any DSLAM being that massively oversold, he's talking about 100k on a 1.5 meg line, this sounds a lot more like a wiring issue of some form than an oversubscription problem to me.
I work for a broadband provider and telco. I can (and frequently do) guarantee any customer in our service area the exact speed they will get on our ADSL network before they sign up.
Our systems know how long the line is to every house, what gauge of wire was used, how many bridge taps, and of what length are on the line, what type of DSLAM is available, etc. from there our systems can calculate the loop attenuation for every line, and from that calculate the theoretical maximum speeds on each profile we can use.
Based on that tool we sell people service. If it says they qualify for 19.52 megs we'll sell them a 15 meg connection, but say sorry if they ask for the 25 meg one. And we know that they will always get that speed. If they don't get that speed we will send out a technician to figure out why, and fix it (I'm one of those techs)
This is all very easy stuff for the telco to control/fix/maintain. And I know, I'm the one who fixes/maintains it!
That's my thought too, speeds that low are usually a result of errors on the line. The good news is that means they can be fixed! Call the telco every time it happens.
To see for sure what's happening, lots of DSL modems allow you to log in and see basic line statistics... lots of incrementing errors means a line problem. no errors means a problem with either your computer, or their network.
That's not the correct solution (or even likely a reliable long term one). If your dsl goes out when it rains, the correct solution is to find where the wire is getting wet and fix it. Assuming your house isn't leaking, that involves calling the telco and getting them to fix it (ideally in the middle of a monsoon)
Maybe it's different in your part of the world, but around here the telco will send someone out to investigate these sorts of things (I know, I'm the one they send out!)
Too many people complain about their service in public, and change providers, telling everyone how awful the first one is, without ever giving the first one a chance to fix it. If you don't tell them it's broken, how do you expect them to know?
Call, every time you have a problem. It's the only way they will know and fix it.
(well... almost the only way. I work for an ISP, and we've actually just started to do proactive line monitoring where we call people and tell them that they are having trouble and arrange to send a tech out before they even call in. The frustrating thing is most of them know they have a problem, they just never bothered to call in about it (though you can bet they called all their friends to complain about the lousy service))
Anybody can oversubscribe their backbone, at least with DSL you know they didn't oversubscribe the last mile (unlike cable, wireless, cellular, or satellite)
So you were fed up with not getting your full speed on a dedicated technology like DSL, so instead you recommend a shared technology like cable where you're almost guaranteed never to reach your advertised speeds... wow... that made sense...
Maybe things are different where you live, but around here with DSL you get exactly the speeds you pay for, all day, every day. With cable you occasionally burst up to the advertised speed as long as your neighbours aren't home and using their connection. (the telco sells 25 meg service, the cable co sells 50 meg service. most people I've talked to who have tried both say the 25 is faster than the 50 most of the time) Doesn't hurt that the telco refuses to sell you a service your line can't support, so if your line is only good enough to handle 15 meg service, you won't be paying for 25.
DSL has a dedicated connection for the last mile, cable is a shared technology all the way. Anybody can oversell their backbone, but at least with DSL they can't oversubscribe their last mile.
Actually this is one of the selling features of ADSL when compared to cable. because it varies only with line quality, and not based on when your neighbour gets home and starts streaming stuff, you know that whatever speed you get is the speed you always get.
Granted I'm in a different country and with a different company than the OP, however I have advertised 15meg service, and I get 15 meg, 24 hours a day 365 days a year. similarly people paying for the 25 meg plan get 25 meg all day every day. People on the cable company on the other hand get "50 meg" service, that is frequently 10 or less, but occasionally bursts up to their advertised speed. (on a side note, the telco here will refuse to sell you a faster speed than they think your line can handle, so if you're line isn't high enough quality to get 25 meg, you won't be billed for 25 meg either)
Now any company can oversell their backhaul from the DSLAM (or whatever the cable co equivalent is) and that will cause issues, however if you're talking about which technology is more likely to give you your advertised speeds on a consistent basis, it's hands down DSL.
As for the original question, my first inclination would be to complain. the variation between his good speed and bad speed is rather suspiciously large, something is severely wrong there, and the telco should be willing to look in to it.
As much as I'd love to believe you, economics tells me otherwise. Companies want money from you to take your electronics for recycling. Around here it's done in the form of a government levy paid on new electronics purchases to fund the recycling of the old ones. Anything that doesn't have a levy on it, is almost impossible to get rid of for recycling without paying money.
If it truly were cheaper to mine the materials from the used electronics than from the ground, they'd take them for free (or even pay me for them).
You'll also notice that while this is standard practice for propane tanks for barbecues, they never swap the tank on your vehicle if you have a propane powered car... probably because it's quite awkward to do so.
The bigger problem is that an easily replaceable battery pack means lots of wasted space. Manufacturers have trouble finding enough room to put in enough batteries to give a reasonable range. forcing them to all sit in one or two easily accessible packs for the convenience of swapping them would severely limit the options for fitting in more batteries. electric cars with reasonable range often shoehorn batteries in to every nook and cranny all over the car. Not really an option if you want to be able to swap them quickly.
That also guarantees you won't install this in your house as you have a maximum of 240v at 100-200amps available (200 only in the newest houses)
I did specify that it is actually just a really big hill. But the radio effect is the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_Hill_Park
The hill has an area of over 11 square kilometres, the top of the hill is at 1230m elevation, my house is at about 1100m elevation. The broadcast towers are on a different hill which has a highest point of 1205m however that hill is a ways away and the signals from it to me would have to travel through nose hill.
City population is listed as 1,096,833 in the 2011 census, that is only the city itself, and excludes surrounding communities.
The only competing DSL company with their own DSLAMs got bought up by the telco here, all the remaining ones use the telco DSLAMs wherever they happen to be. There are quite a few competitors, though their prices aren't really much different from the incumbent.
I didn't say skyscraper, I said mountain. They do a much better job of blocking signals than skyscrapers do. (Actually this is a large hill, not a mountain, but its really the same difference.) The hill is taller than the one the broadcast towers are on, and we are very close to the far side of it. (In the "shadow")
Even if we could though, there are at most 4-5 channels to pick up, and the next closest place with OTA broadcasts is over 300km away.
Its still costly in terms of manhours, and a pain in outside insulated walls. And if you already have coax, and cat5, its highly unlikely you'll ever end up using it anyway. Might be good in a couple of isolated spots like a home theatre room, or some builders are running one from the basement to the attic, but I wouldn't be putting them at every outlet.
Conduits, even in new houses are expensive and difficult to install to every jack, and quite frankly, overkill.
As a telco field installer here is my recommendation to everyone who asks about construction or renovation:
- 2 cat5 and 2 coax to every place you could possibly ever want a TV or computer (and a minimum of one set to every room in the house)
- drop ceiling in the basement. (if you finish the basement at all, and there better be one, at least a crawl space)
- actual conduit, with as few bends as possible, as short as possible, and at least 1" diameter between the outside of the house where the telco connects, and the main panel in the basement where everything terminates
- clear access and several square feet of free backboard where everything terminates. (and a power outlet, for the love of all things holy, let us have a power outlet!)
my reasoning:
- Too many existing houses have only coax and cat5, any new technology that is wide spread WILL find a way to use it, or will go wireless, If they don't, they'll never get the market share.
- It's amazing how much wiring you can do, even on the top floor of a multi-story house, as long as the basement ceiling is accessible, if I need to run new wires to somewhere I cringe when i see a drywalled basement ceiling.
- This is the one place where it is absolutely critical to run conduit, luckily when done right this conduit is only 1' long. (and if you're one of those builders that puts the service entrance on the opposite side of the house from where you put the main panel... I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!)
- This is where the changes in technology will be, and whatever the future brings, people will need to get at it and work on it. (You wouldn't believe how many people drywall over the termination block with the large sign that says "WARNING: leave free access to this connection point at all times")
As for racking, if you have the space, put whatever you want in it, but generally for the amount of equipment likely to be in your home, a shelf somewhere near the main panel is probably sufficient, even for a rack mount server and switch. I don't recommend doing anything that denies you access to the back of a rack, but often you can get them on swingouts of one form or other. We actually have a place in our city where our company has built what they call a WIC (Walk In Cabinet) which is really somewhat of a concrete bunker. It houses the telco end ADSL equipment, as well as other telco gear and such. The racks are all against the wall as the place is only about 6' - 8' wide with 2 rows of racks and a hall down the middle. all the racks have a hinge on one side and a wheel on the other so you can swing them open to get at the back (thereby blocking the aisle completely) (all cables properly dressed to the hinge side) these work well for the tight space (though I have some choice words for the person who thought this whole structure was a good idea... it has a ladder to get in to it for goodness sake, and the door at the top is only 3 feet tall! (not to mention that the punchdown blocks for the telcom circuits use a different punch tool than any other place in the city...))
That's tiny compared to what he used. And I bet it won't pull in stations even 5 miles away if one of those miles is filled by a mountain...