[funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)

Tue Mar 13 16:41:34 UTC 2007

Jack Bates wrote:
> 
> Jeff Shultz wrote:
>>
>> Alexander Harrowell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> 768 ain't broadband. Buy Cisco, Alcatel, and Akamai stock!
>>>
> If you don't like it, you can always return to dialup.
> 
>> It certainly is - just ask the CALEA folks.... and as for who is
>> pushing the bandwidth curve, for the most part it seems to be gamers
>> in search of the ever shrinking ping time. I suspect they make up most
>> of our  >1536kb/sec download customers.
> 
> Gamers don't really need much in bandwidth. They need the low ping
> times, so they *must* ensure that there is no saturation or routing
> overhead. Granted, there are some games that are bandwidth intensive,
> but everyone's busy playing WoW. Gamers are great for detecting those
> really hard to spot problems that only effect gaming and voip.

You do need a high symbol rate because otherwise the cost of putting the
next packet on the wire is itself an intolerable delay. you can only put
 a 1500 byte packet on 256Kb/s dsl every 47ms or so. at 1.5Mb/s it's
every 8ms at 22Mb/s it's one every .5ms...

People pay proportionality more to get semi-deterministic low-latency.
unfortunately there aren't a low of products offered specifically cater
to that market. You get your choice of 8/768 cable 6/768 dsl or maybe
fios if you happen to be in the right market.

>> What "parts of the world" have long since upgraded to those speeds -
>> and how do they compare size-wise to the USA? We've got an awful lot
>> of legacy infrastructure that would need to be overcome.
> 
> Japan has, for one. Definitely a size difference. In US metropolitan
> areas we are seeing a lot more fiber to the home. The cost will never be
> justified in US rural areas. Just look at Oklahoma. Most connectivity in
> Oklahoma will actually be from Dallas or Kansas City.
> 
>> I will happily agree that it would be nice to have higher upload
>> speeds than DSL generally provides nowadays. What are cable upload
>> speeds like?
> 
> I would like to blame the idiots that decided that of the signal range
> to be used on copper for dsl, only a certain amount would be dedicated
> to upload instead of negotiating. What on earth do I want to do with
> 24Mb down and 1Mb up? Can't I have 12 and 12? Someone please tell me
> there's a valid reason why the download range couldn't be variable and
> negotiated and that's it's completely impossible for one to have 20Mb up
> and 1.5 Mb down.

VDSL2 ITU G.993.2 supports variable and symmetric negotiation of rates.
obviously distance is a factor, cause you're down to ~50Mb/s at 1000
meters.

at&t and bell south, now at&t and at&t had vdsl rollouts that could in
theory be upgraded to vdsl2.

If you were in helsinki, I know Päijät-Hämeen Puhelin (php.fi) would
sell you 100/24 vdsl2 for around 80euro a month.

> 
> Jack Bates
> 