Comments on: Hey DSL, it is time for good-bye

By: txpatriot

txpatriot — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 23:30:05 +0000

elfonblog, as speeds increase, interference between pairs becomes a bigger problem. And of course as you add even more customers in a binder group, the interference becomes greater still. But I’m sure all those near and far-end crosstalk issues are just a result of corporate greed — physics has nothing to do with it . . .

By: txpatriot

txpatriot — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 23:25:11 +0000

$14B absolutely IS a “lot” of money when there’s no guarantee you’ll get any customers.

Most high-speed Internet is provided by cable companies, meaning AT&T gets whatever and whoever is left over. Would YOU spend millions to lay fiber in a neighborhood knowing 75% of the homes there already subscribe to cable modem service?

I’m constantly amazed at how people talk about how “cheap” broadband costs “truly” are, when they are talking about someone else spending the money . . .

By: txpatriot

txpatriot — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 23:18:19 +0000

If anyone wants to understand why DSL lagged cable modem in customer popularity, all you have to do is consider the FCC’s record of regulating (or not regulating) the two services.

From its beginnings, the FCC has taken a “hands-off” approach to cable modem service, to the point of classifying it as a Title I information service, a decision upheld by SCOTUS in the “Brand-X” decision.

OTOH, the FCC regulated telco DSL to the hilt; consider the roadblocks put up by the FCC to SBC’s “Project Pronto” as far back as 2000:

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/articles/2000/12/regulatory-news-fcc-reviews-sbc-s-project-pronto.aspx

With regulatory interference, is it any wonder that telco DSL lags cable modem service? Thanx to the heavy hand of the FCC, the telcos will likely NEVER catch up to the cable companies.

By: Adam Zey

Adam Zey — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 01:01:37 +0000

U-verse, like Bell Fibe, is still DSL (VDSL2, specifically). It’s not a “hybrid fibre” solution just because they put the DSLAM closer to you to reduce loop lengths. That does definitely enable much faster service (I’ve got a bonded 50 megabit down, 20 megabit up VDSL2 connection), but changing the relative lengths of the fiber and copper segment doesn’t magically make it any more hybrid than it was before.

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 23:20:00 +0000

“AT&T essentially put the nail in the coffin for DSL technology”… Uh, no it didn’t. It may have put the nail in the coffin os ADSL2+, their old DSL offering. But they replaced it with VDSL2, the latest deployed version of DSL technology. It’s hilarious to read that AT&T is killing DSL technology by deploying IP-DSLAM’s. DSL – Digital Subscriber Line. DSLAM – Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer .

By: elfonblog

elfonblog — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 22:00:53 +0000

In a nutshell, ATT is maintaining a false shortage of bandwidth to keep the price up. It’s an embargo, and they’re part of a cartel. They’re acting like it’s an expensive, precious resource that is abused by some of it’s customers. This keeps the pressure from regulators and the public down. They bill by the byte, as though bandwidth were kilowatts of power, when this model bears no relation to the real cost of providing Internet connectivity. ATT’s service isn’t actually worth anything near what they charge for it. It’s critically overvalued. Your stocks will plummet the moment ATT has real competition and must charge a fair price. Until then, they exist only to place barriers between the customer and the Internet, which the customer must pay dearly to evade.

The more common really fast connections become, the less valuable they become in the eyes of the customer, and thus represent less leverage to the provider. Those $50/mo 3Mbit tiers will have to be discounted to $5/mo. ATT and other ISPs prefer to pretend that they’re working hard, pushing the technology to it’s limit, to bring you your cutting edge service. It would be a bit inconvenient for the public to learn that everyone’s throttled way down. A small configuration change, and everyone has 10x more speed, at very little cost to the providers.

Residential Internet service is asymmetrical, so that the ISP can squeeze more customers onto the frequency range they use (cable), or maximize the download speed (DSL). Originally it was due to various technical considerations, but it will likely remain the rule as it also limits customers hosting server applications or file sharing. An asymmetrical connection is a second rate connection.

By: elfonblog

elfonblog — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:32:01 +0000

I mean no disrespect, but your IP address will likely change if you turn off your modem for a few minutes or hours. Have you tried turning it off and back on again? :D

By: elfonblog

elfonblog — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:36:36 +0000

And a little Googling will show that this magical “IP-DSLAM” which makes better use of copper wire is *NOT* the name of an advanced transmission protocol. It’s the name of those boxes ATT places around the neighborhood where it connects customers to the fiber cable. From the IP-DSLAM to the customer, the link is xDSL. It’s faster because ATT is willing to unthrottle the modem more, in light of the probable increase in reliability.

We’re only 6000′ from our central office. Traditional DSL should be reliable in the double digits over that distance. Furthermore, the last time we had a service tech over here, he said that our lines indeed ran a “straight shoot” to the CO, and that it went through the curb side box 2500′ from us. He had to run out there to check it. It’s an IP-DSLAM. So what we have is a perfectly good 24Mbit DSL modem, which is only granted 3Mbit (2.57Mbit, actually) because we won’t buy a new DSL modem for $100, that uses the same protocol, wires, and joins the ATT network at the same DEMARC. Oh, and to let them call it uverse.

Uverse is just old technology in a topological arrangement that is more expensive, but much more reliable. Om, I’m a bit surprised that a journalist of your prominence is still caught up in the hype.

By: keninca

keninca — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:31:56 +0000

Nikoli976, I don’t think having a dynamic address woud make a difference. Those addresses get poked all the time. As for making it easy to change, it’s either static or dynamic, and if it’s the former, the protocol doesn’t allow for occasional re-assignments. It would have to be done manually, and that’s an unfair burden to place on ATT (although they deserve it).

You can set your firewall to ignore all requests from the internet, that should stop most, if not, all of your problems.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:43:24 +0000

When I see these speeds, they typically only indicate what best possible rate will be in the download direction (Internet to home). What is expected in the upload direction (home to Internet)? While most people surf or stream videos and need the download speed, times are changing with larger megapixel photos, amateur digital video, email attachments, etc. that the upload speed needs to keep pace as well. Even on the television side as more and more content is being offered as 1080p, Blueray, even the Ultra HD 4K is not that far around the corner, there have been numerous reports on tests done with different service providers (cable and phone companies) on picture quality. You can only compress the video so much to fit in your bandwidth without seeing a degradation on the TV screen. TV screens just keep getting bigger and that extra detail lost in the compression becomes very noticable. As a ATT stockholder, I certainly want to see company do well, but can’t come to the realization on why they just don’t proceed to begin fiber to the premise like Verizon did. The technology that ATT is deploying will never be able to keep up. Verizon deployed fiber when the technology was more expensive and alot of lessons were learned along the way. The electronics and associated costs have come down significantly – I just don’t get it.