DSL connections to get Gigabit speeds

[Poofu]

After being introduced in the 1990's DSL has become widely adopted by every cable company and with the bandwidth that is being used by every day people, "Video chat with friends, high-definition TV from services like iTunes and Netflix," increasing exponentially a speed increase is necessary.The upgraide is to be called G.fast, "and even though the upgrade will be expensive, it's necessary, said Ovum analyst Kamalini Ganguly." With this upgrade, a 4gb movie will be able to downloaded in as little as half a minute. To make this change new hardware will be required on both ends, a new method "called VDSL or "vectored" DSL" is method that is going to be used to make this upgrade. It will require new chips for the cable companies to implement on their end as well as new hardware inside the homes to access these quicker speeds. Broadcom, the company pushing this forward, states that the G.fast infrastructure will be competitive with the growing fiber network and be available as early as 2015.

However, despite this good new the range is mush shorter than that of fiber; to get full gigabit speeds network equipment will have to be 50 meters from the building or at a "200-meter distance... for about 600Mbp" but without having to replace existing copper connections in buildings. But this is still great news! The fact that cable companies are working on this type of technology, despite their stingy ways, shows that they are finally starting to listen to the public.

 

This is my first post go easy :3

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/lowly-dsl-broadband-poised-for-gigabit-speed-boost/#ftag=CAD590a51e

[LemonSpice]

doesnt affect me i already get 200 up 200 down but for everyone else this will be awesom

[Enderman]

LIES

 

well it would be uncommon to get the full 1Gbps unless you lived right next to the servers...

[btg0002]

Isn't VDSL somewhat already rolled out? I'm fairly positive my Uverse internet is "VDSL". I get 45mbps down with 2 bonded phone lines.

[PhantomJaguarr]

As someone who has to pay $100 a month for 25Mbits from a cable company, this is good news

[madscientist56]

sweet not charter can stop bragging in all their ads

[sof006]

Won't happen for a very long time. Even if this achieved copper will be replaced by FTTP which is a direct fibre line to the house.

[Tonylu1595]

50 meters away from the network? You would have to live in the servers.

[iwasaperson]

Why can't people and companies just accept fiber already? It's an infrastructure that you upgrade by changing the two ends of it instead of the ends and the cable.

[dalekphalm]

Isn't VDSL somewhat already rolled out? I'm fairly positive my Uverse internet is "VDSL". I get 45mbps down with 2 bonded phone lines.

Uverse is generally VDSL, yes. This "g.fast" is the next evolution of VDSL. You could think of it as VDSL3 (We are currently on the VDSL2 spec as the best DSL technology currently in use).

 

Btw if your connection is 45Mbps using 2 bonded phone lines, then that's likely NOT VDSL, but rather ADSL2+. ADSL2+ tops out at 24Mbps, so two bonded connections would make sense at 45Mbps... But then upon further research, it appears that Uverse 45Mbps does in fact use VDSL modems.

 

AT&T announced the Power service on August 26, 2013.[24] The power service required two conditioned line pairs (pair bond) and a Motorola NVG589 VDSL2+ Gateway.

From the Wikipedia entry on it.

Kind of a strange implementation of VDSL. Unless the explanation is just badly worded and I'm misunderstanding it. Normally VDSL doesn't require multiple lines, just a single one.

 

Anyway, this is quite cool. But the distances are so limiting that hardly anyone will get these speeds. Only a building which has a remote node inside the building will benefit in any meaningful way from this. 250m of cable is nothing once it's buried and winding around your neighbourhood. And to top out the speeds, you need to be within 50m. Even in an apartment building, 50m is what, the first couple floors maybe? Keep in mind that cable doesn't run in a straight line. There's usually hundreds of meters of it strewn about, twisting and turning corners, going up and down walls, etc.

[Xeross]

As someone who has to pay $100 a month for 25Mbits from a cable company, this is good news

D: where do you live? I feel bad for you. Even in canada, i'm paying $60 for 60 down 10up.

[Blake]

For us Aussies: This tech is part of the Liberal NBN mix of tech. The tech itself is a fine alternative, if it did not rely on 50+ year old green (corroded) copper cables.

[kburn]

Nice first post OP.

One small thing with the info that was given, was that the V in VDSL doesn't stand for vectoring.  Vectoring is a method of cancelling crosstalk between adjacent VDSL lines.  G.fast utilizes vectoring to get even more bandwidth than it could without.
 

Isn't VDSL somewhat already rolled out? I'm fairly positive my Uverse internet is "VDSL". I get 45mbps down with 2 bonded phone lines.

 

Uverse is primarily VDSL.  There are millions of VDSL lines deployed around the world.  In general, if you have a DSL connection above 15Mbps these days, it's likely VDSL.
 

 

Won't happen for a very long time. Even if this achieved copper will be replaced by FTTP which is a direct fibre line to the house.

 

True, you won't see this deployed overnight.  What I think you're wrong about though, and what a lot of people who complain about speeds need to figure out, is that running fiber to every home is still EXTREMELY more expensive than improving broadband over copper.  True, new neighbourhoods or "greenfield" constructions can more easily and cheaply deploy fiber.  This is because the ground is already dug up and the house being built.  We already see this happening.  New houses were already getting FTTP/H (premesis/home) connections years ago when I was looking to buy.  But deploying fiber to existing neighbourhoods is a completely different story.  Technologies like this bridge the gap to fiber and wireless while the former gets cheaper and the latter gets better.

 

 

Why can't people and companies just accept fiber already? It's an infrastructure that you upgrade by changing the two ends of it instead of the ends and the cable.

 

You have to have the fiber there first!!!  Besides, what you described (changing the two ends instead of the cable) IS EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS!   Do you really think that if it was that easy they wouldn't have done it already?  ISPs LOVE to offer better services than the other guy.  It translates to more customers. 

[PhantomJaguarr]

D: where do you live? I feel bad for you. Even in canada, i'm paying $60 for 60 down 10up.

San Diego. There are limited ISPs I can choose from.

[landon418]

Didn't we hear about this a while ago on the forums?

[kburn]

Uverse is generally VDSL, yes. This "g.fast" is the next evolution of VDSL. You could think of it as VDSL3 (We are currently on the VDSL2 spec as the best DSL technology currently in use).

 

Btw if your connection is 45Mbps using 2 bonded phone lines, then that's likely NOT VDSL, but rather ADSL2+. ADSL2+ tops out at 24Mbps, so two bonded connections would make sense at 45Mbps... But then upon further research, it appears that Uverse 45Mbps does in fact use VDSL modems.

From the Wikipedia entry on it.

Kind of a strange implementation of VDSL. Unless the explanation is just badly worded and I'm misunderstanding it. Normally VDSL doesn't require multiple lines, just a single one.

 

Anyway, this is quite cool. But the distances are so limiting that hardly anyone will get these speeds. Only a building which has a remote node inside the building will benefit in any meaningful way from this. 250m of cable is nothing once it's buried and winding around your neighbourhood. And to top out the speeds, you need to be within 50m. Even in an apartment building, 50m is what, the first couple floors maybe? Keep in mind that cable doesn't run in a straight line. There's usually hundreds of meters of it strewn about, twisting and turning corners, going up and down walls, etc.

 

Remember though that the theoretical speed of ADSL is 24Mbps.  You don't get that the farther you go out.  Bonding is used to extend the reach.  You want the 45Mbps but you're so far out that you can only get 30.  Bond a second line with it and you can now get your 45Mbps.

 

You bring up a good point with bonding though.  There's no reason two g.fast lines couldn't be bonded to get you farther out and cover more area with higher rates.

 

Also, you're right about the nature of phone lines.  They do snake around a lot and can also have bridge taps which act like antenna.  It's a flaw with DSL that's hindered it for years. 

[Xeross]

San Diego. There are limited ISPs I can choose from.

D: Damn TWC/Comcast.... 

_{*Totally didn't forget about the location under usernames.....}  *

[Hazorazor]

Problem with australia is that the government doesn't understand that the copper is horribly maintained and needs to be replaced. Whilst it will cost heaps it will be better in the long run to just run fibre which to my knowledge won't corrode like copper and doesn't suffer distance speed degredation like copper. Sadly the government and the average person doesn't know they need better internet. Prime example is my next door neighbour. They are stuck on 4Mbps ADSL whilst I'm now on nbn fixed wireless at 25/5. Mines also cheaper and we already would like faster, my friend knows he needs faster however his parents have no clue about it (although they complain about slow music and video downloads on iTunes) and refuse to let go of Telstra which isn't the only option anymore. Then we go to another neighbour though who is stuck on a corroded ADSL line with 3Mbps and has no reception to the fixed wireless and the only option he has is to keep using the slow adsl with OK ping times or go for faster satellite with horrible ping.

[decoy11]

A few years back I went to a presentation from Telus. They were telling me while it didn't make business sense to do fibre to residential homes they said that it would be good enough to do it to the curb. I never knew if they did that or not.

[bob345]

great, more excuses for isp's to not upgrade their infrastructure.

[xyza]

Meanwhile Australians getting 1.5mbps within 5km of the CBD and exchange.

[shawno]

Trouble with copper as a delivery system is that it degrades connection speed when used in long distances, when multiple people use the same line and when it starts to degrade.

Its fine to say you can get x amount of speed out of it, but once the system is used by multiple parties it suddenly reduces the x speed.

[mr moose]

Problem with australia is that the government doesn't understand that the copper is horribly maintained and needs to be replaced. Whilst it will cost heaps it will be better in the long run to just run fibre which to my knowledge won't corrode like copper and doesn't suffer distance speed degredation like copper. Sadly the government and the average person doesn't know they need better internet. Prime example is my next door neighbour. They are stuck on 4Mbps ADSL whilst I'm now on nbn fixed wireless at 25/5. Mines also cheaper and we already would like faster, my friend knows he needs faster however his parents have no clue about it (although they complain about slow music and video downloads on iTunes) and refuse to let go of Telstra which isn't the only option anymore. Then we go to another neighbour though who is stuck on a corroded ADSL line with 3Mbps and has no reception to the fixed wireless and the only option he has is to keep using the slow adsl with OK ping times or go for faster satellite with horrible ping.

 

You'd be surprised just what the government knows and understands. The problem is they have to justify it to those who don't and they have to make the books balance as best they can while maintaining votes so they get in again at the next election.  Also with DSL it doesn't matter whether you are with telstra, iprimus, optus, TPG or dodo, etc, the copper and exchange is exactly the same so the max speed will be the same. 

 

 

Meanwhile Australians getting 1.5mbps within 5km of the CBD and exchange.

 

And others are getting 16Mb/s 2Km from a rural exchange.  The average dsl speed has been calculated to about 9Mb/s at least and 12Mb/s at most.  Those who are stuck on 1Mb/s connections are rare and unfortunate.

[kburn]

Trouble with copper as a delivery system is that it degrades connection speed when used in long distances, when multiple people use the same line and when it starts to degrade.

Its fine to say you can get x amount of speed out of it, but once the system is used by multiple parties it suddenly reduces the x speed.

 

Multiple people don't use the same copper pair with DSL.  Your pair is unique all the way to the node, where it's muxed with everyone else onto a fiber connection.  That's where the bottleneck can come in.  If your node is heavily loaded with customers, yeah you might not get your full transfer speed.   But the same thing will apply to fiber when  it comes.  You can't share a fiber cable with your neighbour.  They'll all be muxed together somewhere, and that uplink will have the same restrictions as we have now with copper to fiber nodes.

 

It'll be the same complaints, just with higher numbers! =)  "I'm paying for 1Gbps, but I'm only getting 750Mbps on my speedtest!!!  Upgrade your network!" 

[Tech_Dreamer]

good first 'tech news' post, keep it up