AT&T Prepares 20Gbps Internet

[Lurick]

Summary

AT&T has announced successful testing of their 20Gbps internet in their production environment using 25GS-PON which requires minimal changes to infrastructure and can utilize existing cabling infrastructure up to the customer premise. No word yet on when this will actually roll out to consumers or businesses yet however they do say they hope to bring this to "maturity" in the next 6 to 12 months so we'll see what happens in the coming months.

 

Quotes

Quote

AT&T Labs began evaluating next-gen 25GS-PON technology in our production network in June 2022. This expands our broadband network’s capacity by almost 2.5x compared to XGS-PON while requiring minimal infrastructure upgrades in our central offices and customer locations. And it runs over the same fiber optic cables we’ve spent the last decade-plus installing nationwide. In our trial, we were able to take advantage of wavelength coexistence with our FiberWise™ technology – combining 25GS-PON with XGS-PON and other point-to-point services over the same fiber to offer an efficient evolutionary path. This technology is what enabled us to reach 10 Gigs earlier this year and 20 Gigs today in our Broadband Lab in Austin, TX.

 

We expect the group to bring 25GS-PON to maturity in the next 6 to 12 months. Looking beyond the 25GS technology, we are also actively engaged and driving 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps symmetrical access technologies with global standards bodies.

 

My thoughts

Sure it's exciting to see faster speeds but I doubt most end users are going to have a need for speeds anywhere close to the 20Gbps mark for a while and if they do offer it I doubt it's going to be anything near "affordable" for most small businesses or end users. Right now AT&T offers up to 5Gbps fiber for $180/month with their 2Gbps plan at $110/month and 1Gbps around $80/month (I've seen variations on this in the past year in the $60-$70 range too). Just thinking about what kind of equipment you'd need to take advantage of this in anything more than "haha speedtest go brrrrrrrr" or the occasional  "steam download go zoom" right now even 5Gbps is plenty but with new technologies emerging who knows, I could be way off and in 5-10 years everyone could look back at this like the misquoted "640KB is enough for anyone" statement while going ham on 100Gbps+ internet speeds

 

Sources

https://about.att.com/innovationblog/2022/20-gbps-symmetric-speeds.html

[Bombastinator]

Those numbers are still crazy.  This is what we get with monopolies though.   Gonna have to wait for complete buildout before that one gets broken and that is going to be many years.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

AT&T has announced successful testing of their 20Gbps internet in their production environment using 25GS-PON which requires minimal changes to infrastructure and can utilize existing cabling infrastructure up to the customer premise.

But FTTN is fine, fibre to the premises is just too costly and there is no real benefit.... LOL!

 

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

Sure it's exciting to see faster speeds but I doubt most end users are going to have a need for speeds anywhere close to the 20Gbps mark for a while and if they do offer it I doubt it's going to be anything near "affordable" for most small businesses or end users. Right now AT&T offers up to 5Gbps fiber for $180/month with their 2Gbps plan at $110/month and 1Gbps around $80/month (I've seen variations on this in the past year in the $60-$70 range too).

Medium to longer term the real benefit is cheaper plans with reasonable bandwidth allocations. Biggest reason I see to moving to these faster PON standards is the standard split ratios that won't actually change allows for more bandwidth for all, regardless of what plan you are actually on so the last mile is less congested and cheaper per bandwidth unit.

 

BUT the equipment has to actually be rolled out and I have no practical hands on with PON networks but I suspect every connection (every ONT) on the 25GPON port must all have 25GPON equipment and optics to operate at this data rate rather than falling back down to 10Gb or even 1Gb. You know any more about this?

[Lurick]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

But FTTN is fine, fibre to the premises is just too costly and there is no real benefit.... LOL!

 

Medium to longer term the real benefit is cheaper plans with reasonable bandwidth allocations. Biggest reason I see to moving to these faster PON standards is the standard split ratios that won't actually change allows for more bandwidth for all, regardless of what plan you are actually on so the last mile is less congested and cheaper per bandwidth unit.

 

BUT the equipment has to actually be rolled out and I have no practical hands on with PON networks but I suspect every connection (every ONT) on the 25GPON port must all have 25GPON equipment and optics to operate at this data rate rather than falling back down to 10Gb or even 1Gb. You know any more about this?

Hasn't it always been FTTN, you know to cover the distance to the node in most cases?

 

Yah, definitely need optics and interfaces to support it. I mean you can't go all fiber either because the end user doesn't have fiber equipment but you can't do copper either since there is no 25Gbps copper stuff anyway.

 

Edit:

I wonder if this would come into the ONT rate limited to about 20Gbps on a 25Gbps interface but then just have a couple 10Gbps copper ports instead as that's really all that makes sense at this time.

[derr12]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

But FTTN is fine, fibre to the premises is just too costly and there is no real benefit.... LOL!

 

Medium to longer term the real benefit is cheaper plans with reasonable bandwidth allocations. Biggest reason I see to moving to these faster PON standards is the standard split ratios that won't actually change allows for more bandwidth for all, regardless of what plan you are actually on so the last mile is less congested and cheaper per bandwidth unit.

 

BUT the equipment has to actually be rolled out and I have no practical hands on with PON networks but I suspect every connection (every ONT) on the 25GPON port must all have 25GPON equipment and optics to operate at this data rate rather than falling back down to 10Gb or even 1Gb. You know any more about this?

I Work with FTTH.  

 

So basically, they will likely have an FDH on the street with bone standard 32 way fiber splitters that feed the home drop fibers.   All they need to do to upgrade to the latest pon standards is have an OLT (usually an 8 slot x 16 port) in the head-end that can support enough transport link, and can support these new 25gbps optics.  

 

Then they run one of the new pon ports out to the FDH and add another splitter dedicated to the ultra fast speed customers (ONT's that are not the 25gps pon wont work)  

 

if a customer upgrades, Installer swaps the drop fiber from the gpon or xgspon splitter they were on before to the new splitter.  then they install an ONT that has a 25gbps pon optic in it. 

 

The cost for the Head end equipment is probably 200k. you could service up to 4096 subs that way PER OLT (provided you dont run out of transport capacity). The ONT's are probably hard to come by and super expensive too. 

 

 

 

[TetraSky]

Can't wait for them to market it as "up to 20Gbps", but in reality you only get 100Mbps and they say "well it's UP TO, sir..." while giving BS excuses as to why without offering a solution when you call them to complain.

[Shimejii]

25 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Can't wait for them to market it as "up to 20Gbps", but in reality you only get 100Mbps and they say "well it's UP TO, sir..." while giving BS excuses as to why without offering a solution when you call them to complain.

I mean most of the excuses are the real reasons. Most Game servers are hosted with a 1 gig connection, most are not run with 10 Gig cabling in mind cause its just more expensive. Plus when a lot of people hit the same server its gonna slow down. The Great servers do have 10 gig, but for sure almost none have the higher tier, since 99.9% of people dont have a 10 gig+ connection so there really isnt a point in investing into it lol.

 

 

Now its another thing about reliability, crashes, constant shitty behavior, monopoly pricing. Those are all the things that they tend to be garbage without any excuse.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, derr12 said:

Then they run one of the new pon ports out to the FDH and add another splitter dedicated to the ultra fast speed customers (ONT's that are not the 25gps pon wont work)  

Ok yea that's what I suspected, so short term the 25GPON connections will cost more since the utilization/uptake will be low and the cost of new infrastructure installation will have to be covered.

 

I wonder what the typical migration plan is to get people moved over and phase out old ONTs, FTTH/P here is very new so I've not watched how this is actually handled yet. Interesting times ahead. I know when I can sign up for 10Gb I will be.

 

2 hours ago, derr12 said:

So basically, they will likely have an FDH on the street with bone standard 32 way fiber splitters that feed the home drop fibers.   All they need to do to upgrade to the latest pon standards is have an OLT (usually an 8 slot x 16 port) in the head-end that can support enough transport link, and can support these new 25gbps optics.

Thanks, I actually know a reasonable amount of info about PON just never actually been hands on with it. I just like to have that joke about FTTN because of stupid arguments I get given about it and how FTTH/P is too costly and FTTN is an upgrade from what they had before, because you know fibre totally wasn't already being used literally in the same way before... 

 

ADSL/VDSL with a fancy new sticker slapped on it and sold "As new"  

 

I'm just really thankful my country funded a full FTTH/P rollout and put in all new underground ducts and access pits, makes these upgrades a lot easier, cheaper and possible. XG-PON is already partially rollout out in my country, started in 2019. We standardized on Nokia as our infrastructure provider btw.

 

4 hours ago, Lurick said:

Hasn't it always been FTTN, you know to cover the distance to the node in most cases?

People try and tell me otherwise haha

[Donut417]

On 6/10/2022 at 3:12 PM, leadeater said:

But FTTN is fine, fibre to the premises is just too costly and there is no real benefit.... LOL!

The issue is DSL is dead. While AT&T has a large amount of VDSL areas I dont see them investing in that technology any more. They even stopped offering ADSL for the most part. That leave DOCSIS. The problem with DOCSIS is cable cos have promised for the last decade better upload speeds. They haven't done shit. While people might argue you dont need better uploads, you do. Between the multiple people working from home now days, people wanting to stream on twitch and other uses, 5 to 10 Mbps up is not enough. Yeah I know about DOCSIS 4.0, but thats probably 5 to 10 years out before we have mass adoption of that tech at least. 

 

On 6/10/2022 at 1:56 PM, Lurick said:

doubt most end users are going to have a need for speeds anywhere close to the 20Gbps mark for a while and if they do offer it I doubt it's going to be anything near "affordable" for most small businesses or end users. Right now AT&T offers up to 5Gbps fiber for $180/month with their 2Gbps plan at $110/month and 1Gbps around $80/month

Its more as a dick measuring contest right now. However consider this. $180/m for 5Gbps compared to Comcast Gigabit pro or what ever they call it where they want $299/m, a 3 years agreement, $500 for install, $500 for activation, what ever for equipment for similar service. AT&T is offering a good value even at that price. 

[Bitter]

Man, I'm gonna need SOOOO many DSL filters for this shit.

21 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

5 to 10 Mbps up is not enough. Yeah I know about DOCSIS 4.0, but thats probably 5 to 10 years out before we have mass adoption of that tech at least. 

 

Its more as a dick measuring contest right now. However consider this. $180/m for 5Gbps compared to Comcast Gigabit pro or what ever they call it where they want $299/m, a 3 years agreement, $500 for install, $500 for activation, what ever for equipment for similar service. AT&T is offering a good value even at that price. 

I had to move up to a 300Mbps plan with Comcast in my area to get 20Mbps upload, they then upgraded the 300 plan to 600 for free but I still have 20Mbps upload. I'd love 40-60 upload, we don't need such speeds all the time but when we do want them it would be very nice to have so large multi-gigabyte files upload quickly instead of nerfing the internet for an hour while it uploads.

[Bombastinator]

28 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The issue is DSL is dead. While AT&T has a large amount of VDSL areas I dont see them investing in that technology any more. They even stopped offering ADSL for the most part. That leave DOCSIS. The problem with DOCSIS is cable cos have promised for the last decade better upload speeds. They haven't done shit. While people might argue you dont need better uploads, you do. Between the multiple people working from home now days, people wanting to stream on twitch and other uses, 5 to 10 Mbps up is not enough. Yeah I know about DOCSIS 4.0, but thats probably 5 to 10 years out before we have mass adoption of that tech at least. 

 

Its more as a dick measuring contest right now. However consider this. $180/m for 5Gbps compared to Comcast Gigabit pro or what ever they call it where they want $299/m, a 3 years agreement, $500 for install, $500 for activation, what ever for equipment for similar service. AT&T is offering a good value even at that price. 

Better isn’t necessarily good.  It is better though.  There is something to be said for less bad.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

There is something to be said for less bad.

Well you need to consider that they are just starting to test DOCSIS 4.0 stuff in lab settings. So its going to be a while before they start deploying those upgrades. Like I said, probably a decade. Where will Fiber to the home be then? 100 Gbps? The fact is DOCSIS is turning in to DSL, the cable co's will continue to milk it because they have a monopoly in many areas. However, that monopoly is slowly eroding as 5G becomes more competitive. 

 

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

Man, I'm gonna need SOOOO many DSL filters for this shit.

I had to move up to a 300Mbps plan with Comcast in my area to get 20Mbps upload, they then upgraded the 300 plan to 600 for free but I still have 20Mbps upload. I'd love 40-60 upload, we don't need such speeds all the time but when we do want them it would be very nice to have so large multi-gigabyte files upload quickly instead of nerfing the internet for an hour while it uploads.

Hell I read that some people were going to 5G internet because it offered better uploads. Its fucking sad at this point. Whats even more sad is they could technically offer better uploads. Comcast has a market where they have 1 Gbps upload speeds. They have been testing this, while its not easy for them to do, why can they do 500 Mbps upload? or at least 100 Mbps? Because they dont want to. Instead they keep uploads low and add in stupid data caps. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

The issue is DSL is dead. While AT&T has a large amount of VDSL areas I dont see them investing in that technology any more. They even stopped offering ADSL for the most part. That leave DOCSIS. The problem with DOCSIS is cable cos have promised for the last decade better upload speeds. They haven't done shit. While people might argue you dont need better uploads, you do. Between the multiple people working from home now days, people wanting to stream on twitch and other uses, 5 to 10 Mbps up is not enough. Yeah I know about DOCSIS 4.0, but thats probably 5 to 10 years out before we have mass adoption of that tech at least. 

All DSL based technology were dead ages, some mild attempts at CPR have been done but it didn't work. The problem with DSL is that the copper distances were all put in decades ago for voice only then data was "figured out later" over that medium. I know I know stating the obvious but if data was actually a consideration then single twisted pair and such long distances would never have been done. I honestly am glad it turned out this way though, if every house was serviced by 2-4 pair copper with a maximum of 800m from node then it would probably have stuck around for another 20-50 years, that said you'd also likely be getting much better data rates and service quality from it.

 

I am absolutely tired of the whole FTTP/H is too costly, no it isn't. Just don't try and do too much at once and bloody hell get started, aim for 80% or better coverage for ALL. 50 years from now every service tech, engineer and architect will thank their predecessor for it.

 

52 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Hell I read that some people were going to 5G internet because it offered better uploads.

lol yes absolutely the case. So 5G fixed broadband here operates on dedicated bands, my parents have it, and even a not perfect connection quality results in above 100 Mbps upload and you can regularly get 600+ Mbps download. Add in some fixed directional high gain antennas then you can laugh at the sadness everyone else has to put up with unless they actually have fibre.

 

High density 5G fixed services has the capability to eliminate the entire US ISP market, so I'm willing to bet there are already road blocks in place for that and more to come.

 

If you want the cheapest infrastructure rollout with the lowest per customer connection cost with the highest average connection speed then it's 5G.

[Bombastinator]

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Well you need to consider that they are just starting to test DOCSIS 4.0 stuff in lab settings. So its going to be a while before they start deploying those upgrades. Like I said, probably a decade. Where will Fiber to the home be then? 100 Gbps? The fact is DOCSIS is turning in to DSL, the cable co's will continue to milk it because they have a monopoly in many areas. However, that monopoly is slowly eroding as 5G becomes more competitive. 

 

Hell I read that some people were going to 5G internet because it offered better uploads. Its fucking sad at this point. Whats even more sad is they could technically offer better uploads. Comcast has a market where they have 1 Gbps upload speeds. They have been testing this, while its not easy for them to do, why can they do 500 Mbps upload? or at least 100 Mbps? Because they dont want to. Instead they keep uploads low and add in stupid data caps. 

Yeah.  When a second cable provider started providing service in my area prices dropped near 50% a third will probably be half that again.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Bombastinator

[derr12]

On 6/10/2022 at 4:41 PM, leadeater said:

Ok yea that's what I suspected, so short term the 25GPON connections will cost more since the utilization/uptake will be low and the cost of new infrastructure installation will have to be covered.

 

I wonder what the typical migration plan is to get people moved over and phase out old ONTs, FTTH/P here is very new so I've not watched how this is actually handled yet. Interesting times ahead. I know when I can sign up for 10Gb I will be.

 

Thanks, I actually know a reasonable amount of info about PON just never actually been hands on with it. I just like to have that joke about FTTN because of stupid arguments I get given about it and how FTTH/P is too costly and FTTN is an upgrade from what they had before, because you know fibre totally wasn't already being used literally in the same way before... 

 

ADSL/VDSL with a fancy new sticker slapped on it and sold "As new"  

 

I'm just really thankful my country funded a full FTTH/P rollout and put in all new underground ducts and access pits, makes these upgrades a lot easier, cheaper and possible. XG-PON is already partially rollout out in my country, started in 2019. We standardized on Nokia as our infrastructure provider btw.

 

People try and tell me otherwise haha

 

as far as rollout plans, most companies just stop installing/upgrading older Head end infrastructure, and only install on the newest standard gear.  (once you get a solid supply of compatible ONT's).  Even the slow package folks would end up with xgs/25gbps pon hardware. The cost increase between gpon/xgs equipment isnt that much, and you are just going to have to do it all later and/or rip out/groom older hardware in head-ends that cant just keep getting additional racks.  The biggest cost is always Power/cooling infrastructure ive learned. so Head-end sprawl gets real expensive real fast.   

 

I've also been involved in coax to the home (nodes deep/remte phy).  docsis 3.1 lets you do 1gbps packages with fiber to the node/coax to the house.  its the upload bandwidth that gets ya down vs ftth.  Fiber for the win for sure,  going nodes deep is a great way to cut down on traditional coax noise,  but its certainly not uncommon to get it anyways due to bad house wiring/etc.  If you go into a town with a previously built coax network, its certainly cheaper to keep it that way instead of ding a full on fiber overlay/drop install program.  

 

50 megs of upload is nothing to sneer at either unless you are a commercial outfit.  (and they will pay to have fiber run anyways).

 

 

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, derr12 said:

as far as rollout plans, most companies just stop installing/upgrading older Head end infrastructure, and only install on the newest standard gear.

 

13 minutes ago, derr12 said:

and you are just going to have to do it all later and/or rip out/groom older hardware in head-ends that cant just keep getting additional racks.

What about all the existing and old ONTs? How are those dealt with, or is it a case of so far nothing is really old enough to really start hitting problems? At some point old ONTs are a problem right? Do you just schedule an upgrade and do it?

 

13 minutes ago, derr12 said:

If you go into a town with a previously built coax network, its certainly cheaper to keep it that way instead of ding a full on fiber overlay/drop install program.  

Far as I know US/CAD (NA) is by far the largest Coax country. Like here in mine only a single city ever trialed it so it's bundled twisted pair copper and that's it. Which is actually entirely being ripped out from this year and has already started. We won't have any copper services at all, forget the time frame but actually short considering what this actually is.

 

Anyway if you know anything about Australia and NBN my comments are a direct dig at that, us friendly neighbors are never afraid to rub salt in each others wounds 

[derr12]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

 

What about all the existing an old ONTs? How are those dealt with, or is it a case of so far nothing is really old enough to really start hitting problems? At some point old ONTs are a problem right? Do you just schedule an upgrade and do it?

cant use the old ONT's with the faster tiers/connected to the Newer standard OLT ports.  Plenty of areas with older OLT's and no new standerd OLT hardware so i assume they could send them out to those spots for new hookups/growth.  Either that...  e-waste...  so organically as grandma decides she doesn't want 10 meg service anymore, she calls for an upgrade, and the installer would swap the ONT and hook her drop fiber to an XGS or better fed splitter in the FDH (if available).  

 

The CPE (ONT) equipment seems to last almost forever, and from what ive seen, the OLT's last even longer.  (likely by virtue of over-built power and well cooled server rooms).

 

I haven't seen it yet, but in theory if they wanted to de-comm old HE equipment they could just book installs to swap peoples ONT's/splitter ports enmasse.  then once the old OLT is fully groomed out, can remove it from the head-end. 

 

 

 

[derr12]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

Far as I know US/CAD (NA) is by far the largest Coax country. Like here in mine only a single city ever trialed it so it's bundled twisted pair copper and that's it. Which is actually entirely being ripped out from this year and has already started. We won't have any copper services at all, forget the time frame but actually short considering what this actually is.

 

Anyway if you know anything about Australia and NBN my comments are a direct dig at that, us friendly neighbors are never afraid to rub salt in each others wounds 

i cant speak for all of BC, but we have are overbuilding fiber 100% to replace twisted pair.  Twisted pair infrastructure is hard to come by so all new builds are fiber.  coax is still keeping up,  That wont last forever tho,  Writing is on the wall.  Everytime coax gets a bump in tech it seems you have to go rip out nodes or replace stuff that wont pass the higher RF frequencies. Also, the more rf spectrum you use/the closer you have to get to the home to keep up with the rf rolloff. Cable providers will be able to reclaim some spectrum by dumping standard TV for over the top internet connected set-top boxes.  Plus, there is going to be a limit on the modulation rates you can reliably use.  OFDM/OFDMA over coax is pretty cool stuff tho.  going from d3.0 to d3.1 was a real game changer.

 

Fascinating line of work

[sounds]

I think you'll see soon that the fiber networks will stop having a separate strand for this 20gig service and start using slightly off-peak wavelengths to have a single fiber carry both the signals from the "legacy" XGSPON OLT and whatever is the new hot OLT headend equipment is. Since it's infrared light, it's normal to just call it a different color. I know. Two colors in the same strand, now you're playing with rainbow power. The jokes write themselves.

 

Doesn't mean AT&T will figure that out  since they're the early adopter. But ain't nobody got time to go and swap homes from one splitter to the other when it can be done with a single command on your router once this tech is more mainstream. It gets really cheap once all the datacenters are using it.

[williamcll]

I think the problem here is that most servers will throttle you at 1Gbps or less.

[DANK_AS_gay]

On 6/10/2022 at 7:41 PM, leadeater said:

We standardized on Nokia as our infrastructure provider btw.

They still exist?

[DANK_AS_gay]

43 minutes ago, sounds said:

with a single command on your router once this tech is more mainstream.

....I'm listening.

[Lurick]

4 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

They still exist?

Oh yah, they're pretty big in the network/telco space

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

They still exist?

Nokia is a way bigger company than old ass brick phones lol. But yea most people have no idea so wouldn't worry about it.

 

https://www.nokia.com/networks/products/

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Nokia is a way bigger company than old ass brick phones lol. But yea most people have no idea so wouldn't worry about it.

 

https://www.nokia.com/networks/products/

Tried their website.  They’ve got a cookie blocker up with no “go away” option so I can’t read their website.  But like you said, doesn’t matter