> Not by much, VDSL is like under 5000 feet. But regular DSL degrades > around 7000 feet. I am between 7k and 11k from the CO based on many > tests run back in 2003. Best I could get was ~1.1Mbps down, for ADSL or > SDSL. Even when I had Covad 1.5Mbps SDSL ordered, they could only > provided 1.1Mbps, and thus dropped me down to that plan. >
I'd really have to disagree here. There is somewhat of a mythical aspect to this. You can technically receive ADSL just fine as far as 18,000ft from the DSLAM (I've had happy customers at this distance, also keep in mind this is cable distance). They are limited to 768k/1.5mbit sure, and they may not even get their full speeds all the time, but it is possible. Every parameter of a DSL line is controllable, except for attenuation (sortof). Attenuation drops off with distance, the way we measure it is in values from 0-inf, typically we'll never see above 60. 60 is the highest attenuation you can have and still be 'qualified' for DSL. You can, however, do stuff to the line which will add stupid attenuation numbers like add a filter to the DSL itself, so I say that attenuation can't be controlled with caution. I only say this because it's very typical for an uneducated agent [and tech] to not be able to troubleshoot a line well enough to correct whatever problem is and blame the problem on distance. Even at that, attenuation is only an indicator. What truly mandates your quality of service is going to be your sync rate, noise profile, noise margins/power levels, and when applicable what distance your DSLAM is from its primary DSLAM if it's qualified by cross connect. People will refer to other factors, such as attenuation, "bandwidth", error rates, etc but they fail to understand all of those things are interrelated. For instance, if you have an error rate on your line, it means your noise margins during the time of those errors aren't within normal parameters. If anyone is interested, you must have at least 6db noise margin up and down (why these are positive values are beyond me, they make no effort to explain why which is why so many ISP tech support agents can't explain things in detail). In order to have reliable service, you must have at least a 10db noise margin. If it was my own connection, I'd not really be happy with anything less than a 12db noise margin. > Probably not going anywhere, but at the same time the distances are not > improving. Thus even DSL is very limited as to who can get it, if your > to far from a CO, you are SOL. DSL is already deployed in many areas which there are no other options for high speed internet. Very typical in rural areas to be capable of getting DSL and not cable. While they will maintain these areas and keep the DSL working, I doubt that U-Verse would ever become available there. These are the same areas that they couldn't justify putting in expensive cell towers that would only cover a handful of people throughout the year. A *part* of the reason for this was related to some government mandates for equal opportunity for bandwidth. I'm unsure if it still exists, but phone companies used to be required by the government to be able to offer at a minimum ISDN connections for rural educational institutes. These regulations and others related to regulated services (landlines) are a part of the reason for the push to U-Verse, as it's unregulated. This explains a lot of the things AT&T does with regards to DSL that 'doesn't make sense'. > Wasn't aware of that merger, wasn't paying attention. I really hope they > don't merge. Competition is a good thing! Too late for hoping, the money has been spent. It will take roughly a year from the announcement to get everything ironed out and working as a single entity because the government is being careful not to allow it to become a monopoly, so there will be stipulations to the merge. If anyone here are law makers or interested in that sort of thing, a mandate to force AT&T to keep a certain percentage of jobs on american soil would be a great thing. The last deal for AT&T to purchase bellsouth had this requirement, but unfortunately that agreement expired june of last year. I honestly think all corporations over a certain income bracket should be required to have a percentage of jobs on american soil if they are headquartered in america. > At&ts own cellular wireless speeds are likely faster right now than most > DSL connections. Short of the 3Mbps and 6Mbps ones. But I think cellular > speeds will catch up sooner than later and overtake DSL all around. With > no distance issues :) I disagree, there are distance issues with cell phone towers, especially when said cell phone tower doesn't exist. Having said that, it wouldn't be too far fetched to say that the phone company could in the future utilize high gain antennas installed and positioned professionally to establish very long length connections, then use something like the microcell to service their home with their cell service. > Very well could end up like Verizon, where they cease after some point. > Though Comcast back in the day would provide you with costs to get cable > in areas that did not have it. It was considerable amounts, but it was > at least an option. But not an option all the time, cable had to be some > what near by. I don't expect this out of AT&T because they are in the investment stage of U-Verse deployment. The difference between U-Verse and FIOS is U-Verse is considerably cheaper to deploy. Once they've finished their deployment push, they will give it a rest (like with DSL) and let the revenue come in as they sustain their customer base. That's how I see it from an internal prespective anyway, I will say that AT&T does an exceptional job at keeping the wool over the eyes of its employees though, so as much internal/private information as I've collected (some I shouldn't even know), I'm sure there's a lot more plans than I'm aware of. I still think there's some value to being on the inside though, dealing with a company every day and seeing how it works helps you to be able to predict what that company might decide to do. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive http://marc.info/?l=jaxlug-list&r=1&w=2 RSS Feed http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml Unsubscribe [email protected]
