On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Roland Turner wrote:
> > The difference between ADSL and HFC systems is that HFC system uses a
> > _shared_ carrier - it's more of a broadcast system - and ADSL is a
> > _direct_ connection - you get your 1.5 meg ALL the time - not just when
> > none of your neighbours are using the net as well as you.
>
> That's a little bit like looking at the 10Mbps Ethernet between your PC
> and your ADSL device and saying "Gee Whiz! I have a 10Mbps _direct_
> connection to the Internet!"
This is getting personal - so I won't go on at too great a length. Suffice
to say that I've a tad more savvy than you grant me. I'll also go out of
my way to ignore most of your comments which I find personally insulting,
which I wouldn't usually do, but hey, the Olympics are almost here.
> The local cable loop _can_ be a bottleneck, but the pressures that bring
> this about are commercial, not technical. Likely circumstances include:
[snipt]
> The (easy) trap to fall into when looking at cable is to assume that, as
> usage grows, the provider cannot respond. Indeed, ADSL providers look on
> with glee at the hypnotic fascination that this shared vs. private
> furphy (misleading image) holds for people like yourself.
There's a vast difference between being _technically_ capable to split
segments, and being _commercially_ willing to do so. By your own
statements above - commercial realities rule business - even {or
especially?} Telstra's business.
> Videotron (Canadian cable provider with, amongst other things, a
> monopoly in Montreal) routinely splits segments where there are lots of
> paying customers using cable modems. It is a fact of life that it costs
> money to provide stuff that people will pay for, expanding the cable
> network capacity is just another part of that exercise.
I just love people like you who compare Australia's market with some part
of the continental US's market. You talk about commercial reality - run
this through your reality metre.
Effectively the same landmass - but more than 10 times the population.
Does this hint anything do you about economies of scale, or relative costs
to provide the services, or such like?
You can NOT compare Australia and the USA in this fashion. It just doesn;t
work. They have morepaying customers to distribute the cost of
infrastructure over, and more income to justify performing actions like
splitting segments.
> > So you're lucky - you don't have many users in your local cable segment -
> > the same as I am with Optus. But I know people who are on _busy_ bigpuddle
> > cable segments - and the service is terrible. ADSL will make them much
> > happier.
>
> You further reinforce the argument: Telstra has a commercial interest in
> marginalising cable in Australia and in pushing its cable users to ADSL.
> Anywhere that it is able to offer both services, it will _not_ spend on
> upgrading that cable service when neccessary, instead it will encourage
> its users to move across to ADSL and it will spend its upgrade money
> there.
And this contradicts my stance exactly how?
My area has Telstra cable, Optus cable, and according to the latest from
Telstra, ADSL from around September.
By the way, assuming I'll be connecting to Telstra for ADSL is pretty dumb
- because I may not. There _are_ other options, despite your obvious
ignorance of them.
[...rest deleted...]
Yes, I've ignored the rest, because I'm not going to add fuel to the
fires of religious fervour burning in your eyes.
DaZZa
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