[LINK] super-fast cable broadband (1)

[Chris Maltby]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 02:01:55PM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> Telstra today announced that its hybrid fibre coaxial cable broadband 
> network in Melbourne will be upgraded to 100Mbps - more than triple the 
> current peak speed - by Christmas. 

What the release doesn't say:

1) The HFC network is a shared resource - the mythical 100Mbps is only
   possible if no-one else on your cable segment is using anything and
   then only under ideal conditions. If Telstra push ADSL users onto
   their HFC network to keep their monopoly over the last mile, then
   the bandwidth experience is likely to be much less than 100Mbps.

2) The HFC uplink speed is a max 2Mbps upstream with DOCSIS3.0 - and
   there may be a handful of upstream channels to share with the other
   punters on your coax cable segment. I suppose there's a better
   chance of getting VOIP and torrent type services going with a shared
   piece of 2Mbps than with the 128Kbps of DOCSIS2.0 but it's still pretty
   shabby when compared to ADSL, leaving aside Annex-M uplink speeds.

You'd have to be an idiot to migrate from ADSL to HFC - say, a typical
Telstra customer...

Chris