[LINK] Telstra upgrades ADSL2+

[Paul Brooks]

On 30/10/2011 10:57 PM, Tom Koltai wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
>> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Fernando Cassia
>> Sent: Sunday, 30 October 2011 8:30 PM
>> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> Subject: [LINK] Telstra upgrades ADSL2+
>>
>>
>> http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/405114/telstra_upgrade_adsl2_
>> infrastructure/
>>
>> on a somewhat related note
>>
> http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/copper-at-the-speed-of-fiber
>
> Let's start with the second link.
>
> Alcatel, (err that would be the company that trained all the guys that
> now run the NBN and Telstra) have speeded up a 1998 Ascend/Lucent
> standard, VDSL to over 100 Mbps.

VDSL2 wasn't ratified until 2005, and pre-2005 versions from every vendor were all
fairly much non-standard and non-interoperable.
That said, the article is talking about vectoring, or active multi-line cross-talk
cancellation - which might be great at close range, and when all lines are being
driven by the same DSLAM, but not otherwise. As the article notes, its been in
development for a decade or more, and comes to the market just about in time to be
superseded by fibre, and in sparse areas also by wireless (duck!)



>  
>
> To compete with the fibre that they are selling to the NBN... QUE ?!?
>
> OK, the first link....
> After almost not touching the network for two years why are Telstra
> upgrading now, (200,000 Phone lines).
>
> The giveaway comment was in the middle of the above link:
>
> "The upgrade will support our customers' growing interest in connecting
> up household devices and screens to the Internet so that they can enjoy
> information and entertainment on demand," Telstra said in a statement.
> "The extra capacity will make it easier for households to access their
> favourite Internet sites and work from home."

The reason is a lot simpler than that - it has nothing to do with extra information
capacity, and everything about extra capacity in numbers of broadband enabled lines,
particularly in RIM-served estates.
These 'top hat' extensions sit on top of RIM/CMUX cabinets, in RIM-hell estates.
In most RIM-fed estates, it is very common for several hundred homes to be competing
for one of 30 or so DSL ports embedded within the cabinet. If you weren't one of the
lucky first few, you have to wait for another householder to die before you might snag
a port. As the NBN rolls out, Telstra gets a bounty for every retail DSL customer that
is converted across to fibre. Much better to have hundreds of customers to receive the
bounty on, rather than 30.
A more truthful PR comment is that it will support "our customer's growing interest in
connecting up." period. The NBN has given them a reason to finally recognise that
there is more demand than 1-in-10 ratio of ports available in cabinet-fed estates, and
extend the cabinet to provide room for more DSLAMs and DSL ports.

P.