[LINK] Ireland calls for minimum Internet speeds of 30Mbps

[Richard Chirgwin]

Fernando,

Downstream is only one-quarter of the equation. Distance also matters. 
As does the available copper.

Most of what's talked about the capacity of the various higher-speed 
forms of VDSL depend on short distances and multiple copper pairs. It 
is, frankly, a fraud perpetuated by smooth salesmen who know that the 
media they're pitching to know three-quarters of nothing, and don't know 
enough to ask:

1. Will you get high speeds 3 km from the node?

2. Are the premises served by multiple copper pairs?

I'm in the inner city - but 3 Km from the exchange. On ADSL2+ I have 
never topped 10 Mbps. The various flavours of VDSL would only improve 
matters if a node was close enough. To make it ubiquitous would need, in 
Australia, about 70,000 nodes, with all the cost and logistics that 
implies. I can't get excited about groovy copper-based broadband 
technologies any more, because they'll all be nothing more than stopgaps.

RC

On 1/09/12 2:46 PM, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 11:03 PM, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
>> http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/ireland-calls-for-minimum-internet-speeds-of-30mbps/
>>> On Thursday, he outlined a new broadband plan for Ireland that puts the United States to shame. He says that half the population, largely in the urban and suburban cores, should have speeds of 70Mbps to 100Mbps, with service of at least 40Mbps to the next 20 percent of the country. Finally, he writes, there should be a "minimum of 30Mbps for every remaining home and business in the country—no matter how rural or remote."
> That is akin to saying "DSL is outlawed"... as ADSL2+ usually tops at 24 Mbit.
>
> Or, in other words, move everyone on copper to VHSDSL
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_high_speed_digital_subscriber_line_2
>
> However, what politicians don´t get is that downstream speed is only
> half of the equation, and that I´d be MUCH MORE concerned about
> UPSTREAM levels, or at least a upstrem-to-downstream ratio of
> asymmetric links...
>
> My FTTH provider down in .AR for instance, stupidly continues the DSL
> tradition of 10:1 downstream-to-upstream ratio, when the GPON
> technology happily supports a 2:1 ratio.
>
> Upstream is what, in the end, allows you to participate better in the
> ´digital economy´ (and cloud computing), as a provider of information
> rather as just a passive viewer of youtube videos...
>
> Or as Vint Cerf once told me... :)
> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1016487/home-broadband-customers-are-crippled-vint-cerf-reckons
> FC
>
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