Home DSL speeds etc

[Russ Smith]

Just ordered SBCyahoo DSL for my girlfriend's place, with the standard plus option($26.95 until January 31) you get downstream speed of 384 to 1.5(so basically you get 384).

Anybody else a bit miffed to know that in Japan they've had 4MB ADSL for over a year and are in the process of upgrading to 12MB ADSL? I work for a DSL chip company, our 2 main customers supply to NTT in Japan and they and Yahoo Japan are the 2 main DSL providers over there. We are paying MORE, for much slower speeds over here and people wonder why DSL is exploding in Japan, China and Korea and only slowly taking hold here?

Not that that speed won't be a HUGE improvement for us from the current speed of webtv we use at her place, but I just can't help but think that the rationale behind this is they can then upgrade the US to 4MB later, and then 12 later. That's how it rolled out in Japan but there was a valid reason, they went 1.5 to 4 to 12 because at the time that was the fastest available, here in the US they're merely choosing to deploy slower speed DSL when faster speed is available!

 

[Chaz]

Originally posted by Russ Smith
Just ordered SBCyahoo DSL for my girlfriend's place, with the standard plus option($26.95 until January 31) you get downstream speed of 384 to 1.5(so basically you get 384).

Anybody else a bit miffed to know that in Japan they've had 4MB ADSL for over a year and are in the process of upgrading to 12MB ADSL? I work for a DSL chip company, our 2 main customers supply to NTT in Japan and they and Yahoo Japan are the 2 main DSL providers over there. We are paying MORE, for much slower speeds over here and people wonder why DSL is exploding in Japan, China and Korea and only slowly taking hold here?

Not that that speed won't be a HUGE improvement for us from the current speed of webtv we use at her place, but I just can't help but think that the rationale behind this is they can then upgrade the US to 4MB later, and then 12 later. That's how it rolled out in Japan but there was a valid reason, they went 1.5 to 4 to 12 because at the time that was the fastest available, here in the US they're merely choosing to deploy slower speed DSL when faster speed is available!

Many times faster speeds are available but only if the phone lines are of decent quality.

I'm sure companies tend to hold off on faster speeds because it would cut into the lucrative faster business connections.

 

[Ryanwb]

The new VDSL is available in some places, if you have the money to pay for it. I am happy with my cable internet, I get nice upload and download speed.

The only thing I really use the high speed connect for is to share files and I am limited to how fast the other guy's internet speed is.

 

[Russ Smith]

Re: Re: Home DSL speeds etc

Originally posted by SirChaz
Many times faster speeds are available but only if the phone lines are of decent quality.

I'm sure companies tend to hold off on faster speeds because it would cut into the lucrative faster business connections.

I'm not technical(I'm the facilities guy so I'm not designing chips) but the main difference between DSL here and Japan is the "annex version". Here it's Annex A, there it's annex C, which was specifically designed to work in Japan because in Japan ISDN lines were prevalent, used as a precursor to DSL. THis caused a crosstalk issue that made using Annex A difficult, that's really how my company got into the Japan market, designing Annex C to work in Japan. Yahoo Japan is now using Annex A in Japan using special equipment to get around the crosstalk issue and they have taken considerable market share from NTT by cutting prices which triggered a price war, they pay like $20 a month for 4-12 mb speeds in Japan, usually they get the modem free, and right now VOIP is being offered at a major discount too.

My understanding is in the US, that's not an issue at all. 4mb and 12 mb speeds should in fact be easier to deploy here than there you just have to convince the phone companies to install newer CO hardware(CO is central office ie in the phone company) that supports such speeds. they have no incentive, they've got a virtual monopoly so they can control the rollout to their financial gain.

That's really the issue, they are now lowering rates to get people to try DSL knowing lots will be "hooked". Then they can roll out higher speeds, but charge the customer more for the cost of faster service by saying they're paying the cost of the equipment upgrades.

Again I'm not technical so don't take this as gospel but my understanding is 4 and 12 MB ADSL using Annex A exists and is in use in Japan right now, US market uses Annex A, they just are deploying with older CO equipment which only support speeds up to 1.5 MB.

 

[Russ Smith]

I did a little "research" last night by asking someone here at work some questions. He's high enough up in the company that he ought to know what he's talking about and here is his explanation for why DSL speeds in the US are so much slower.

To paraphrase, as we've all heard the farther you are from the CO(central office in the phone company) the slower DSL is for you in theory. This can be somewhat mitigated by what type of CO equipment you use, and what type of service speed the CO uses. What US companies are doing is intentionally using slower CO service so that they can more easily guarantee a speed to their customers. In Japan in some areas people are testing MAX DSL right now and gettin 45MBPS, but if you're further downstream the dropoff is noticeable, so far in tests many people are getting 30+,very few can get 45, and 50 is the theoretical maximum for that chip.

US companies are taking the easy way out, instead of simply installing more infrastructure(more CO's) so the average customer is closer to a CO, they are simply deploying slower speed DSL so that the difference between the customers is smaller and thus less of a problem. If you're getting 1.2 MBPS and someone further downstream is getting 800KBPS, he's less likely to complain about paying the same than if you're getting 45 MBPS and he's getting only 30.

THis is of course the whole line of reasoning behind DSL companies that bashed cable modems because the more users online, the slower the cable modem is.

But he did confirm my comment that right now we could in fact be using CO chips capable of speeds up to 12MB(depending on how close you are to the CO) if US phone companies wanted to.