NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Why Gigabit DSL matters
This is how "Moore's Law" is supposed to work and why I've argued that we're underutilizing our copper (and wireless and fiber) assets. What is important is that we can use any technique whether it is finding the one pair that can do 1Gbps or using smarter electronics/software to glom together to get the capacity it doesn't matter. The point is that there are many approaches and that if "the market" sees an opportunity it will find a way. Note that the whole "speed" thing is confusing -- the bits go out the same speed but we can exchange more at a time if we take advantage of opportunities. This is why I prefer to use the term "capacity". We should stop talking about FTTH or any presumption about technology and use what is available and by normalizing to bits we can mix and match in any combination that works. The FTTH (et al) requirements have worked to maximize costs while making it seem difficult to build out connectivity. This is a double whammy in that the high costs make it hard to justify providing capacity whereas incrementally using available physical infrastructure can be far more cost effective and drive demand. Furthermore by focusing on speed within billable paths we minimize the capacity we get after all the effort. The "physics" of information can be weird. A single gigabyte path can do far more than provide 10 users with 100 megabits each because of statistical sharing. Each one can get more like a gigabit each. Even if you use all 10 are using 10Mbps streaming there is still lots of capacity available. The more capacity we aggregate and share the more effective capacity we get. Divvying up the capacity into pipes creates "breakage" or the loss of capacity by making it unavailable to others when unused. The Telco business requires channeling bits into billable channels for billing purposes even if it means, in effect, throwing away the vast majority of the capacity due to breakage. An unshared 1Gbps path may average out to 1Mbps (or far less) which means that the cost of billing requires throwing away more 99% of the capacity of the unshared path. At very least consumers should join together to share the path themselves. We have abundant physical capacity -- it's the provisioning that is problem and that's policy not physics. Just as the bandwidth shortage is a construct due to policy and not due to a limit on our ability to exchange bits. More at the usual essays: http://rmf.vc/ThinkingOutsideThePipe, http://rmf.vc/sd etc. -----Original Message----- From: nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org [mailto:nnsquad-bounces+nnsquad=bobf.frankston.com@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of Lauren Weinstein Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 13:20 To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org Subject: [ NNSquad ] Why Gigabit DSL matters Several NNSquad readers reacted to a posting of mine yesterday (regarding a Gigabit short range DSL tech), suggesting that existing Ethernet standards provide the same functionality. I believe this DSL technology is of most interest where utilities are trying to leverage existing copper cable plant, especially in underground utility situations (which often can mean 50+ year old cables in hard to access locations buried directly in the ground). I would expect any successful high speed DSL system to generally have better noise immunity and crosstalk rejection characteristics than conventional Ethernet -- especially important in old, tightly packed cables that can have 500+ pairs. But the big advantage in these situations is only needing one pair, vs. two or four for 100bT or 1000bT Ethernet. Fewer pairs means fewer interfaces and nominally less expensive equipment, but the big win relates to the fact that many of these hard to replace cables are so old and so badly maintained (and/or in poorly documented bridging configurations) that many/most of the pairs won't even test out suitably for data. Only needing to find one good pair for a customer is a win in these kinds of situations. So I think there is a quite valid place for this tech. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad