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Aussie Claims Copper Broadband now 200x Faster
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 24, 2007 07:45 AM
from the alarms-going-off-in-brain dept.
from the alarms-going-off-in-brain dept.
SkiifGeek writes "Winner of Melbourne University's Chancellor's Prize for Excellence, Dr John Papandriopoulos could soon find himself the focus of a number of networking companies and government agencies interested in wringing more performance from existing network infrastructure. Dr John developed a set of algorithms (US and Aussie patents pending) that reduce the impact of cross talk on data streams sharing the same physical copper line, taking less than a year to achieve the breakthrough. It is claimed that the algorithms can produce up to 200x improvement over existing copper broadband performance (quoted as being between one and 25 mbit/sec), with up to 200 mbit/sec apparently being deliverable. If the mathematical theories are within even an order of magnitude of the actual gains achieved, Dr John's work is likely to have widespread implications for future bandwidth availability across the globe."
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Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Metaphor please (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I can bet that it is a reuse of the 3G MAC ideas. 3G uses multipath to improve the signal to noise ratio by filtering the signal versus delayed samples.
Similar thing is possible with crosstalk as long as you handle all wires from the same duct in the same ASIC this usually is not the case. It will simply not work in countries where access to the copper is unbundled. In other places it will require major rewiring in the exchange.
I would hate to extinguish the hopes of all hopefuls which think that the h
Re:Metaphor please (Score:4, Interesting)
Your post is labeled informative, but it is so filled with jargon that is missing any nice links to references that explain it that I find it quite unhelpful.
Parent
Re:Metaphor please (Score:5, Informative)
I think the premise that this tech is based on 3G multicast is wrong too.
Dr Papandriopoulos paper [ulos.org] suggests the algorithm works by iteratively lowering power, and therefore reducing crosstalk. The reduced crosstalk allows faster protocols like VDSL to be used on the copper that was previously only capable of ADSL2.
Parent
Re:Metaphor please (Score:5, Interesting)
Err... That is exactly what I described (without even reading the article).
IMHO not patentable due to being bleeding obvious. The sole reason it is not being done at present is that till recently it was impractical. You just about handled one wire with one chip. Handling a bundle and running a "cool" algo on them was simply beyond what the electronics could do.
As far as the likelihood with 3G: 3G does something quite similar using the signal in a feedback loop. As a result echoes from buildings and reflections from earth (aka multipath) which in other technologies decrease your signal to noise ratio are used to increase the signal to noise ratio.
For example you have the following sequence of bits: 1 1 1 0. Once you get past the first 1 you get the same sequence arriving reflected from a different source. As a result you get slightly better signal to noise on the next 1 1. After that you have a 0. It overlaps with a reflected 1. As a result you get garbled input. If you use a delay shift register and optimise where do you need to add your signal from 1,2,3,4 units of time before that to yourself you can actually eliminate this and improve your signal to noise based on reflections instead of garbling the signal. In addition to that the output of the filter is used also in guess what - power control: telling the mobile to adjust its power.
What this chap is doing is doing the same by applying signal from wire N to the signal from wire Y as a digital filter. Which means exactly what I said - in order for this to be of any use all wires in the same bundle should be handled by the same ASIC. I should probably do the math but they should probably also run the same line protocol. If you have a third party provider running an ADSL in the middle of your "precious" DSL2 bundle this nice scheme fails.
Pity actually, while not particularly original this is a cool way of using a well known existing way of improving signal to noise ratio (including the power control part of it).
Parent
Re:Metaphor please (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I hadn't already posted to this story I'd be trying right now to figure out how to use my two remaining mod points to mod you both funny and insightful.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Crosstalk [wikipedia.org] is much broader then what people are insinuating here. Crosstalk can be RF, groundloops, bare wires douching each other, etc. Simplest definition is when one signal interferes with each other.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
all discontinuities cause some degree of reflection and it can be a big issue as frequencies get higher. Telco wiring is likely to be full of discontinuities (cross connect panels, different cable types etc).
destroying everything in it's path.
Luckilly it doesn't destroy everything in it's path. It destroys some frequencies attenuates others and boosts others. Oh and it causes some nasty phase effects too. It is a very s
Re:Metaphor please (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if you're using like, then it's actually a simile.
That being said, I think the appropriate metaphor for your post would be "flogging a dead horse".
Parent
Re:Metaphor please (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You have many tubes going one way, with the internet flowing through them. If one fills up (it's not a truck!) then it spills over into one of the other tubes, or sometimes if a similar amount of internet is flowing in two tubes that are next to eachother then they spill over randomly.
Now, cross-tube-spill makes for slow internet--more so than an email from your coworker--and this guy here figured out how to send the internet through the tubes in such a way that there is no spill o
200 mbit/sec (Score:2, Insightful)
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m != M ...or is it just me? MB and Mb...let's use them correctly. [/rant]
No, this guy's just finally managed to get 200 millibits per second. Get yer bits, once every 5 seconds...
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I kid, please don't bite
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Re:Obligatory ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Obligatory ... (Score:5, Funny)
0 = one bit
( = half a bit
1 = one bit
' = half a bit
You need to use an appropriate font, obviously.
I don't know what you people would do without me to solve these little problems for you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the "infinite surface area, finite volume" problem, if you needed to jog your memory.
My teacher explained the paradox by saying that it would be like something that would take an infinite amount of paint to paint the inside of it, but it would be able to hold a finite amount of paint.
I quickly pointed out that this was only true if paint were not made out of molecules. At some point, you can no longer put any more paint on the surface, becau
200x??? Hardly... (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Hey, I hear Comcast is looking for writers to create the ads that say their 8 Mb cable is "10x faster" than the "768kb" DSL we're all apparently using.
Little scarce (Score:2)
One thing though, is this the point at which companies should either get rid of the existing technologies and invest in newer, more stable, scalable and flexible telecommunications hardware & wiring? To me it is very much like the software-development stage where it's best to rewrite everything from scratch, than to patch the existing codebase (sorry, code-head, no better analogy available; sue me). Is there a risk
Sounds like snake oil to me. (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Realism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given what I've seen in the past and knowing how greedy telecommunications companies are, I doubt the above statement.
John's actually a pretty cool dude (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Famous scam? (Score:2)
I must be remembering some of the details wrong because I can't find the article - I remember that it was on slashdot as w
Re:Famous scam? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
lies, damn lies and statistics (Score:2)
The limit has been exceeded.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Using basic bandwidth calcs for voice (500 to 4000hz?) and imposing a modulated signal inside that, the distortion created by the physical arrangement of the wires would cause the limit.
I'm glad that some people aren't scared off by theoretical physical limits.
(That was in about 1986, A Hayes 1200 baud modem was an amazing piece of equipment and cost about $700)
Re: (Score:2)
I was a Boca Research man myself. I use to get screaming transfer rates on the local BBSs. I held the 1200 baud record for a long time on one of the more prominent systems.
Fast Forward to Slashdot 2009 (Score:3, Funny)
Geek Post Comments: I can't believe Comcast! They promised me an unlimited 200mbit connection and all I am getting is 60mbit! I want what I paid for, who cares how fast my connection was 3 years ago! I demand my 200mbit connection, and at $50 per month!11!
Geek Post Moderation: +5, Insightful
good grief. (Score:2)
On a related note, I note that hospitals are quietly getting ready to increase their budgets for coping with an influx of wrist related repetitive strain injuries and severe myopia. Not to mention a lack of sleep.
Details? Here are some links. (Score:5, Informative)
The slashdot summary and linked articles are rather short on details. A little googling located some details:
NOTE: I did a quick skim of it and had not seen any empirical evidence of the advance; seems to be entirely theoretical. I don't mean to lessen his accomplishments, but my experience is that reality usually has unforeseen factors. I certainly hope he IS on to something here!!
(*) I didn't know anyone used the <blink> tag any more. :/
I'm skeptical that this will work on POTS copper (Score:5, Informative)
But that's because coax is very well shielded and has consistent impedance. Twisted pair cable can do pretty well and give you a good few gigabits per second if it's good, high quality copper and has a decent amount of shielding and good insulated and grounded splices and connectors.
But the problem is that in practice the phone companies are mostly pushing DSL through little sipindly twisted copper which was put in for basic voice service a long long time ago. It's either not well shielded or not shielded at all. The twists are are not always very good and tight and it often is connected with spade connectors or even just stripped copper onto screw terminals. This ain't double-shielded cat-5e were talking about here. If it were, there wouldn't be nearly the issues of getting high speed data over phone lines at long distances and with good QOS.
The one thing that gets me is that phone companies continue to put this crap in. At least SBC (Now AT&T) does. It's understandable that their existing copper lines will be a huge task to have all replaced, but when running new services, why even bother with that old crap? How much more does some good network-grade stuff cost? Whatever it does, it still costs a lot less than it will when you eventually have to yank everything out in the near future. Verizon has the idea going with fiber (although that may even be overkill). They're putting in something which they know is not going to be a limit in the future so they don't need to worry about being stuck with obsolete cable.
The current lines are being squeezed to carry as much data as possible and that's causing problems. Hence, I do not see this as an issue of "Copper is not fast enough." It's that crappy old 2-wire phone cables are not fast enough. I really don't think that all that much more can be done with them by just trying to tweak the modulation and compression and such. It's just about hit the wall.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sounds good, but... (Score:5, Informative)
If this means they'll be able to go to ADSL3 at 200Mb/s then I'm all for it.
Parent
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Not for distance (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Comparable wireless (from the phone exchange to the subscriber's home) that's widely avaialable at the moment is GPRS (slightly faster than a modem that's 15 years old, with latency 10 times worse), 3G (about the speed of broadband 5 years ago, with latency ten times worse), or WiMAX (very good quality, and low latency - but only available in ver
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Static vs. Dynamic correction (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ADSL, though, uses the spectrum above, and needs extra ports on the last phone exchange to your house, since - contrary to standard modem - these signals don't pass through the plain old telephone system. They are kind of injected at the very end.