Rolling DSL and Wireless Access Out In One Swoop 198
B1ackFa1c0n writes: "Finally those of us in telecom valley (Petaluma/Santa Rosa, CA)
are getting DSL with a twist... Vista Broadband is beginning to roll out DSL to those of us beyond the SBC limit. Rumours have it that every home that installs gets a wireless router and an antenna on the roof - effectively expanding Vista's wireless network at the same time. If enough people sign up, this would allow seamless wireless coverage for the whole area *at a profit* to Vista."
Shared bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2, Informative)
How Fat's the Pipe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't this make the whole network more susceptible to wireless attackes by AirSnort and WEPcrack technologies?
Or am I on crack?
Re:How Fat's the Pipe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Fat's the Pipe? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't they have to deploy high-end security for each router that gets an antenna to prevent every deadbeat with an 802.11b device and some sniffing technology from surfing for free?
Re:How Fat's the Pipe? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How Fat's the Pipe? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't assume 802.11 (Score:4, Informative)
Shared? Somehow I doubt it... (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:4, Informative)
The only difference with cable is the proximity to the individual customer at which the sharing begins. Peak usage times on DSL introduce just as much slowdown to the user with his "dedicated" pipe as they would to the Cable user with his "shared" pipe.
I understand that your point relates to the sharing forced up on the user by the reselling of the wireless access which is sure to come, but the shared/dedicated differentiation between DSL and Cable is already misunderstood enough by Joe Sixpack without this added complexity.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:3, Informative)
I have both DSL and cable connections at home. I'm 3k feet from my CO, wire-distance. My DSL is set to 5mbit down / 1mbit up. Cable is 2mbit down, 384k up.
In my neighborhood, there is a very high concentration of customers terminating on the local cable node. When I last spoke to a contact I have at the cable company, he said that there were over 4 thousand connections from residences to the node. That node is connected via a single 45 mbit ATM DS3 to a regional ATM concentrator, then to the main office, which connects to the net over a singe 45mbit DS3.
As for the DSL connections at the serving Central Office, mine currently has about 1100 DSL lines connected to the DSLAMs located there. Each DSLAM is connected to the local SONET ring by an individual 45mbit ATM DS3, which each then connect into an ATM concentrator, and from there to the main office, and out to the Net via dual 155mbit links.
Raw performance in off-peak times isn't applicable, due to the speed of both connections. But during peak times, I'm lucky to get 20k/sec on the cable link while downloading a test file from the cable company's FTP server. The same test on the DSL network yields about 450k/sec duting peak times. Accessing the internet yields similar results.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
That isn't very accurate. Every DSL customer has a guaranteed amount of bandwidth to the CO, which starts getting shared from that point on. Depending on how the telco has set up their network, the CO may have more than enough bandwidth to be non-blocking all the way back to their core. From there if the customer is accessing stuff that is on the telco's network, or that the telco has direct high speed links to, there will be very little slowdown even at peak times. Access to the Internet will probably be slow due to oversubscription of their PoP links, but that is pretty much to be expected.
This differs from cable in that everyone in a neighborhood node shares their bandwidth right from the start. That means that at peak times, the customer could experience slow connections even to something on the cable companies local network.
Granted most people probably don't do much of anything that is on the local companies network, so the essence of what you said is true. On the other hand, if people use the companies caching proxy server to access web pages and are just looking at the standard static content for the most part, DSL subscribers are likely to be much happier than cable users.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
I guess it all depends on the company and how much they value customer satisfaction. The only DSL ISPs still standing are the big telcos and we all know how customer friendly they are.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:4, Informative)
Cable does share the bandwith among the neighborhood, but it usually (or at least is suppose to be) partitioned off into smaller neighborhoods once one gets beyond the capacity.
See here [cox.com] for more of an explanation and other DSL/Cable myths. Yes it is from Cox cable, and yes the do have a vested interest in trying to get you to subscribe to cable service, so take it with a grain of salt. But for the most part it is true.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
The phone company hopes that there will not be a large number of people sucking 768 kbs consistantly for very long periods of time, just as a cable company bets that not everyone in a neighborhood gets online all at once. But my original point is still valid. There is a limited total capacity of either system's pipes. There is still a bottle neck somewhere between the "Internet" the wall jack. The bottle neck just moves from the neighborhood to the CO.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Since I have no expericene working with ATM or traffice shaping, I might be talking out my ass (wouldn't be the first time
Either way, the bottleneck is still there somewhere between the wall jack and the internet. It's finite and can/will reach capacity at some point in time.
Ugh, propaganda... (Score:2)
Uh-huh, and does this make your DSL line any faster than a comparable cable modem? Take a look at the results of the DSLReports speed tests [dslreports.com] -- nearly all of the top speeds belong to cable modem networks.
I had DSL from Speakeasy -- 1.5MBps down/384K up. Great service, but it was $100/month. My $35/month cable modem has the same download speed. I get 1.5MBps down, period. It's not dependent on how far I am from the cable company, either.
You have a point, but the fact that your bandwidth isn't shared doesn't make a difference in your overall speed. This is just something the DSL companies came up with to try to differentiate their more expensive service from the cable modem crowd.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
This is technically true, and one of the reasons I always preferred DSL. But in practice, a Cable Modem is a pretty phat pipe, at least here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula (California / Cox). I regularly get 300 K-bytes per second downloads (yes, that's 2.4 megabits/sec). Nothing like getting 1/4 10Base-T Ethernet speeds.
That's compared to the 384kb DSL that I used to pay twice as much for at my old pad.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Everybody (most notably DSL providers) is quoting this as a downside of Cable, and an advantage of DSL.
I share something like 2Mbps with my neighborhood. From the central office of my cable company I still share the link with the rest of the customers of my ISP. My cable provider caps me at 512mbps.
ADSL customers have their private 6mbps (but capped to the same 512mbps) link to the ISP, and then share a similar link with the other customers to the "rest of the internet".
No provider will tell you what the capacity of those links are. And they won't tell you when and how much they are congested.
What I do know is that on average, I get (slightly) better download speeds than my friends with ADSL.
I deduct from this that at the moment, my Cable provider has a better internet link than hte averate ADSL provider out here, and that my local segment isn't very crowded.
Roger.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1, Insightful)
Cable modems share a "collision domain". DSL does not.
There. Go get a degree, and then use your intelligence. Otherwise, piss off.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
Cable is shared bandwidth from the cable company CO or central office to the users on that local cable loop segment.
DSL is NOT - it's basically a PPP style connection from the CO to you.
Thus, your won't suffer from performance lag from other users in your segment.
Now, if the DSL is terminated in a ATM or Frame cloud that is saturated, you'll have to compete with those other requests from other customers to the SAME ISP.
If your ISP oversells too much, you can always switch ISP's, and then provided the new ISP doesn't oversell, the problem is fixed.
If you are on the same cable segment (cable modem here) and another group of users saturate the cable segment, the only solution is to blow up those users who are saturating your segment. Since you stand to do a long stint with Bubba in the local pen. for such an act of terrorism (Seig Heil Ashcroft!) it doesn't seem like such a great solution.
For these reasons, DSL has some significant advantages over cable.
Cheers!
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
*ahem* Maybe those customers cursed with the travesty that is PPPoE have a "PPP style" connection, but mine is straight TCP/IP, no wrappers required.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
next to nothing about it technically other than
that my Earthlink service uses it, my router
speaks it and it works fine. Is there some
serious technical issue with it?
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2, Insightful)
SBC is extending DSL coverage with DSLAMs located outside the CO, typically on the poles in the serviced areas.
The question then becomes: how much bandwidth is the pole-mounted DSLAM fed, hmmm?
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
I guarantee that would speed up the rollout rate for DSL. Fame is lots more costly to roll out, and DSL just siphons off revenue from those frame ciruits. So the telco just doesn't provide DSL where it doesn't want to, or provides a wimpy DSL connection (i.e. 7Mb/s down 2Kb/s up [sheesh])!
Cheers!
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Cable: right outside the house
DSL: at the ISP's uplink
six of one, half dozen of the other. DSL is nowhere near as clogfree as cable is made out to be, given equal overselling of the upstream capacity it's exactly the same, in fact.
The uplinks are the bottleneck, I've always found - not the link from me to the ISP.
(I'm a shaw.ca subscriber)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2, Insightful)
My ISP charges for bandwidth used. That means that if they keep congestion down, they get the opportunity to bill me more money. That's incentive to keep oversell to a minimum.
Choice is a good thing! DSL isn't perfect, but it does allow for a more choice rich system.
Cheers!
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
First they tell me that I have no choice but to replace my LanCity cable modem with a Teryon POS. Then they shutoff all service to the older cable modems 3 days before They failed to come out, and deliver the new modem. I also lost my static IP that I had for the past 4 years.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Transport is the largest recurring cost in deployment.
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:1)
I'm not suggesting you're blowing smoke, but I suspect that the "digital" cable TV signal uses a significant portion of this bandwidth.
Also, how many users are on a local segment.
A few dozen, no problem. 20,000, that's a big problem.
I'd love to see some figures...
Thanks!
Cheers!
Re:Shared bandwidth (Score:2)
Now, you may not have had these problems. You may not be in an area as fraught with DSL problems as others. But for that matter, my cable modem is faster than any DSL sold around here, and doesn't clog like you say it should. (And DSL happens not to be available at my specific location.)
Clearly, your post is a massive oversimplification of the issue. If someone wants to know which is best for them, they need to check out the specifics for their area, rather than relying on some "networkguru" who believes in a holy grail.
"Telecom Valley"?? (Score:2, Funny)
Not that telecom isn't one big valley - look at WorldCom and Global Crossing stock.
Re:"Telecom Valley"?? (Score:1)
Re:"Telecom Valley"?? (Score:1)
course given the attrition in the telecom vendor segment, many of the smaller players are out of business.
Re:"Telecom Valley"?? (Score:1)
unsubscription (Score:4, Insightful)
or is there a claus that says that once the transmission tower is welded to your house/trailer it cant be taken down. ever.
Channeling Chico (Score:1)
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. You can't fool me...there ain't no Sanity Clause.
Not a bad deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Makes sense to me anyways.
-Restil
Is this wrong? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:1)
Not too shabby (Score:2, Interesting)
Also how strong the signal is without an atenna.. be kinda like wirless internet for thoes laptop people, when the infastructure gets big enuff, from soo many residental users. I hope this works out :)
Re:Not too shabby (Score:1)
*shameless plug*My employer [meshnetworks.com], based in Orlando, is developing a wireless product somewhat similar, that solves a lot of these problems. It is interesting in that the more users join the network, the better the connectivity for everyone (i.e. more potential routes). We have a test network set up near our headquarters, and I can go out anywhere within it and get high-speed internet access (limited only by the T1 backhaul).
Security? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Security? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Security? (Score:1)
Says who? Cisco's sure isn't, and I don't know anyone else that is.
There are some solutions possible, by have fast changing keys via Radius with Cisco and others, but this only gets you part way there.
I don't trust the current 802.x wep at all. I might consider trusting the "new" standard when it arrives, and gets some serious peer review. Until then, I don't assume that ANY 802.x wep is secure, even trivially so. I assume that I might as well be packet capturing all traffic (in the clear) over said wireless net and handing it off to any anonymous person who requests it.
Cheers!
Re:Security? (Score:1)
If you are going to flame people, make sure you understand the topic.
Drive by hacking... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Drive by hacking... (Score:1)
DSL? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
Re:DSL? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
Additionally, our wireless connections mean no busy signals, no missed calls, and no tying up your regular phone lines. (emphasis mine)
The network is, in fact, entirely wireless according to the information they provide. You can find a slightly more technical description here [vistabroadband.com].
I have to agree with the parent, this is not DSL. DSL is based on copper wire. If there is even an inch of fiber between you and the CO, you can't get DSL. DirectTV's "DSL" is similarly misleading. These are certainly broadband technologies, and they're definately cool, but they are not DSL.
These companies are inapropriately using the term DSL for marketing purposes, likely because DSL and DSL providors enjoy a much more favorable reputation than other consumer broadband options, and totally ignoring the fact that DSL is a very specific technology. It's unfortunate, perhaps, but the fact is that everyone who's going to be interested in this has heard of DSL, whereas calling it MMDS, for example, would lead to some headscratching and a lot of questions asked of "knowledgable friends" at cocktail parties.
Re:DSL? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www1.worldcom.com/us/products/access/bro
We're using it at my office, and it works very well. DSL speeds (up to 1.0 MBits), as long as you have a direct line of site and are within a 35 mile radius of a central tower. Works well for us!
Peer to peer (Score:1)
Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, these vista guys seem somewhat further advanced in their endeavor - they've actually launched!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
Gnutella, and now Broadband (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how well it will scale. Will users' bandwidth drop as more and more customers in their area sign on, due to the heavy relaying of traffic?
This is not DSL (Score:5, Informative)
Jeff
Re:This is not DSL (Score:1, Informative)
Um hold on a second... (Score:2, Informative)
They are calling their fixed wireless service "DSL" to market it. It's no more DSL than a tin can and string.
"Beyond the SBC limit" should have given that away anyway. You simply can't have DSL service past a certain cable run length. Who the hell do you think runs the CO's? SBC! Some copanies sell IDSL in locations where SBC won't, thereby increasing their customer base to "beyond bell," but this is not one of those cases.
Honestly.
-=AnonyMoose=-
Re:Um hold on a second... (Score:1)
Not Petaluma? (Score:1)
A good test for Vista? (Score:4, Funny)
Community Broadband Project (Score:1)
http://www.bvc.com.au/online/
looks like it's broken at the moment tho...:-(
As others have pointed out... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of fixed wireless companies (not just broadband data) call their services the wireless equivalent of the wireline alternative. Ie: Wireless Cable -- what a misnomer!
Some company says "Wireless DSL" and some stupid person posts it to slashdot as some sort of breakthrough idea. It's simply fixed wireless.
You can't sell DSL service "beyond SBC" unless you want to run your own CO's, which is not turning out to be very profitable for small companies to do. DSL only goes over copper wires and it only goes so far.
~GoRK
Re:As others have pointed out... (Score:1)
Why can't you call a combination of DSL and wireless Wireless DSL?
Wireless Broadband (Score:2, Informative)
According to the techs I worked with it's not DSL, it's just an implementation of 802.11 wireless with directional antennae.
We recently had to switch over to DSL because the wireless got too flaky over time.
Wireless != DSL (Score:1, Redundant)
Does anyone know what hardware they're using? I would guess Nokia Rooftop [nokia.com] because that's the only equipment of this type I've heard of.
Re:Wireless != DSL (Score:1)
Rightttttttt, cuz if you haven't heard of it, it can't exist, right?
Re:Wireless != DSL (Score:2)
And all he got was a smart ass remark.
only on slashdot...
Confusion? (Score:2)
This is NOT DSL! (Score:5, Informative)
Residential wireless is neat, but only if you can't get DSL or a cable modem. The latency makes it problematic for fast-paced online games, but the download speed makes it ideal for web surfing. Also, wireless usually has a transfer limit -- in this company's case, it's 3GB-6GB a month (3GB for the lower-priced connections.) You have to watch your downloads.
It's a great idea if your only choice is dialup, and I'm glad to finally see a company recognize that this is a great service to those in flat areas that DSL/cable are not covering.
Latency depends on hops, queuing, if any (Score:2)
The Metricom Ricochet network had occasionally significant latency issues, because some radio poletops were directly connected to frame relay data feeds, while other poletops relayed data to each other until they reached a wired poletop, which incurred latency for queuing and copying and CPU processing at each poletop. So not only did you get affected by how many users were sharing a wired poletop directly or indirectly, but also by how far away you were from a wired poletop. Especially in their initial deployment in the Silicon Valley area, the real bandwidth was down near San Jose / Santa Clara, and the farther you went up Route 101, away from the core area, the more relay hops you had to suffer through. But it was still cool to be able to get email on your laptop from where you were, even if it wasn't always good enough for telnet.
Slashdot Gets It Wrong Again (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing to see here, people. Move along...
Nokia rooftop not 802.11b (Score:2, Informative)
FYI
Creative Use of Coffee Cans (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creative Use of Coffee Cans (Score:2, Funny)
why both? (Score:2)
Why not just cut out the dsl and give everyone wireless
now if they'd just get DSL to silicon valley.. (Score:1)
I'm having a race with my parents in rural Ohio to see who will get broadband first..
wireless in petaluma (Score:1)
./bot
Amateur usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Amateur usage. (Score:1)
global warming... (Score:1)
Something is better than nothing (Score:2)
Re:simpsons (Score:1)
Re:Rumors (Score:1)
Re:interesting (Score:1)