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Hardware

150 Mbit/s DSL. 345

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'd-settle-for-150Kbit/s dept.
surstrmming writes "German company Infineon have released their new QAM VDSL Plus chips, providing 150 Mbit/s data rates over ordinary copper wire." Note that that kinda throughput is at the 1000 feet mark... but the chip can still serve up 4mbps even at 13,000 feet.
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150 Mbit/s DSL. More

150 Mbit/s DSL.

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  • Where is my last generation Broadband? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Traa ( 158207 ) * on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:11PM (#6193647) Homepage Journal
    I used to drool over the 'next-generation-is-just-around-the-corner' stories, but
    lately I have been having second thoughts.

    I live in the middle of Silicon Valley and they can't even serve me DSL better then
    190Kbits/sec. No cable modem in my area eiter. It is so painfull, I almost posted this
    anonymous ;-)

    No really...when will last generations broadband stuff truly be available to the masses
    here in the US? Who and how will they fix the last-mile problem if the governament isn't
    stimulating this issue?

    Same with the phone network. 3G you ask? HAHAHA, not in the mother-of-all-technology
    countries, nosir.
    • Take a look at the terms-of-service for and cable-modem service.

      These are cable TV people. They view multiple hosts behind NAT as theft-of-service; the functional equivalent of illegal secondary cable-boxes!

      I don't care if it's 10x speed at .5 price...

      • Re:Where is my last generation Broadband? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Adelphia's cable modem TOS states that multiple hosts behind a NAT is fine but they'll only support up to the NAT. THat's a perfectly fine stance in my book.

        Now, to pare down my $130 a month cable bill...

      • Re:Where is my last generation Broadband? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Cox does not view multiple hosts behind a NAT as theft of service. They have a FAQ on NAT setup on their website [cox.com]. They also have a NAT setup service [cox.com] (for those of you who don't know how to set one up). I also get 3Mbit (max) down (384 up) for $40...
      • That would depend on the provider, my provider doensn't do that and neither do any of my friends providers although I guess maybe some do. Personally I couldn't imagine having to go back to 640/128.

        I'll take my 10x speed and .5 price thank you.
        • The local cable "service" has a TOS agreement that forbits NAT, and any form of tunnel or VPN - enforced with active filtering. Ouch.

          I get 1.5Mbps down, 768Mbps up on DSL, plus Speakeasy are generally cool folks. Run their own RPM-find mirror. Now, all they need are .debs!

      • hmmm, i'd sure as hell like 10x speed at .5 price, especially since my provider doesnt give a rats ass about NATing, they even told me how to do it. after all, cable modems are designed to serve up a big network, and sometimes you need to nat the damn thing.
    • Quit bitching...I can't get faster than 56k dial up at home. I want first generation broadband!

      BTW...screw Verizon and Comcast, I have been phoning them for over 2 years now with little or no progress. "Soon" they say.

    • you must have missed this story: (Score:5, Informative)

      by Erris ( 531066 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:33PM (#6193918) Homepage Journal
      It's not a technical problem [slashdot.org].
      • Actually, I believe that the days of the baby bells dragging their feet (as the previous Slashdot post mentioned) on High Speed Internet Access are over. I believe that Cable currently accounts for 7 or 8 out of every 10 new broadband users. With the erosion of the residential phone line customer base due to cell phones, the "Bells" are looking for ways to keep customers from switching. (It has been shown that customers that have more than one service are less likely to switch.) Both Verizon and SBC have
    • Man that is slow. Where are you? I'm in the Rose Garden area of Willow Glen within San Jose (near Campbell) and I get 1500Kbps down and 256kbps up with SBC [Yahoo] DSL for $44.95/month. That's what they quote and I get the top end of the range. If I paid for this and got your speed they would come out and fix it by adjusting length from the F2 or something along those lines. If you're too far from your CO you'll have to be forced to go slower, but you should not be that low!
      • Well, I moved from Cupertino (1500Kbps cable) to North Valley San Jose (190Kbps DSL, no cable option). Seems that I am simply 'out of luck' for an unknown reason. They tested the hell out of my DSL line and don't know why our neighbourhood is this slow. I'm not that far from my local CO either. I'm not convinced they gave it all the effor it deserves given the amount of people in my area that seem to be effected.

        Lesson: Check broadband availability before you buy the house. Because if you rely on it (my wi
    • No really...when will last generations broadband stuff truly be available to the masses
      here in the US? Who and how will they fix the last-mile problem if the governament isn't
      stimulating this issue?

      Heh, firstly, quit whining about 190k/sec. I just went to Bellsouth ADSL from Charter cable, a 384kb/s -> 1500kb/s jump (and man it feels good).

      Secondly, the government isn't stimulating this issue (and neither are the states), because the country has serious economic problems. Living with "just" 190k/sec w
      • "Living with "just" 190k/sec would be heaven to anyone living in a rural area. If you're really more desperate for bandwidth, invest in a T1/T3/OC3/OC48."

        Hell yeah. Where I live, I am lucky to get 28.8. People down the road are lucky of they get a 21.6 conection. There is no ADSL or cable. Satellite, even 2-way satellite, is terrible since for the 2-way servie you are limited in the number of outbound conncetions. For deluxe packages you get something like 35 connections. I use more than that for a

        • That's awesome man, I say do it grassroots style. Send out flyers explaining your situation. Tell them what it would cost based on the number of people signed up.

          Prepare yourself for lots of questions, prepare to make this your fulltime job (and charge accordingly, you'll get 1000 "I can't check my email" "Why won't msn.com come up" questions).

          However, wireless technology is very crappy during storms and weather. Latency is terrible. This means you'll get lots of complaints from gamers, because their ping
      • "Secondly, the government isn't stimulating this issue (and neither are the states), because the country has serious economic problems."

        Yeah, like having decent infrastructure is somehow bad for the economy. [/sarcasm]

        The gov't is acting in the best interests of local monopolies/campaign contributors, not the people.
    • we have no cable or dsl

      56k is all

      consider yourself relatively lucky

  • Pretty cool, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShwAsasin ( 120187 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:13PM (#6193667) Journal
    Thats pretty awesome, however with some people > 5Km from their CO, they may not get a proper sync rate. I'm, thankfully, very close to my CO, and have a 3mbps line now. Downloading at 350kb/sec is awesome, but after a while the cool-factor wears off. It's handy when Red Hat and other distros of interest are released but otherwise it's an expensive (70 Canuckles a month)toy.
    • When I lived in NYC I paid $200/mo for a 8400Kbit/1000kbit DSL. I was less then a thousand feet from the CO. It was amazingly good. $200 was a bargain for the amount of bandwidth I got; not to mention as many IP's that I needed, and always full speed. I used the bandwidth. If you don't, then you don't really need it I guess..

      Now that I live in RI again, I can't get DSL. I'm 12,000 feet from the CO. 128/128 dsl does not compare to my Cablemodem, even though my cablemodem is heavily nerfed (bloc
      • I can't believe any ISP can offer that kind of DSL without bandwidth limits, it's about 1/4th the cost of a T-1 with about 5.5X the DL bandwdith and 3/4 the UL bandwidth. Also at 12K feet you should be able to get at least 768/128 service although you would need a clean pair.
        • Well, it depends. My DSL in NYC had no limits, the line speed was the limit. It was a "7 megabit" DSL, but it synced at 8400 since I was so close to the CO (It was across the street.) Upstream was still less then T1 (1mbit.)

          T1 lines are also regulated. The ISP must have the bandwidth to support their T1 line customers. A DSL is not guarenteed bandwidth; I was lucky enough to get an ISP that just happened to always give me all the bandwidth I could use.

          I'm willing to pay for the bandwidth, if I can

  • simpsons reference... (Score:5, Funny)

    by s0rbix ( 629316 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:13PM (#6193679)
    Maybe HE can provide faster nudity...
    • I've been working on a program to download porno 1 million times faster.

      Does anyone need that much porno?

      mmmmm... one million times ....

      (i know i butchered the quote, get over it, i have a life outside of tv)

  • My cable (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shibbydude ( 622591 )
    gets 2 Mbits per second downstream and about half a megabit upstream. I run a server from that and have heavy traffic. Given that faster is better, how much are you willing to pay for the *possibility* that your connection will be faster? SBC is the only telco that offers dsl in my area and they are not too keen on progress. I could see them using this hardware and then still regulating traffic to 300kb/s.

  • Space (Score:2, Funny)

    by winston_pr ( 617086 )
    150Mbit ?! They'd better bundle the modems with 200Gb harddrives.
    • mmmm, 200Gb of porn..... i might never leave the house! .... not that I ever do ... i'm going to go drink away the pain, and maybe watch another porn ...

      By the way, 200Gb is small time when youu have that kinda speed, and, most providers wont pump it out that fast, so you wont be getting much advatnage out of it. After all, i rarely download over 150kbs, even though i've been able to acheive well over 200kbs (the provider is just as important in this equation)
      • I read alot of folks talking about 150-300KB/sec Down... and I can't help but wonder... I have Cable from Shaw in Calgary, and I often get 650KB(byte, not bit)/sec downloads... You poor bastards with ~150K down... how do you live with it???

        That being said, the up is like 60-70KB/sec

    • Re:Space (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 )
      " 150Mbit ?! They'd better bundle the modems with 200Gb harddrives."

      I'd prefer that they bundled it with a gigabit ethernet card.

  • useful for intranet too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:15PM (#6193704)
    many intranet connections are less than 1000 ft from the router. so now the chip could be used for intranet connections too. since most people have office phone, they can share the same line for data too and no need to worry about laying lots of ethernet cable. can i get one of those at decent price for my home networking? i have telephone connections in all rooms but no ethernet wires.
    • Of course you would have to have a DSLAM at one end of the phone wire and a DSL modem at the other end, which would probably be considerably more then just running cat5 to all the computers.
      • You don't necessarily need a dslam. I know there are a few dsl modem models (ADC megabit modems come to mind) that can run back-to-back, so you just need one for each end.

        Also, both Cisco and SMC and others I'm sure make a product called extended ethernet which is designed for just this scenario. Granted, it IS essentially a dslam, it just looks more like an ethernet switch, but you patch it and a filter/splitter into the phone lines. Also, they don't run at 150 mbit, but with this chip, they could.
    • "many intranet connections are less than 1000 ft from the router. so now the chip could be used for intranet connections too. since most people have office phone, they can share the same line for data too and no need to worry about laying lots of ethernet cable."

      Sounds like a job for VoIP. (Voice over IP.)

      I am at work at the moment and there is a single cat5e cable coming from the jack up onto my desk which plugs into a Cisco 7910 IP Phone. Another cat5e runs from the phone to the computer. I think th

  • New, Fast DSL (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:17PM (#6193727)
    Great, now with my fast new DSL, I can have an extra long annoying signature..

    --

    From anonymous: "

    All I Want To Do
    Is Be Close To You,

    All I Want To Say
    Is Thank You For The Way,

    You Love Me,
    You Love Me,

    All I Want To Do
    Is Be Close To You,

    All I Want To Say
    Is Thank You For The Way,

    You Love Me,
    You Love Me,

    You Are Faithful,
    To All That You Have Promised And,

    Loving in all your ways,

    And still with all of my failings,
    You Love Me, You Love Me, You Love Me.

  • Profit! (Score:4, Funny)

    by 56ksucks ( 516942 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:18PM (#6193739) Homepage

    Step 1: Move within 2000 feet of DSL provider

    Step 2: ???

    Step 3: Profit!

    • Why the ??? for step 2? We all know that the only reason for moving that close to make a profit would be to provide high bandwith pr0n for the masses.

  • Typeical Cable Runs + Fibre (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Richard Dale ( 681309 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:20PM (#6193756)
    These speeds aren't that impressive when considering the normal density of telephone exchanges and typical copper cable runs. It seems that the DSL bandwidth over 2 copper wires has reached the point of not being able to significantly increase the capacity at anything approaching Moore's law. When will we have carriers that value the importance of running fibre to the home and developing high capacity switches to cater for this level of bandwidth? Here in Australia, there is serious consideration for the Natural Gas utilities to provide fibre-in-the-gas-pipe-infrastructure.

    • Re:Typeical Cable Runs + Fibre (Score:4, Funny)

      by MadCow42 ( 243108 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:07PM (#6194272)
      >>Natural Gas utilities to provide fibre-in-the-gas-pipe-infrastructure.

      Cool... until you turn the shutoff valve! q:]

      "No! Don't turn off the gas!"

      "But sir, your house is on fire?"

      "You'll kill my broadband!"

      "............(muttering) f$%#ing geeks...."

      MadCow.
    • Fiber to the neighborhood is sufficient. For the cost of running about 200 fiber drops, the local phone company could provide 10+Mbit service to everyone in my metro area (Richmond, VA). See, fiber is a real bitch to work with, while any fool with a pocket knife can splice copper. That makes fiber to the door rather unrealistic, but fiber to the neighborhood real easy. As it is, I'm stuck with a cable modem. It's plenty fast, even for my needs, but I can't get a static IP and it's over priced. DSL, wh
    • ... somebody is willing to pay for it. As it is most people are happy with the speeed they get from current cable modems and DSL. Unless there's an application that the average consumer wants that consumes more bandwidth, there will be no market for these services.

  • Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jdh-22 ( 636684 )
    Although this is a nice breakthrough, it still doesn't fix the last mile problem. Other countries, smaller countries have a big advantage in implementing high bandwidth networks. Others like the United States and Canada are still having trouble getting to the last mile.

    Rather than keep seeing high bandwidth broadband in (rather) short distances, why not develop a network with decent speeds 500kb/s+ that can go long distances. Wireless helps, but is not quiet there. There have been discussions about in

  • Translation (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1000 feet = 300 Metres
    13000 feet = 4km.

  • For most, won't matter. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tyler Eaves ( 344284 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:22PM (#6193797)
    As the subject says, 99.9% of the the people out there are limited not by the capability of the line, but by the limits imposed by the service provider.

  • DSL needs shot in the arm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saganaga ( 167162 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:23PM (#6193800) Homepage
    Most people I know who have a choice between DSL and cable modem have gone with cable (myself included). This mostly comes down to the speed difference (although in my case it also had to do with a maddening disconnect problem that Qwest DSL could not seem to solve for me).

    If DSL could truly start offering service that is MUCH faster than cable, they might be able to reverse the trend towards cable (67% for cable vs. 28% for DSL according to a recent Pew Internet & American Life Project study [pewinternet.org].)

  • Non-troll slashdotted text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:23PM (#6193810)
    News

    VDSL Leaders Announce VDSLPlus: Data Rates Up to 150Mbps and Extended Reach Exceeding 4 KM Using Robust QAM Technology
    2003-06-11

    Joint news release of Infineon and Metalink

    Munich, Germany and Yakum, Israel â" June 11, 2003 â" Addressing the market demand for ever greater reach for VDSL and ever greater bandwidth over a single pair, Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) and Metalink (Nasdaq: MTLK), today announced they are each developing VDSLPlus, which introduces a fifth-band extension of standard VDSL technology. VDSLPlus will enable service providers to offer scalable DSL services ranging from short range applications at data rates up to 150 Megabits per second (Mbps), to long reach applications that allow for more than 4Mbps rates over distances of 4km (13,200 ft) using the same line-card and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) designs.

    VDSLPlus will use a new frequency âoebandâ above the current 12 MHz limit, as defined by international VDSL standards, to achieve the highest speeds ever reached in data transmission over standard twisted-pair copper wire. The benefits of the extended QAM VDSL technology include:

    • Delivery of over 150 Mbps aggregated bandwidth over single-pair copper wire - at more than 300m (1000 feet).
    • Reach of over 4km (13,200 feet) at speeds exceeding 4 Mbps.
    • Compliance with all relevant VDSL standardsâ(TM) requirements including: Band Plan 998, 997, and those defined by the Chinese CTSI as well as any proprietary band plans.
    • Spectral compatibility and co-existence with narrowband and legacy DSL services including POTS, EuroISDN, TCM-ISDN and ADSL.
    • Support for both Ethernet and ATM over VDSL.

    "Infineon and Metalink continuously work to extend the capabilities of QAM VDSL, each making great strides in advancing the technology. As Service Providers and Carriers have mass deployed and gotten familiar with QAM VDSL over the four years it has been in the market, their demands have grown for increased VDSL bandwidth and reach, while they want QAM to maintain its highly cost effective, scalable deployment model. Metalink and Infineon are committed to collaborating with other industry leaders in extending the open QAM VDSL specifications and definitions to continuously meet this demand while preserving strict compliance to international standards," said Tzvika Shukhman, Chairman and CEO of Metalink.

    Metalink and Infineon continue to be committed to teaming with other QAM PHY and system companies to promote VDSLPlus standardization in the various standar-dization bodies and to extend the companiesâ(TM) already proven interoperability to the new technology. The two companies are the only suppliers to have demonstrated fully interoperable, commercially available VDSL products.

    " The accelerated market demand for enhanced VDSL drives the cooperation between Metalink and Infineon, especially in Asia Pacific and Japan where QAM VDSL is a huge ongoing success. VDSLPlus is an extension to field-proven QAM-VDSL technology, incorporating enhanced integration levels, higher bandwidth capacity, and greater reach capabilities. With more than two million QAM VDSL lines in service generating revenue for Operators and more than a hundred system vendors who already offer QAM-based VDSL platforms, QAM is accepted as the de-facto line code for VDSL,â said Christian Wolff, Vice President of Infineon's Communications Business Group and General Manager of the Access Business Unit.

    QAM VDSL chipsets and systems, supporting the ITU, ETSI, Chinese, and ANSI band allocation plans, provide very high speed data transmission rates over robust, noise-immune QAM links enabling simultaneous video, data, and voice services over single-pair copper wires. The inherent simplicity of the QAM line code is demon-strated in superior cost and power advantages over competing VDSL line codes, yet with QAMâ(TM)s sophisticated features and benefits. These advantages are f

  • That's fast but, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xeaxes ( 554292 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:24PM (#6193816)
    Would it ever come to America? With only the few major companies controlling most of the broadband access, and the FCC making it harder for the little guys to survive, innovations like this get conveniently left behind for larger profit margins.

    I now have broadband from a small, independent company (that is slowly going under cause of SWB), but I get 4 Mbit down and 500 Kbit up for about half the price of SWB's 1.5 Mbit down w/ 16 Kbit up. I routinely have 350 - 450 KB/s downloads, and they have great service. They would most likely hop on a technology like this so they can keep ahead of the big companies, but they are going under.

    Without the little companies, there will never be incentive for the big companies to invest in techonology like this or any other technologies that would improve our online experience.

  • Old technology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bigjnsa500 ( 575392 ) <bigjnsa500&yahoo,com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:28PM (#6193875) Homepage Journal
    Why use this old technology when they can invest in newer technology like fiber to the house and/or Internet2 connectivity?

    • Re:Old technology (Score:2, Informative)

      by CdaveC ( 566528 )
      Actually xDSL is newer technology than fiber. The reason most telcos use DLS is because itâ(TM)s VERY expensive to lay fiber (especially if you've already got infrastructure in place, i.e. copper).

      I would like telcos to step up and start offering consumer grade DSL with synchronous transfers and faster speeds, how about 5Mbps, or 3Mbps even!! We can talk faster after that!
      • You can get SDSL now. However it's expensive as heck. I get 1.1Mbit SDSL for a whopping $200 per month. The tech is there and there are companies willing to provide it however most "consumers" aren't willing to pay for the speed they want.

    • Re:Old technology (Score:3, Informative)

      by GPB ( 12468 )

      You'll never get Internet2 connectivity, unless you are a research institution (or related to one in some capacity). Read about the purpose of Internet2 here [internet2.edu].

      Basically Internet2 is a big playground for Universities and research institutions. The idea is that on this playground they will develop new technologies that will someday get folded back into the good old commodity Internet.

      -Brian

  • As if it will matter... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nicholas Schumacher ( 21495 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:32PM (#6193907) Homepage
    Who cares if it can do 150 Mbit?

    Nobody is going to run that kind of pipe out to the CO.
    • How is parent insightful? As a business owner with two locations, I would benefit from this product's availability immensely. No more dealing with the hassles of long-range wireless or paying $1000's to get fiber laid in order to have a decent pipe from location to location for our VPN operations and fault tolerant co-location.

      DSL Consumers, look elsewhere. For people with mission-critical bandwidth needs, this will be a godsend.

      • Did I just hear the words 'mission-critical' and 'DSL' in the same sentence? I have yet to see a DSL line, business or otherwise, that won't go down like a two-dollar whore at a moments notice.

        That's what your paying for with a leased line, quality of service. Every time I took the T1 down at work I got a call within a minute or two from the telco wanting to recify the situation.

  • QAM? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:34PM (#6193930) Homepage Journal
    If I may karma whore for a bit, what is this "QAM" busniess?

    QAM stands for "Quadrature Amplitude Modulation" which is a fancy name for a simple concept. Also called "I/Q modulation" it's a way to transmit two data streams over the same carrier signal.

    The streams are combined in such a way that they can be separated at the other end by using the two most elegant mathematical theorems of man, sine and cosine. What happens, in basic terms, the streams are at "right angles" to each other in the signal.

    Being able to have two carriers worth of data can provide a geometric increase in capacity; this was also the technology that was going to be behind "Stereo AM" radio, but that never made it off the ground (Stero AM would have been cool since it would only have to use one frequency for both left and right channels unlike our current analogue sterophonic FM that uses 2 channels).

    • Re:QAM? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gouldtj ( 21635 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:02PM (#6194230) Homepage Journal
      Just another tag onto that:

      QAM is the modulation that they use for digital cable also. Most networks are QAM 64 today, going to QAM 256 in the future, sometime.
    • I/Q modulation

      I think I've heard of that. Isn't that where the stupid people talk loudly, and make a fool of themselves, much like Slashdot? :)

    • Re:QAM? (Score:3, Informative)

      by rcw-work ( 30090 )
      Being able to have two carriers worth of data can provide a geometric increase in capacity

      No [bldrdoc.gov], it [techtarget.com] can't [ucnv.edu.au].

      For a given signal-to-noise ratio, double the bitrate still requires double the bandwidth. Improvement in modulation techniques can only serve to more closely approximate the theoretical.

    • Re:QAM? (Score:3, Informative)

      by PetiePooo ( 606423 )
      I considered moderating this as overrated, but thought it would be better to explain why I thought so.

      Being able to have two carriers worth of data can provide a geometric increase in capacity; ...

      The post makes it sound like it can double almost any existing signal, when in fact QAM (or other techniques combining amplitude with either phase or frequency such as OFDM) has existed in most modulation methods for a long time. Its a rare exception where data is being modulated strictly through AM or FM.

    • Re:QAM? (Score:3, Informative)

      by WhiplashII ( 542766 )
      Quadrature Amplitude Modulation is where you transmit some bits in the amplitude of the signal, and some bits in the phase (delay) of the signal. Basically it is a way to get more bits from the same bandwidth by trading sensitivity to phase noise. Most electronic transmissions use QAM.

  • What about the remote users? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unfortunateson ( 527551 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:36PM (#6193948) Journal
    I'm currently about 5KM or so from my CO. No ADSL available, only Comcast cable modem with their usual bandwidth throttling.

    SBC did offer to sell me SDSL: twice the price of their standard ADSL ($80/mo) at 128K (bleah).

    How about some devices to make it easy to relay the DSL signals to the edges of the CO's area?
    If a chip can give you those great speeds at 4KM, can we at least get reasonable service beyond that?

  • Fiber-Fed Neighborhood (Score:4, Informative)

    by Agent Green ( 231202 ) * on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:37PM (#6193956)
    This is great...but seriously out of reach of most subscribers to even be cost-effective to implement.

    Then there are the people like me who live in fiber-fed areas. It doesn't matter how close I am to the CO, but because my copper terminates in a SLIC hut and not on a CO's MDF, I'm SOL.

    People in my shoes traditionally have had to use either IDSL-based services (DSL over ISDN carrier for 144k), or get a T1.

    I wish I had the coin for a T1, though.
    • I'm one of those people. I get a straight 28.8K connection out of my modem. I'm also unfortunate to live in an area not supplied by a cable company. My only options are Satellite (expensive) or ISDN (expensive and difficult). DSL is great, but I'm waiting for the next big thing where I can actually take advantage of it. :)
      • ISDN is simply expensive (unless you live in TN.) It's not at all difficult. There are a few extra steps beyond "plug in line", but really, how hard is it to enter the switch type and SPIDs provided by the telco? (If you can get ISDN, you can get IDSL... where I work, we have IDSL lines in SC terminated on a DSLAM back in Raleigh, NC. As long as you are withing 50,000ft of an ISDN capable CO, the line can be terminated anywhere.)

        Satellite is a pain in the ass for what you get out of it. You cannot ins

    • Re:Fiber-Fed Neighborhood (Score:4, Funny)

      by Boing ( 111813 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:58PM (#6194185)
      Yikes. I'd better stop reading this discussion; That was ten percent less than a lethal dose of acronyms.

  • Well, it's neat and all... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:40PM (#6193992) Homepage Journal
    ..but for the home user it's impractical until the internet catches up to it. I wonder what'll come along where 150mb becomes a must have?

    Anybody read up on the Internet 2? If memory serves, they've been dishing out 100mbs or so. I can't remember what they were doing with that bandwidth, though.

    I'm not asking from a cynical perspective. I'm really curious what happens when 150mbs can be served up. The first thing that pops into my mind is setting up a server at home (assuming 150 up as well as down. I can dream!) and remotely accessing it anywhere. Fun stuff. Wish I was more imaginitive tho.

  • Great News for ISPs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:45PM (#6194054)
    This is great news for ISPs! After the user has exhausted his 1 GB monthly bandwidth allocation, he can now choose to purchase more extra bandwidth to enhance revenue.

    If extra bandwidth is only 10 cents per megabyte, a single user on a 150mbit line could choose to purchase up to $4,860,000.00 per month (plus $324,432.46 federal excise tax and $127,368.32 universal service fee) of additional data services! If only a few percent of all users decide to puchase this much data, there would be a huge potential for revenue growth.

  • 4mbps! oh really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by displague ( 4438 ) <slashdot&displague,com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:47PM (#6194068) Homepage Journal
    4 millibits per second!!!

    Outstanding!

    At that rate, this 122 Byte comment would take 67 hours 45 minutes to transfer!

  • Useful top end? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peatbakke ( 52079 ) <peatNO@SPAMpeat.org> on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:49PM (#6194090) Homepage
    Well, it's great that it can pull down 150Mb/s ... but you've gotta have an empty OC3 to feed it. And if you've got an OC3, might as well kick out the extra cash to run in the extra 300 meters.

    The 4km @ 4Mb/s is pretty nice, though.

    • Well, it's great that it can pull down 150Mb/s ... but you've gotta have an empty OC3 to feed it. And if you've got an OC3, might as well kick out the extra cash to run in the extra 300 meters.

      A friend of mine bought a house a couple of years ago. It's in a new neighborhood and Bellsouth has fiber down to the neighborhood level, then copper to each house. When the realtor was showing them the house, he noticed the fiber connection was in the backyard (a little air-conditioned box, dunno what you call it)

  • Fuggetaboutit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @02:49PM (#6194098)
    It's all going to be swept away by Digital Spread Spectrum.

    The Net will be in the air, encrypted, ubiquitous, undetectable, unstoppable and free.

    • Re:Fuggetaboutit (Score:5, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:00PM (#6194927) Journal
      The Net will be in the air

      No wireless, high-speed connections can go for very long distances. (Although I'll be the first to jump at it when there is a technological leap that makes it possible)

      Since long-hauls are everywhere, there's no chance that wireless alone is going to form an international network. In fact, many countries have very very long hauls, which means even wireless national networks aren't possible in many places.

      encrypted,

      Any encryption used will be poor... IPSec is nice and everything, but you don't want to waste that much CPU power, and delay, just to visit slashdot. Chances are, it'll stick with the current model. Normal communications will be either plain-text or poorly obfusticated, and only the sites that need serious security will use strong encryption, and they will use that for as little as possible.

      ubiquitous,

      Like I said, not until there is a technological breakthrough.

      undetectable,

      There's a funny one... Yes, I'm sure everyone will just assume your computer naturally gives off hundreds of times the ammount of electromagnetic energy of a cell phone. Not really undetectable...

      unstoppable

      Not really, perhaps in theory though. Create enough interference on the frequency range it uses, and you can stop it.

      and free.

      Free as in, without limits? As in, your electric bill?
  • ...providing
    150 Mbit/s data rates over ordinary copper wire... at the 1000 feet mark... but the chip can still serve up 4mbps even at 13,000 feet.

    [According to what I learned in highschool about the metric system] 150 Mega-bits per second compared to 4 milli-bits per second is an astronomically large difference!

  • This is getting really annoying (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:01PM (#6194211) Journal

    DSL has been in the works for around 10 years now and still doesn't come close to its goal of providing one video bandwidth channel which is short of the goal it should have. The problem here is that it takes forever to roll out a new infrastructure. Its time the leaders of the industry realize it and make sure that the next infrastructure rollout has the latent capacity (if not the electronics at the nodes) to carry the petabaud traffic that we'll be wanting in 50 years (that's about how often we can afford to do this crap). Spending any more time and resources on copper is wasting time.

    There is a market today for multiple on demand video channels, voice, and internet over a single service. As a consumer, I'd pay double just for the pleasure of dropping SBC on their !@#. Plan for that, meet that, and don't even waste a breath on anything short of that.

    To reiterate, the minimum bandwidth requirement for any new deployments should be enough to serve at least three unshared video channels, 3 voice lines, and very high bandwidth internet service simultaneously with room in the medium for growth into the dedicated petabaud range over the next 50 years. Anything less is causing a delay in progress while filling fatcats pockets with the proceeds from rolling out already obsolete services.

  • Be carefull... Note "Aggregated Bandwidth" (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They say 150Mbps bandwidth, but notice the word "aggregated". That means total bandwidth up and downstream combined. This does not mean you are going to get 150Mbps downstream folks. I work for a small startup company that sells VDSL systems in Korea. Our current VDSL technology supports almost 100Mbps aggregated bandwidth.

    peace
  • Bah. 1000 feet is nearly useless. You lose 999 feet in the Central Office half the time. I'll take the 4Mb at home, though. It's nice to see DSL is still competitive with cable's downstream.

  • I don't mean to troll, but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vidnet ( 580068 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:09PM (#6194297) Homepage
    What's with the people going "yeah whatever, we won't get it here in the US anyways"! I don't mean to troll, but there is much, much more to the world than the USA.

    If your own commercialism stops innovation from reaching consumers, vote democratic. Don't oppose taxes. Write letters to your local representatives.

    Whining gets you nowhere, and it's just annoying for those of us who actually have a shot at using this technology.

  • feh (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:10PM (#6194304)
    Well, Herr Speedy-Hosen, for 1000 feet, I could just hire Michael Johnson to run across campus in - erm - 30 seconds with - let's see - 700 MB per cd... 150 mbit per sec... um..... (click click click) 1,400 cds on his back and get the same throughput! SO TH... What? Ah. OK - maybe this IS a breakthrough after all. Never mind.

  • Other Infinion story - instant-boot chip (Score:3, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:14PM (#6194338) Homepage Journal
    Infineon seems to be all over the news today. Besides this release here's another one:

    New chip boots up computers like a light [cnn.com]

    International Business Machines Corp. and German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG said they have made an important step toward developing a new kind of memory that could enable computers to boot up instantaneously. IBM said that the magnetic random access memory technology, or MRAM, could replace existing forms of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM -- which is the most popular form of computer memory -- as early as 2005.
  • Though it does open up the possibility of video on demand over DSL.

    Reach of over 4km (13,200 feet) at speeds exceeding 4 Mbps.

    What we really need to know is what speed does it deliver at 17,000 feet, and what is the maximum range? Pacific Bell/SWB (West Coast) is only deploying to 14,500 feet maximum now rather than the old 17,000 feet because they couldn't make it reliable at 17k (though in some markets with decent copper, you can get full speed at that range.) Unfortunately most of the pacbell coppe

  • Let's solve the last mile! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RandyF ( 588707 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:34PM (#6194590) Journal
    Hey!

    Let's stop the whining about lack of high-speed coverage! I have another idea.

    Anybody up for pitching in together to build a company to force the last mile. We'll simply bypass the telco and cable companies, put in higher bandwidth than this, charge reasonable fees, and have on-demand video and VOIP as built in services. We'll start with dense neighborhoods and then acquire grants for poor neighborhoods and rural areas. We'll use a shared bandwidth scheme with a minimum speed gurantee. If only 1 user is active, he gets the whole pipe.

    It's time to stop the whining about how bad the high bandwidth coverage is and just start making money changing it!

    There are enough of us out there (and I'm talking just /.ers) who can cover the technical, financial, and regulatory bases and make this thing happen. Why wait for the bloated telcos and cable companies to build (and own) the new infrastructure. Let's build it ourselves.

    New Motto: No more dark fiber! No more dialups!

  • Bandwidth-wise, nothing beats... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jetmarc ( 592741 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @03:56PM (#6194870)
    ..a Federal Express aircraft full of DVD's. Although ping latency is horrible :(

  • Not future tech - my ISP offers it *now* (Score:3, Informative)

    by Björn Stenberg ( 32494 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:31PM (#6195227) Homepage
    My ISP, Bostream, offers this to customers already. Here's their service info page (in swedish) [bostream.com]

    In essense it says depending on distance to your switch, you get:

    <300m: 26 Mbps full duplex
    <1000m: 13 Mbps full duplex
    >1000m: 8/1 Mbps (down/up)

    Price: 399 SEK/month (~50 USD)

    Another swedish ISP, Bredbandsbolaget, is also offering VDSL but currently "only" up to 10Mbit.

  • Typo in the article? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 ) <tmh@nodomain.org> on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:53PM (#6195430) Homepage
    4MB at 13,000 feet is about the same as standard ADSL (in fact my ISP offers such a package relatively cheaply).

    4MB at 130,000 feet would be impressive, though...

    The top speed at 1000 feet sounds good, too, until you remember that at that distance you could run cat5e at 100MB (maximum distance for cat5e is about 1100 feet, cat7 goes about a mile... don't see much of that on sale though).

  • VDSL @ home (Score:3, Informative)

    by G3ckoG33k ( 647276 ) on Saturday June 14, 2003 @03:43AM (#6198103)
    Damn, that blew my bragging rights for 26 MBit/sec with VDSL... Ok, I won't get it until September, but still. Check out Scream at www.bostream.com [bostream.com] for about 35 USD a month through your telephone wires. Make sure your area is covered by their services.

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