Phone companies attempting to stoke new life into slow DSL speeds

Ericsson Promises 500Mbps DSL [Broadband Reports]

DSL has become the new dial-up, with slow speeds that are being outpaced by cable broadband. Customers are choosing cable broadband at a rate of 2-1 over DSL, and the phone companies are working overtime to come up with a hook to keep DSL customers from switching to cable broadband. So, now they're promising a new generation of DSL that will deliver broadband speeds up to 500 Mbps. Broadband Reports has posted on a new iteration of DSL from Ericsson, claiming download speeds of 500 Mbps using standard copper telephone wiring. Think there's a catch? Yes, you'd be right about that.

The new DSL "technology" that Ericsson is promoting might just work if your closest neighbor is the phone company and you're willing to commit to rewiring your home.

One of the limiting factors of DSL speeds is the distance a customer's home is located from the phone company. The further a DSL connection is away from the network hub, the slower the connection speed will be due to line noise. For Ericsson's tests, the 500 Mbps speed was achieved at less than 500 meters - less than two football fields away from the network hub. That's a lot closer than most customer homes are located relative to the phone company's network hub.

The second issue with Ericsson's claims deal with the fact that this DSL technology uses six copper pairs in the wiring to achieve the speed they claim. Most homes telephone wiring consists of a single pair of copper wires, not the six pairs required for this DSL technology. Even if a phone company ever offered this new DSL technology in a product, you'd be forced to rewire your home to get it.

As Broadband Reports puts it:

It seems like at least twice a year, an engineer or company finds an innovative new way of milking some additional bandwidth out of copper -- though you'll note that none of these technologies ever see mass-market implementation.

Guess it's pretty tough jamming a bowling ball into a straw.  The bottom line on 500 Mbps DSL: it's simply a case of over-promise and under-deliver from the phone companies who are looking for ways to save their lagging DSL business in the wake of customers switching to faster broadband offerings from cable providers.

Comments

[Mark]

My only question about DSL is, what causes all of the line noise? Is it a lack of insulation / shielding in the wire, or is it the grade of copper that they are using?

Personally, I would not consider going from my cable modem to DSL, but I'm just curious to know what causes the line to degrade so badly?

[sineswiper]

I think it's the difference between shielded and unshielded lines. Cable is shielded, and they have fiber lines that go to the head ends, anyway.

DSL/Phone is unshielded, with those DSLAMs that amplify the signal every few miles. You amplify a signal so many times, it's going to degrade and increase noise quite a bit.

[HughesNet Broadband Internet]

Wait a second, I got lost. If DSL internet is a broadband internet, why is satellite inernet called broadband too? I don't probably fully understand the word "broadband" in this case.