super fast broadband !!!

[captainkirky]

 i was watching breakfast news monday morning and they said something that thers a new breakthrough regarding a super fast broadband on its way 26meg or something like that !! any one know any more about this?

[Headtime]

there is an article on it here;

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/vnunet/news/2142765/home -users-24mb-broadband

[Buenchico]

They've had 'super fast broadband' in Japan for some time now. The reason that it will be slow to make progress here is that most of our phone lines still use copper wires while the higher speeds require fibre-optic cables. It's unlikely to become widespread in this country for many years.

Chris

[Headtime]

Buenchio, Judging by articles I've read, you can get speeds of 24mb down copper wires. It's just that the ISP's need to install specialist kit in the telephone exchanges which are owned by BT and this is what has been slowing it down.

I think it relies also on the new ADSL2 technology, which needs users to be in closer proximity to an exchange than ADSL, and degrades quickly over distance.

[Buenchico]

Headtime is correct in disagreeing with me but, at the same time, he supports my statements!

Yes, you probably can get 24Mbs along copper wires. The problem is, as Headtime states, ADSL2 degrades quickly over distance - particularly when copper wires are used! i.e. to minimise the degradation, fibre-optic cables are required.

There might also be some confusion here: Current broadband speeds are usually 0.5Mbs or 1Mbs. Some exchanges theoretically offer 2Mbs but people ***'** paying for connections at this speed often find that they don't actually get it! Where ISP's can get their own equipment into exchanges they should be able to achieve speeds of 4Mbs or even 8Mbs (I understand that some parts of London have this available now - at about �50/month) but speeds above this still require a switch to fibre-optics.

Chris

[Buenchico]

Er, just a note to explain AB's censorship of my last post!

I wrote "who are" in the shortened form (i.e.with an apostrophe). AB's software seems to have ignored the apostrophe and assumed that I was referring to a 'lady of the night' !!!

Chris

[Mobius1]

I'm a bit confused. I have Blueyonder 2mb cable and that's the speed that I get most of the time (sometimes around 2.1mb) and I can download files at around 250kb/sec.

ADSL isn't the same as cable because cable uses, funnily enough, fibre optic cable. ADSL uses existing phone lines. If ADSL2 needs to use fibre optic cable to work well over distances, then why isn't it just called cable? The definition of ADSL/2 is a system that allows faster than average modem transmissions over "traditional copper lines". So if ADSL2 starts using cable, then surely it actually becomes a "cable internet connection" as opposed to any type of ADSL?

[boobesque]

just a few points:

cable broadband doesnt use fibreoptic cables.

8mb is the highest speed you can get out of a copper wire. peasant band modems use 4 frequency's while broadband uses a broader range (hence the name broadband) which has to be specially decoded by a dsl modem at the telephone exchange. if you were to use higher or lower frequency's to squeeze more bandwidth out of your modem the dsl decoders would not be capable of demodulating the information and it would come out as gibberish. if you tried to squeeze the frequency's closer together there is a good chance that they will interfere with the other frequencies which will produce more gibberish. so 8mb is the theoretical fastest over copper wires. theoretical as it is dependent on a perfect connection and very low traffic from others. the good thing is though that everyone has a copper wire allready installed. fibre optic cables would take time to put in and i would imagine would be costly.

250kb is 0.25mb. i doubt that if you have a 2mb connection that you would ever get this speed. getting to 2.1mb per second is also impossible if you have a 2mb modem as it cant send out information on enough frequencies to allow speeds that fast.

shigadee shigadee shwa

[Mobius1]

By 250kb I actually meant 250KB/sec (KiloBytes).

Also, I don't have a 2mb modem, it is simply a cable modem. Since starting my boradband service, I've upgraded from 512k connection to 1mb then from 1mb to 2mb and somewhere between now and January next year it will be upgraded to 10mb.

Therefore it's entirely possible for me to get a 2.1mb connection at certain times depending on conditions, because my connection speed isn't limited by my modem but rather the service I'm paying for. I quite often get speed results a little above 2mb and sometimes a little below when using bandwidth testing websites.