Eircom announce ADSL2plus - probably...yawn just a trial

Dangger

From ENN

The Irish Times reports that Eircom is planning to deploy a new type of broadband technology that will provide faster download speeds and may extend the reach of its current i-stream product. The new technology, known as ADSL2 Plus, would enable users to transmit much more data along the copper wires that run into their homes and businesses. According to telecoms consultancy Ovum, ADSL2 Plus can double the download capacity of phone lines.

Here is more than an overview of ADSL2plus

In a nutshell, it extends distance by about 600 feet, doubles the bandwidth used to carry downstream data, doubles the maximum downstream data rate, and reduces crosstalk.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this, but still you gotta laugh on the day they announced it with all the fuss on going over line quality etc., more bluff and bluster.

jwt

Yes but it's still a cute move.

When tackled about line failures, percentages of BB enabled lines etc. they can now respond with "we are implementing new technology to reduce the percentage of line failures and increase the range of ADSL to bring BB to more customers than ever" and say it in a "aren't we great" tone of voice.

So what we need to know is what percentage improvement does ADSL2 plus bring. If its nominal say 10% then instead of 50% fail rate we now have 45%.

Does anybody have figures on this from the UK or Northern Ireland?

Basically we need to be able to show its just more PR, and furthermore given their track record when will we see it in the real world. A definite date so we have one more nail to add to our collection of nails. (Which is getting quite big now) and if they fudge an answer on a date they are showing their hand
Check and mate in 7 moves

John

sceptre

jwt wrote:

So what we need to know is what percentage improvement does ADSL2 plus bring. If its nominal say 10% then instead of 50% fail rate we now have 45%.

From the POV of failure rates I don't think it brings any but I'll check.

Dangger

Oh I agree John, it's right outta the eircom handbook of hoodwinks and bandaids. It has been perfectly timed to coincide with greater interest in the problems by the media. Eircom don't need this scrutiny now at all.

IOFFL need to ascertain the line failures due to carriers/splitters over distance from exchanges. I think we would find that increasing the distance by 600ft will assist some people all right, but at the end of the day those with carriers will not benefit at all from this and this is the real issue and the real reason for the high failures coupled with decaying network that just can't handled the sustained voltages anyway. So ADSL2plus isn't going to make a change to them.

But this will require skill when dealing with the press on this issue, to be sure they don't buy hook it line and sinker. They Irish media have come a long way in their education on the issues, I'm sure it's got alot to do with all those journo's that they really can work from home for the most part if they are all broadbanded up, hence the sustained interest.

oscarBravo

Dangger wrote:

...it extends distance by about 600 feet...

My garden is nearly 600 feet long. This is their answer?

De Rebel

From what you know or have already read........

Will this assist more rapid deployment in any way? Is it cheaper, smaller footprint, more anything / less anything that will enable it to greatly increase the rollout rate? Or Not?

If not, then the benefits are:

for the currently connected = potentially double the download speed - nice but not a real priority

for the currently un-connected a potential increas of 5% in the range, up from 12,000 feet to 12,600 feet.

Assuming an even distribution pattern in terms of peoples distance from the exchanges, and given that this will only impact on those exchanges which are enabled, then the net increase will be in the order of enabling another 1% or 2% of lines. WOW.

Anybody care to work the numbers to prove/disprove my estimates?

Muck where are you when we need you.

DonegalMan

There's a detailed description on ADSL2 here if some of you technical guys would like to pull out the 'nuggets' for us.

seamus

DonegalMan wrote:

There's a detailed description on ADSL2 here if some of you technical guys would like to pull out the 'nuggets' for us.

There's not really much more there, interesting article nonetheless. As said, it'll increase the radius by 600 feet (wow! :rolleyes: ) and it'll also give customers close to the end of the radius a possible increase of 50kbps (about the bandwidth of one great quality POTS line). Not brilliant, but maybe a bonus for RADSL customers who suffer from poor speeds.

More interesting is that the equipement apprently provides for a much enhanced diagnostic of the lines across which DSL will run, and variable power modes. Both of which can increase the pass rates - if they're used. If eircom bother not to use them, or interpret results in their own way, then there's zero benefit.

sceptre

sceptre wrote:

From the POV of failure rates I don't think it brings any but I'll check.

Range increase (small) only. A crappy line remains a crappy line. Actually given that ADSL2+ uses a higher frequency again you could get more failures from this but those poor folks will continue on ADSLv1 as the new incarnation is fully backward compatible. This will (obviously) bring more people within the official range of DSL but given that Eircom aren't offering ADSL out to the official range of ADSL's current incarnation it effectively offers nothing apart from the speed increase if/when deployed for those who can already get it.

I'm too lazy to work out the maths (even pi-r-squared and subtracting the difference) but as Martin's link says, it's about a 6% area coverage increase. Which as we're all more than aware doesn't equate to a 6% population availability increase. Not even in the limited parts of Dublin where potential subscibers are currently too far from the exchange as these people are only too far because the current range is artificially set at 3.5km. Good for a small number of people in country areas though but we'll be waiting for the rate-adaptive version of ADSL2 for that to make any difference to them. And the speed-limit increase doesn't really do anything for us in the short run as the current technical limit of (current) ADSL is 8Mps down/1Mps up, which obviously isn't being offered as a product.

There's no reason why Eircom shouldn't run with ADSL2+ as it'll offer benefits we'll see and require in a few years. It doesn't bear any relation to looking at sorting the problems we have now though so apart from "yeah,let's do it", who gives a monkeys. Given the timing of the announcement I can only conclude that it's a smokescreen and a pretty poor one. The old tactic of announcing a product that'll sort out problems down the line (MS do it a lot, IBM did it with Josephson junctions, Bob Cringeley took the mickey out of them with his turnip computing metaphor) in an attempt to throw competitors and especially journalists off the scent of the real problem. Trouble is, this does precisely nowt for the real problem, regardless of when they implement this.

pete

it's like 1998 all over again.... hope they don't take as long to get the actual product out the door this time round.

Not So Secret
Secret TE ADSL Test Programme Revealed
Dateline 0830 Hrs 01 November 1998
When Cablelink announced its cable internet access plans in July, Telecom Eireann was not too worried. TE had plans of its own. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line offers a downlink of up to 6 Mb and an uplink of 640 Kb over conventional copper pairs. For over six months TE has been testing ADSL on a number of Dublin exchanges. However it has been remarkably difficult to get any kind of hard details out of TE. The only thing that sources in TE would confirm was that there was an ADSL test programme and that it was working. Apart from that the public was kept in the dark. After all this was all a pre-commercial test programme for user inside Telecom Eireann, at least according to the website. (http://www.adsl.tinet.ie) The website frontpage bears a passing resemblence to the Cult Of the Dead Cow (cDc) website which is ironic as TE's ADSL site looks like it was not intended for public viewing. The website could be TE's equivalent of a Back Orifice since it is so helpful on details about the ADSL test programme.

Telecom Eireann is conducting an ADSL test programme in Dublin. The exchanges involved appear to be Malahide, Portmarnock, Ballyboden, Rathmines, Dundrum and Lucan. These are the exchanges listed in the feedback forms on the website and also in the user reports. At the time of writing, the most recent user feedback was dated 31/10/1998.

http://www.hackwatch.com/teadsl.html

SkepticOne

for the currently connected = potentially double the download speed - nice but not a real priority

for the currently un-connected a potential increas of 5% in the range, up from 12,000 feet to 12,600 feet.

Assuming an even distribution pattern in terms of peoples distance from the exchanges, and given that this will only impact on those exchanges which are enabled, then the net increase will be in the order of enabling another 1% or 2% of lines. WOW.

As the Eircom spokeswoman says: "the technology would "future-proof" the firm's network for speed rather than extend the reach of its existing service."

I doubt if people will notice any change at the retail level. The current 512k offer has nothing to do with limitations of bog standard ADSL, after all.

Full article:

Eircom plans faster broadband offer

Eircom plans to deploy a new type of broadband technology that will provide faster download speeds and may extend the reach of its current i-stream product.

I-stream is Eircom's flagship broadband service, which uses a technology called DSL, or digital subscriber line, to provide high-speed internet access to its customers.

The firm, which has been criticised because of the limited reach of its current broadband service, has asked the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) to sanction deployment of the technology.

The new technology, ADSL2 Plus, marks a significant advance from the firm's existing DSL service. The main advantage of the technology is that it enables firms to transmit much more data along the copper wires that run into homes and businesses.

Detailed technical notes on the technology prapared by the telecoms consultancy Ovum show that ADSL2 Plus can double the amount of downloading capacity that is possible over phone lines.

The much higher capacity provided by ADSL2 Plus makes the technology competitive for a range of multimedia activities such as video-on-demand or playing advanced video games.

Mr Michael Philpott, an analyst with Ovum, said the new technology could deliver speeds of 20 megabytes per second under certain circumstances. The said the technology could also extend the reach of broadband further than is currently possible using the basic DSL broadband technology.

An Eircom spokeswoman confirmed last night that the company had applied to the regulator seeking approval to deploy ADSL2 Plus. But she said the technology would "future-proof" the firm's network for speed rather than extend the reach of its existing service.

Extending the reach of braodband has become a major political issue as many businesses and consumers still face problems getting connected to broadband services.

Eircom's i-stream service is not yet available to many consumers and businesses that are located more than four kilometres from a telephone exchange.

Poor line quality is also limiting broadband access in areas.

Jorinn

Um, doesn't the adslv1 spec mean we can get 8mbps down if we had a decent network anyway? As such this would be just more eircom propoganda.

spongebob

De Rebel wrote:

From what you know or have already read........

Will this assist more rapid deployment in any way? Is it cheaper, smaller footprint, more anything / less anything that will enable it to greatly increase the rollout rate? Or Not?

The main enhancement is that more DSL lines can be loaded into a multipair cable, some areas like D4 have a highish takeup and the local cable is maxed out in come cases .

If not, then the benefits are:

for the currently connected = potentially double the download speed - nice but not a real priority

for the currently un-connected a potential increas of 5% in the range, up from 12,000 feet to 12,600 feet.

5Mbit will be on offer next year after the trial in South Dublin finishes in January . There is a marginal increase in reach .... remember that BT get their ADSL to 10km or more so Eircoms 5km is more of a kick in the teeth really.

Assuming an even distribution pattern in terms of peoples distance from the exchanges, and given that this will only impact on those exchanges which are enabled, then the net increase will be in the order of enabling another 1% or 2% of lines. WOW.

The PR bunnies will be on the case all week , expect the usual uncritical guff from the IRISH TIMES ..... thats unless someone contacts Fintan O Toole and tells him he will still fail even with the new test .

Anybody care to work the numbers to prove/disprove my estimates?

Let Eircom prove it will make any difference, the main driver for this PR guff is a free upgrade to the firmware in the DSLAMs from Alcatel . A few of the older exchanges (in terms of when the kit was installed) WILL need new line cards as well.

I note that the Eircom PR bunnies did not bother mentioning the potentially useful
READSL or RE-ADSL aka G 992.3 which kinda leads me to the conclusion that ADSL2 is being deployed to deal with hotspots close to urban exchanges and not in order to increase the Reach or to significantly improve the bandwidth offerings.

I also note that the PR bunnies went on the offensive as Eircom quietly announce to their punters that they have fully prepared to collect the Highest Data Usage Charge in All of Europe from customers who break their crummy CAPs ....effective in the billing period from 01 October I hear. The PR bunnies did not mention the €36 per Gb charge for these Eircom customers to anyone....did they ?

Co-Incidences, /me luvs them.

M

SkepticOne

Muck wrote:

5Mbit will be on offer next year after the trial in South Dublin finishes in January.

According to the document supplied by Dangger, 5Mbit should be possible out to around 3.5 km. After that it starts going down.

At up to 3.5 km, they should have been able to do at least 3 Mbit or more even under the existing bog standard DSL. However they have opted to price even the comparatively modest 1 and 2 Mbit services such that only businesses can afford them, with further cut-down throttled services being aimed at consumers.

What I'm wondering is how they'll price this if it goes ahead. Either they have to get rid of their 'business' pricing or else heavily cap downloads (and put it on a very high contention ratio so resellers have to do the same).

secret_squirrel

Forgive the ignorance & slight offtopicyness but whats the reason(s) that BT can be increasing their bandwidth and ranges on their ADSL products almost willynilly and Eircon cant/wont?

sceptre

secret_squirrel wrote:

Forgive the ignorance & slight offtopicyness but whats the reason(s) that BT can be increasing their bandwidth and ranges on their ADSL products almost willynilly and Eircon cant/wont?

One word: willingness.

DSL's capabilities (both reach and speed) have long been greater than that offered by our friendly telco. Realistically, I suspect, they know that however bad many lines are in towns near to the exchange, as soon as you stretch out into the country to any small extent the line failure rates will start to look (even more) comical.

De Rebel

secret_squirrel wrote:

Forgive the ignorance & slight offtopicyness but whats the reason(s) that BT can be increasing their bandwidth and ranges on their ADSL products almost willynilly and Eircon cant/wont?

In a word ? Investment

Oh and lots of other things as well, like good management, customer focus, planning for the future, business competence, long term views, stuff like that. Stuff which unfortunatly slips right by eircom's management.

Ripwave

secret_squirrel wrote:

Forgive the ignorance & slight offtopicyness but whats the reason(s) that BT can be increasing their bandwidth and ranges on their ADSL products almost willynilly and Eircon cant/wont?

Eircom have always worked on the basis of providing the same service everywhere - you can see the sort of grief that they get when services are available in some areas and not in others. This was one of the reasons why DSL rollout was delayed when eircom was still under State ownership - you couldn't offer DSL in Dublin without offering it elsewhere, so it was easier just not to offer it anywhere.

Once they did start delivering the service, it made political sense to stick with the simplest configuration possible. This also had the advantage of protecting some of their leased line business, because some SMEs would line 512k or 1M DSL insufficent for their needs, and have to stick with DSL.

The political realities are changing, but they haven't changed enough to allow eircom offer 5Mb services to a small fraction of their customers, while a large fraction are screaming about getting not getting 512. And because LLU just hasn't been practical, there hasn't been any 3rd party competition to highlight the discrepancy.

DonegalMan

Ripwave wrote:

Eircom have always worked on the basis of providing the same service everywhere

Do you think they still worry about that as a private company?

I think their decisions are mainly determined by financial factors, unfortunately that at present is primarily focused on short term dividends for shareholders.

Ripwave

DonegalMan wrote:

Do you think they still worry about that as a private company?

It's obviously not as big a factor as it was, but from a regulatory point of view, they prefer to have a "one size fits all" approach - this goes some way towards explaining their reluctance to make the FWA gear that they've already invested in and installed, pay for itself by being used to deliver services to any customer who wants them, and are in range.

DonegalMan wrote:

I think their decisions are mainly determined by financial factors, unfortunately that at present is primarily focused on short term dividends for shareholders.

Absolutely, but if that was the whole explanation, then they'd be offering a much wider range of "tiered" services, and charging a high premium to anyone who could get the faster services. But the actual income that would generate might not make up for the political cost of managing the public perception of that kind of service.

Capt'n Midnight

De Rebel wrote:

If not, then the benefits are:

for the currently connected = potentially double the download speed - nice but not a real priority.

Unless they do something about the CAP it ain't gonna make a huge difference. Especially when you take contention ratios into account.

Gonzo

agreed, such speeds of 2mb and beyond are kinda pointless when eircom have pethetic caps such as 4gb and 8gb in place on their services. The caps need to be upgraded drastically or removed altogether for speeds of 5mb to make any sense. I would rather a 512k line with a 30gig cap than a 5mb line with an 8gig cap.

secret_squirrel

Gonzo wrote:

5mb line with an 8gig cap.

Yea but think what a revenue earner it would be for them :rolleyes:

Cabaal

Jorinn wrote:

Um, doesn't the adslv1 spec mean we can get 8mbps down if we had a decent network anyway?.

I'm sure the 8GB cap will fill up nice and fast on that line

secret_squirrel wrote:

Yea but think what a revenue earner it would be for them :rolleyes:

I can just see Eircom exec's rubbing there hands together *moneyyyy*

WellyJ

Ha ha ha, 5MBIT/s = 640KBYTES/s

8GBYTES would last 3.42 Hours of constant downloading.

HAHA

Now THAT would be comical