On Wednesday, December 08, 2010 11:11 PM, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Tuesday, December 07, 2010 10:37:02 pm Christopher Chan wrote:
On Wednesday, December 08, 2010 03:11 AM, Ben McGinnes wrote:
The even more horrendous problem, which is so pervasive it affects everyone, is the insistence on asymmetric connections. Even when Australia does get this fabled fibre-to-the-home, it still won't be symmetric. *sigh*
Fibre connections that are not symmetric...sure going out of the way that.
Not really, once you realize that more optical power is required for greater bandwidths at the same distance. It is rather safer and less expensive at the CPE to have a broad receiver and a narrow transmitter. Fiber still obeys power density rules. Not to mention that passive splitting of the downstream and driving with high power lasers couple with either Raman or Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers saves money for the carrier.
And there is of course single fiber RX/TX muxing, where the upstream is DWDM on a 1550nm window wave at a low power, and the downstream is a high power 1310nm single wave, or CWDM even. Running a dedicated fiber pair to each customer is expensive; CATV fiber supertrunk digital systems are well-tested at high (>+30dBm optical) powers and are much less expensive for the carrier, meaning they are much less expensive for the subscriber, too. Even if they *are* oversubscribed.
While it is easy to believe in an 'asymmetric/no servers/ I got all the content/ mwahahaha!' conspiracy, simple economics and physics explain most of the reasons that oversubscribed high bandwidth downstream coupled with less oversubscribed low bandwidth upstream is the norm for consumer links. Even fiber.
Or would you prefer paying kilobucks per month for a tariffed OC3/12/48 or Gigabit provisioned Metro E? (that's all I can get, and it does cost kilobucks to get it).
Is this residential? One can get 1G symmetric fibre from HKBN for less than 30USD/mnth if you live in a block of apartments. See below. (Please note troll hat on my head)
---------------------- FibreHome 1000 Basic Plan - installation fee waiver ‧ Basic monthly fee $199 ‧ Contract duration 24 months ‧ Maximum bandwidth (local access) 1000Mbps Upload/Download ‧ Maximum bandwidth (overseas access) 20Mbps Upload/Download ‧ Installation fee $0 Basic Gifts 4 UA Movie Vouchers (Apply to online registration only) NOD32 Anti-virus software(Worth: $238)(Apply to online registration only) Successfully register to this plan and install FibreHome1000 Broadband Service on or before December 31, you will be entitled to receive the gifts for free. ----------------------
As for my current location, I guess I can get the same if I am willing to pay for the cable laying...
*takes off troll hat* ps: Thanks for the info on long distance fibre tech.