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AT&T markets a hybrid DSL technology under their UVerse brand name. They run FTTN (fiber to the node), then split from the node via standard DSL, albeit at muc
by caspper69 7y ago
AT&T markets a hybrid DSL technology under their UVerse brand name. They run FTTN (fiber to the node), then split from the node via standard DSL, albeit at much closer distances (and hence much higher speeds). This product can provide "DSL" in the 50-200Mb/s range (currently), but it is not the regular DSL that most people associate with the technology.
- WorldMaker 7y agoFrom what I gather, FTTN itself illustrates the bootstrap problem the US market faces in that in some cases they should have fiber already run to the nodes decades previously, but didn't until the early days of DSL. US Telecoms are nothing if not procrastinators on infrastructure upgrades. The irony though is that if you are building FTTN new as much of AT&T has been doing the last decade and a half, it's not that much harder to at the same time push all the extra few dozen feet into the Home for FTTH, which Verizon figured out years back and AT&T only finally got a clue much more recently. (AT&T also hurts their case by charging basically the exact same prices for bad POTS DSL and FTTN DSL, despite the huge variance in speeds, and tend to be not entirely forthright about which option is serviced to a particular address, leaving a lot of US consumers with an overall distrust of DSL.)
- rhino369 7y agoPart of the reason the telecoms in the US were slow to upgrade was that they were originally forced to do local loop unbundling. Why invest if competitors could use those lines for cheap rates? And the cable companies already had a high bandwidth (at least for ~2000) transmission line to most houses in America. Notably, Verizon tried with FIOS, but it wasn't that profitable. Most people stuck with cable internet, even if it was slower.