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I can see AT&T's world headquarters compound of four skyscrapers and a gaudy 60 foot jumbotron they installed last year from my bedroom window. I'm looking at i

I can see AT&T's world headquarters compound of four skyscrapers and a gaudy 60 foot jumbotron they installed last year from my bedroom window. I'm looking at it right now. They still don't offer fiber at all at my address. Fastest I can get is 10 mbps down. Broadband is a joke absolutely everywhere in this country, not just rural. I guess AT&T doesn't even service its own world headquarters?

CyberDildonics 6y ago
Not everywhere. In places where there is real competition the internet can be very fast. Modern DOCSIS 3.0 and above cable internet can get real speeds of at least 50 MB/s down. There are places in kansas city where you can get gigabit fiber from three different companies. It is only with competition that prices come down and speeds go up. It isn't really that hard in a physical sense to spool out coax in a neighborhood and from a technical standpoint that can deliver a lot of bandwidth.
- madengr 6y ago
  There are also places in KC that have fiber from zero companies.
- kaliszad 6y ago
  Actually you probably don't want to do anything with copper/ coax. Not so much because of the cabling but more because of the shitty chipsets and not much competition in that space. Also copper tends to be quite pricey. If you open the ground, you might just as well lay fibre. It would be ideal to have a pair at each home for redundancy and potential business full duplex 10 Gbps connection or two independent providers each on a different fibre. The extra fibre that you have "just in case" doesn't cost much at all as you just lay it to the nearest node and not further passive MUX/ CWDM/ DWDM or bandwidth sharing can be used from there depending if you want to have active components there.
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    What are you even saying? My comment was about how even coax internet that many people already have can be extremely fast and wasn't that expensive to lay down in the first place, but isn't used to its full potential because of a lack of competition.
    - kaliszad 6y ago
      Yes, coax based connections can be quite fast but in practice the chipsets supporting DOCSIS are quite bad or the (usually closed source) firmware is very buggy or probably both. I should know: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Technicolor-Opens-TC72 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Technico... e.g. just bridging is often prohibited or configured in such a way that slows down some traffic and you can't do anything about it. E.g. Compal modems were limiting any traffic with protocol 41 to ~ 20 Mbps (up and down) on some networks even in bridge mode. (https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-compal-od-upc-vodafone/ https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-comp..., Google translate works kind of ok for that) And DOCSIS chipsets seem to not be cheap actually, probably because there is a quasi-monopoly on the chipsets unlike for optics. Also coax networks tend to be configured for great asymmetry (often 20:1), which of course isn't the fault of DOCSIS but it is almost always the case on any internet service over coax (cable TV connections). As a consumer or business, I want the best service possible and that usually means having FTTH/ FTTB for all these reasons. The best way to ensure proper cabling in the last mile would be to have pipes for cables straight into each home. That way, you could change most data-carrying cables without digging or without digging much. This seems to be the approach with fibre in some countries.
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CyberDildonics 6y ago

Not everywhere. In places where there is real competition the internet can be very fast. Modern DOCSIS 3.0 and above cable internet can get real speeds of at least 50 MB/s down. There are places in kansas city where you can get gigabit fiber from three different companies. It is only with competition that prices come down and speeds go up. It isn't really that hard in a physical sense to spool out coax in a neighborhood and from a technical standpoint that can deliver a lot of bandwidth.

madengr 6y ago
There are also places in KC that have fiber from zero companies.
kaliszad 6y ago
Actually you probably don't want to do anything with copper/ coax. Not so much because of the cabling but more because of the shitty chipsets and not much competition in that space. Also copper tends to be quite pricey. If you open the ground, you might just as well lay fibre. It would be ideal to have a pair at each home for redundancy and potential business full duplex 10 Gbps connection or two independent providers each on a different fibre. The extra fibre that you have "just in case" doesn't cost much at all as you just lay it to the nearest node and not further passive MUX/ CWDM/ DWDM or bandwidth sharing can be used from there depending if you want to have active components there.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  What are you even saying? My comment was about how even coax internet that many people already have can be extremely fast and wasn't that expensive to lay down in the first place, but isn't used to its full potential because of a lack of competition.
  - kaliszad 6y ago
    Yes, coax based connections can be quite fast but in practice the chipsets supporting DOCSIS are quite bad or the (usually closed source) firmware is very buggy or probably both. I should know: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Technicolor-Opens-TC72 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Technico... e.g. just bridging is often prohibited or configured in such a way that slows down some traffic and you can't do anything about it. E.g. Compal modems were limiting any traffic with protocol 41 to ~ 20 Mbps (up and down) on some networks even in bridge mode. (https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-compal-od-upc-vodafone/ https://www.root.cz/clanky/pomale-ipv6-tunely-s-modemem-comp..., Google translate works kind of ok for that) And DOCSIS chipsets seem to not be cheap actually, probably because there is a quasi-monopoly on the chipsets unlike for optics. Also coax networks tend to be configured for great asymmetry (often 20:1), which of course isn't the fault of DOCSIS but it is almost always the case on any internet service over coax (cable TV connections). As a consumer or business, I want the best service possible and that usually means having FTTH/ FTTB for all these reasons. The best way to ensure proper cabling in the last mile would be to have pipes for cables straight into each home. That way, you could change most data-carrying cables without digging or without digging much. This seems to be the approach with fibre in some countries.
- deleted 6y ago
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