Cisco gives cable industry tech for 10Gbps uploads on DOCSIS 3.1

Cisco has dropped an open reference design for DOCSIS silicon into the CableLabs standards body. The group has been working on Full Duplex DOCSIS for some time, and in February announced that the gigabit up / gigabit down effort was worth pursuing. Switchzilla has been pursuing it, and has handed over its design for a digital …

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up: We have BT's G.fast Obfuscated, Bamboozled 'upto' Ultrafast Broadband speeds.

Here in the UK, we have ended up in a situation, employing a whole army of Ofcom regulatory pen pushers to work out what subscribers might get 'upto', rather than a whole army laying true fibre optic cables, which mean none of those pen pushers are needed. So much time and energy is wasted trying to work out 'upto' BT FTTC/ADSL copper based broadband speeds.

BT needs to start (likely forced) to connect subscribers/homes more than 500m by cable length (250m as the crow flies) to real Fibre Optic cables now (starting with a long term end of life replacment programme copper -> FO + all new housing developments/builds) if BT is to remain robust/relevant to possible regulatory changes in the pipeline aka 'even-equal distribution' across all parts of its network for any future ultrafast rollouts, to meet Britain's future needs.

250m by cable length is probably the 'sweet spot', regards G.fast via legacy copper/alu v true Fibre Optic rollout costs, but BT needs to start somewhere, so 500m by cable length allows for some technology improvement in G.fast (given BT have become biased/love struck on G.fast via legacy copper/alu as their solution to supplying Britain with 'upto'* Ultrafast Broadband, remember this is in no way 'blanket Ultrafast' coverage BT are proposing, its 'cherry picking' obfuscated/bamboozled 'upto' Ultrafast Broadband speeds.

*important bit

Even if BT is obsessed with using G.fast technology for certain parts of its rollout. At >500m (I'd be nearer >250m mark) by cable length there is little question true fibre optic technology is the only real reliable way (all factors-speed, reliability, weather, TCO/maintenance) to achieve blanket ultrafast coverage, without obfuscated bamboozling 'upto' Broadband speeds for everyone, with no real way to work out what a subscriber might expect day to day.

BT have a generation/Brand problem too, because more and more people will begin understand the underlying technical reasons why their obfuscated/bamboozled 'upto' Ultrafast Broadband really isn't 'blanket coverage' FTTC 80Mbps/G.fast 300Mbps because of the underlying 'upto' G.fast technology that was chosen. BT (and regulator Ofcom) will be resented for it, more and more going forward, for choosing 'cheap'. The Brand will suffer (more than it already does).

BT can't keep sprouting that G.fast is the solution for the complete BT network, you can't keep penalising certain subscribers / 'cherry picking' the easy to install ones due to where they live (both urban and rural - through no fault of their own) because biased BT thinking and legacy copper cabling means its voiced as 'difficult-expensive' to provide a high speed services to those customers.

Fibre optic technology is been rolled out elsewhere in the World without all the fuss BT seem to sprout (so there is no excuse for BT going forward) to remove the distance 'upto' element to these 'difficult-expensive ' (as BT loves to describe them) subscribers.

If BT chooses now to base its future on G.fast, then its laying itself open to be fined for failing to meet future rising USO (Universal service obligation) going forward.

BT either wants homes more than 500m from the FTTC/'Exchange' as subscribers or they don't and if they don't, these 'difficult' subscribers and oversighting local authorities shouldn't be held to ransom by the incumbent sitting on its hands with bamboozling/obfustcated proposals of 'upto' Ultrafast broadbands speeds via legacy copper, that just don't work at these distances, for these subscribers, predominately in rural locations/Market 1 exchanges.

The regulator needs to force 'even distribution' irrespective of the difficulty of supplying any future technology upgrades to longer lines, G.fast can't be seen to again, to cherry-pick 10m subscribers closest to the FTTC Cabinet, just so the regulator Ofcom/BT can say "look we have 10m 'upto' ultrafast connections".

Even distribution across all parts of the network, in all localities is just as important today, going forward for those new 10m ultrafast connections.

In the future, if BT want to upgrade 2/3rds of its subscribers to Ultrafast Broadband Ofcom/Openreach rule changes should mean that these 2/3rds need to be distributed evenly across the UK and across all areas of its network, not just the easy upgrades by replacing line cards in exisiting FTTC cabinets, to facilitate subscribers nearest the cabinet, but customers more than 500m from an FTTC too.

(See the Thinkbroadband article:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7490-new-estimate-for-cost-of-rolling-out-g-fast-to-10-million-premises.html)

on the rollout of G.fast to 10m subscribers and look at the current UK distribution model, using the likely unimaginative BT 'bog standard' line card replacement model in existing FTTC cabinets).

Crucially G.fast under this proposal offers existing Notspots, lines more than 500m by cable length absolutely nothing, (and very little to those 250m-500m from the existing FTTC cabinet)

[s. pam]

Virgin Media should be beaten over their asymmetric mess

What good does "Superfast Broadband" do for you if downloads can run at 150mbps and uploads are capped at 6mbps?

Yes I've seen (and participated in writing some 20 years ago) data positioning that down more than up is the home model. But the fallacy of the current algorithms is that they were based on Internet 0.5 and now we're at 3.0 or above.

There are no real technological barriers to equalising the speeds, other than providers like Virgin, BT, etc. etc. paying more upstream charges.

It is really shambolic that with the current state of DOCIS we're even talking about this.

[Red Bren]

Re: Virgin Media should be beaten over their asymmetric mess

"There are no real technological barriers to equalising the speeds"

There are plenty of business barriers. The clue is in the name "Consumer" broadband. You're not supposed to be producing and uploading your own content, just downloading, consuming and most importantly paying for what big media produce.

The only reason you get any upload capacity is so you can request more downloads.

[moonpunk]

Re: Virgin Media should be beaten over their asymmetric mess

Great response!

[moonpunk]

Supposedly during the Thatcher government in the 80's BT proposed a project to lay Fibre Optic cable to every premise in the UK at an exceptionally high cost (several billion pounds). The government canned the project deeming it too expensive and distracting from their goal to take BT public (IPO share offering) - and hence a great opportunity was scuppered.

Just imagine if they had gone ahead with that project!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

In some areas you don't have to imagine as companies like City Fibre are installing FTTP across entire towns and cities, offering 1Gbit symmetric. Unfortunately to use this where I live we'd have to switch to TalkTalk...

[Stuart Castle]

I heard that the condition BT imposed on the deal is that they wanted to use their brand new fibre network to carry cable TV, which would pretty much ensured that the then fledgling Cable TV industry would have been a monopoly as none of the cable companies would have had the finances to compete with BT. It may also have violated the european laws on state sponsorship, although I am unsure when these came in, as BT was state funded..

Not to mention that it would have been a hell of a kick in the teeth for Sky, and regardless of whether he has, or had, any actual power, successive governments seem to have been a little nervous of offending Rupert Murdoch.

[J. Cook]

In my area, if they ran fiber to the house, it'd probably get trashed by the next installer who decides to use the _line itself to hang his ladder from_. I'd probably get the bill to repair the line, too.

(the 3rd party dude that was sent to do the install for my house actually did that. He was... not very bright, and argued with me that the commercial grade coax connectors I was using would screw up the signal just because the core of the connector was blue instead of black, even though the packaging stated that it was certified for digital cable and cable internet. I decided to let him be and do his own thing, and oddly enough, when I switched my connectors back in the cable modem showed a lot less errors on the line. *shrugs*)