[PLUG] DSL

Roderick A. Anderson raanders at acm.org
Fri Apr 25 15:34:02 UTC 2003


On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Michael Robinson wrote:

> What does no CIR or QOS gurantee on standard DSL mean?  
> I would think since DSL is always on that there has to be some
> thouroughput guarantee, especially since it is compared to cable 
> as the option where you get the quoted speed and not  
> shared bandwidth with an unknown number of other people.

I have 'seen' a few DSL contracts before I started to work here and of 
those one guaranteed 10 CPS the others hand none.  Always on and sharing 
it with backbone connection with 2000 others will tend to cut your 
bandwidth right down.  Qwest tends to over sell their circuits (as an 
ISP).  When we resell Qwest DSL (we're the ISP) we don't guarantee the 
speed ... we can't!  Just today we bounced at least 10 Qwest DSL lines 
(take them out of the router and put them back in).
   Whereas with New Edge I can only remember bouncing 1 or 2 of them and 
that was after a serious electrical storm.

> It is interesting that there are so many different DSL speeds
> where some people seem to get better deals and others
> worse.  It's evenmore complex than that, some folks will
> have great download but less upload speed than even I 
> work with.  In Scappoose you can't get a megabit without
> taking out DSL service on two phonelines which because
> of the phone company requires ordering phone service,
> think $30 a month per line, twice.

Interesting.  You know DSL is very distance limited because of the
frequencies it operates at and doesn't amplify.  Most DSL providers get
antsy at around 17,000 feet and if memory serves me right 1.5M is 3,000
feet.  To get your 1.1M it may take two lines.


Rod
-- 
  "Open Source Software - Sometimes you get more than you paid for..."





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