1. Copper infrastructure is aging and many cables will need replacement soon.
Copper passes 99% of homes in the US. It can be used "as is" for DSL. Cable only passes 44% of homes. Plus, a large portion of that cable infrastructure is not able to carry data bidirectionally.
4. Cable is far more efficient at multiplexing the infrastructure and, therefore,
delivers bandwidth on demand.
Cable is a shared medium while twisted pair copper is dedicated to the CO. Using cable, you'll have to fight for bandwidth with all your neighbors. Of course cable is better at multiplexing, because with copper there is no multiplexing until you get to the CO. From there, it's ATM to your ISP, and the bottleneck is your ISP, not the copper local loop. With cable, if your next-door neighbor wants to do a high-resolution videoconference with their grandchildren, then all bets are off for you.
It is often easier to lean on the tried and true, but copper technology has not
delivered 56k for dial up. What will lt deliver on DSL with all real factors taken into
account?
One of my coworkers is testing out DSL now, and the only complaint is that while he only bought 386kbps of symmetric bandwidth, he's getting 768kbps. The LEC says it's the modem manufacturer's fault, since they can't find a good way to degrade the modem's performance.
bucky89 |
