A little different take on your questions. They are hard to answer since we use these terms differently:
That in itself would seem headache enough to preclude most ISP's from even undertaking the task.
You mean MSOs.
They have to run their network to every local headend?
You have the wrong concept here unless by network you mean the data feed, not the physical supporting equipment. Well, I guess the data is physical, electrons, but quantum mechanics makes them quite virtual. I think ATHM did own or jointly own a lot of the equipment in the local loops of the experimental testing areas like Castro Valley, but that should reside under the purview of the MSO. It isn't in ATHM's interest to get involved too deeply with hardware.
That is essentially duplicating the fiber half of the HFC network isnt it?
And wrong concept here. What do you mean by "fiber half"?
In other words that the MSO runs the local connection and the ISP handles the services like e-mail and content.
The MSO is the physical existence. The ISP is the virtual existence which uses the physical body to live.
In that world view all the ISP's would share whatever bandwidth the MSO could provide and conceivably charges each ISP for the bandwidth
it uses. After all, we users all share the bandwidth of the internet itself and accept that as a simple fact.
Now you're getting back on track.
Would this work?
Easily in theory, but hardly from political, standards, investment, and proprietary angles.
Is there a central point to which the MSO brings its data where the connection to @home is made?
I think you're looking at @Home as though they were a physical entity. They're virtual. They're an ISP. The MSO doesn't take its data anywhere. It just sends it around its own local net or up to or down from the big cloudy Internet. I guess you could look at the Network Operating Center as the aggregation point of non-local routed packets, but any node can load to anywhere on the network. It is the nature of the network to be accessed universally.
Or does @home currently go out to the headends.
The cable partner MSO physically implements the network architecture whose concept ATHM owns and authored.
Is it possible within the routing structure of IP to take a data stream and split it out to different locations depending upon who the
originating customer is?
That's what the routers do in all networks. The IP header determines the destination address extracted by the router. You can't send a datagram or packet without it being routed, so the default is a data stream being split to go to different locations. By the way you have to use "whom" in your above question because otherwise it is semantically misleading or just say, "depending upon the originating customer". Of course, that customer may be a gorilla. Is that what you mean?
I suspect this goes to Ahhaha's origional concerns about "tearing the internet apart" as you put it.
No, but it does underline the possibility of co-carry and it does again move away from any implication that T would rip-off its own investment because they could use that channel for a customer who was willing to pay more. The channel is mostly controlled physically in the MSO controlled last mile.
Is it possible to meter bandwidth here?
What do you mean by metering? Checking to see if the lines are sufficiently loaded? (L). Restricting the load so some worthy isn't crowded out? (L). That's done in the NOC and RDC for management purposes, hot spots, breakdowns, weak points, saturation overload, etc. Equipment compaction and improvement may eventually automate and move all this functionality to the headend. Silkroad may one day achieve this orders of magnitude improvement in cost and efficiency.
Who is currently responsible for control over the customers modems, the MSO or @home?
Neither. The customer. You should be in control of your computer else it may bite you. Does CBS or TCI control your tv?
Finally because I'm out of time-- do you know what % of "upgraded" wires will have the bandwith 750Mhz-1Ghz available?
At least 100%(L). You are asking a question a little like asking how many stripes does a giraffe have? It isn't so much the nature of the composition of the wire assuming fiber as it is the nature of the manipulations applied to the signal so that the somewhat hostile environment of the wire can be overcome. Silkroad hopes to achieve bidirectional terabit feed capabilities in any old fiber without unbelievably complicated equipment accompanying Nortel's latest mass-'o-color breakthrough.
I assume its dependant upon what kind of coax wires have been strung.
Well now, that's been all the problem. What is out there, coax, can carry one-way. For interaction you need two way and that requires HFC, a hybrid of fiber.
It seems you say this bandwidth is available for bidirectional use. Can it be used for upstream internet service or only voice and digital TV as you imply
No, and yes it can only be used for digital tv. Putting voice on standard coax has the same upstream problem. It requires HFC.
It is very difficult to answer your questions in the context of their expression. That's why Frank and I both had a problem doing so. |
