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patrickp · 11-11-2005, 20:24

There's a different reason why people on ADSL often can't get the optimum speeds, and that's that they are connected to their local exchange with copper. This means that the greater the distance between themselves and the exchange, the more noise there is on the line and the less the likelihood of their getting the optimum speeds.

ntl's cable system uses fibre right up to the street boxes, however, which means very little effective signal loss, so the critical distance for ntl customers is that from the box to their house - and that's _much_ less than any but the most favourably located BT customers.

So it's clear that the ntl network is capable of providing much greater speeds to a much greater proportion of their customers than ADSL providers can. However, poor maintenance and contention ratios can eat into this. The same applies for ADSL as well, of course.

11-11-2005, 20:24	#10
patrickp Inactive Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: in the groove Posts: 897	Re: Upto .... There's a different reason why people on ADSL often can't get the optimum speeds, and that's that they are connected to their local exchange with copper. This means that the greater the distance between themselves and the exchange, the more noise there is on the line and the less the likelihood of their getting the optimum speeds. ntl's cable system uses fibre right up to the street boxes, however, which means very little effective signal loss, so the critical distance for ntl customers is that from the box to their house - and that's _much_ less than any but the most favourably located BT customers. So it's clear that the ntl network is capable of providing much greater speeds to a much greater proportion of their customers than ADSL providers can. However, poor maintenance and contention ratios can eat into this. The same applies for ADSL as well, of course.