Does ntl offer a viable product any more?

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by scastle

One point several people here appear to be missing.

Yes, ADSL can theoretically go up to 8 Meg assuming the exchange has been unbundled and you have a good connection to it that is less than 2Km long. Yes, Power lines can carry 2 Meg Up & down, assuming there are few people attached to your connection point, and you live within 200 metres of it.

However, these technologies can only deliver the high speeds to a few people.

NTL are making the increased broadband speeds available to EVERYONE who can get broadband, not just those near an unbundled exchange or their local power substation.

not EVERYONE - only people lucky enough to be in an NTL area.

everyone else will be left in the dark ages of broadband! either stuck with dial up or slow ADSL connections!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

not EVERYONE - only people lucky enough to be in an NTL area.

Maybe I should have been more specific when I said "NTL are making the increased broadband speeds available to EVERYONE who can get broadband", maybe I should have said "NTL Broadband (not ADSL)"..

Anyway, my point was that the companies relying on LLU may NOT be able to offer increased speeds to all their customers as they may not be able to afford to unbundle all the ADSL exchanges their customers are on. For instance, in unbundled areas Bulldog offers 4Meg connections. Everywhere is is limited to 2 Meg. Even assuming you live in an unbundled area, there is a chance your line won't take the increased speeds.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Escapee

BB down power lines (PLT) has been one of my pet hates that I have gone on about in threads before. I understand they recently turned off one of their pylon routes that was carrying B on the trial and the RF noise floor in the HF spectrum reduced by around 30dB. (figure from memory of reading independant article)

I seem to remember having 99.9% of the users on this forum against my views when I rubbished the technology because of it's unscreened cables and poor balance at HF frequencies. Balanced networks carrying HF need suitable designed cables to ensure balance is maintained to reduce Ingress/Egress.

I always said Power line BB was a non-starter..

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by scastle

...my point was that the companies relying on LLU may NOT be able to offer increased speeds to all their customers as they may not be able to afford to unbundle all the ADSL exchanges their customers are on.

yup indeed - there will be cherry picking. probably exchanges with a high number of lines in densely populated areas will be the priority.

For instance, in unbundled areas Bulldog offers 4Meg connections. Everywhere is is limited to 2 Meg. Even assuming you live in an unbundled area, there is a chance your line won't take the increased speeds.

that's right and if bulldog have unbundled an exchange that might put off another unbundler from doing that exchange. which might be very annoying if you're after 8meg from ukonline but buldog only do upto 4meg. and then as you say... only those near to the exchange will get the high speeds (until the technology has another breakthrough).

[steven_azari]

if ADSL can handle 8mb down why dont bt do it for those that live near enough (since I live about 200 metres away.)

and yeah I got BT Retail mixed up with BT Wholesale :p my bad.

And I havent followed up on internet technology since they were looking into BPL.

Just thought I should clear that up

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by steven_azari

if ADSL can handle 8mb down why dont bt do it for those that live near enough (since I live about 200 metres away.)

and yeah I got BT Retail mixed up with BT Wholesale :p my bad.

And I havent followed up on internet technology since they were looking into BPL.

Just thought I should clear that up

Originally Posted by Ignition

Hi Steven, welcome.

<snip>
Actually when going up in speeds we could go to 1MBit upload, however market forces don't require it.

Don't get me wrong though, while BT's copper network can do 8Mbit their ATM network it's built around would cry

Already answered I think.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by scastle

I always said Power line BB was a non-starter..

Ok then, you are Mr 0.1%

I worked on the old Rediffusion cable networks, and exactly the same principles applied. They were using 2.9 to 8.9MHz for modulated video signals, the cable had to be specially manufactured, I think the later cable was made specially by a company in Sweden (name escapes me now something like Dansk?)

The network engineers used to have meters to go around and measure not only the signal levels, but cable balance as well. It must also be considered that this was a network designed specifically for HF signals not one for 50Hz.

BB down powerlines has been banned in a few countries, specifically Japan being one I mentioned in an earlier thread. Whilst at ntl I was involved in a few trials to measure egress from HDSL, ADSL signals at ntl cabinets, the ntl cabinets were just about inside the very highly set RA spec. Apparently the RA had conducted a lot of tests on BT's cabinets and they were not happy with the results at that time.

BB/PLT should be buried, I never understood how they were allowed to trial the system using some allocations used by military and aviation.