Fiber to ADSL service

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CraigY

59 posts

Master Geek

#138495 7-Jan-2014 09:19

We live in a rural area, about 2 km from the Chorus box which is located at the Ngutunui school. We currently get ADSL service which during the early morning hours of the day (between 1am and 7 am) is a solid 3 Mbps rate. But during the daytime this drops significantly to between .5 and 1.5 Mbps. Sometimes it will drop to 18 Kbps. I am assuming this is because the ADSL line is being shared by many customers, most likely business customers since the loading is mostly during the day and is okay on weekends and holidays.

The school has a Fiber connection in place. I would guess that the loading on the Fiber link is much less than the ADSL link otherwise I don't think many subscribers to Fiber would accept rates below 1 Mbps during the day. So my question is, can the ADSL line card that services my connection be switched from the ADSL link from Hamilton to the Fiber connection. I would think doing this would dramatically improve my ADSL service with almost no impact on the Fiber link.

johnr

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#962314 7-Jan-2014 09:28

Nope

plambrechtsen

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#962328 7-Jan-2014 09:51

It would be up to Chorus to upgrade the Cabinet ASAM (which is what I suspect you are connected to) to an ISAM to provide ADSL2+ and VDSL services (if you were close enough).

The Fibre connection is delivered via completely different network and connection so has no impact on your DSL service.

I would suspect that the cost doesn't justify the upgrade.. So there isn't anything going to change anytime soon.

CraigY

59 posts

Master Geek

#962637 7-Jan-2014 18:56

When I lived in Dallas I remember AT&T saying they brought Fibre to the box which served the neighborhood and then copper (ADSL) from the box to the house. This was less expensive to provide a faster service than to trench in all new fibre cable to each house. We therefore got about 40mbps over ADSL .. most likely it was VDSL or similar. Again, if the Fibre data could be linked to the VDSL card and a VDSL modem installed at my end, then even if there was a significant drop in bps due to the distance, it would still provide a more consistent service of traffic level (I think). For example, if the VDSL could theoretically deliver 40 mbps, but because of the 2.5 km distance over copper this dropped down to 5mbps, that would be okay as long as it remained at 5mbps all day.

Actually, the 3Mbps is not bad as far as throughput. Which means we have to schedule selective downloads for early morning. It would be nice if there was something that could be done to reduce the loading during the day. Maybe it is due to some sort of tunneling arrangement between Chorus and Kinect where bandwidth priority is shifted under a business arrangement. Maybe switching ISP to Telecom or Vodafone might solve the problem.

There is a RBI program for schools to share their Fibre link but the only practical way I could see that done is through some sort of wireless connection. They surely are not going to run Fibre to each house near the school, and if the Fibre cannot be passed over the existing ADSL lines then the only other solution I can see is wireless. I have thought about installing an antenna at the school pointed at my place, but given the distances and the intervening hills it would take 3 hops and involve a few bits of equipment.

Ragnor

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#962643 7-Jan-2014 19:08

Where are you relative to the school, looks like a really low population area so coverage is spotty

http://www.chorus.co.nz/network-upgrade-map

johnr

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#962645 7-Jan-2014 19:09

You are speaking about fibre to the cabinet / Node and then from the cabinet to the house is copper, This has been happening around many places of NZ for the last few years

http://www.chorus.co.nz/Fibre_to_the_Cabinet

Ragnor

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#962651 7-Jan-2014 19:16

johnr: You are speaking about fibre to the cabinet / Node and then from the cabinet to the house is copper, This has been happening around many places of NZ for the last few years

http://www.chorus.co.nz/Fibre_to_the_Cabinet

Yep something like >85% of homes are within 2km of a cabinet or exchange and should be able to get >10Mbit.

eXDee

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#962661 7-Jan-2014 19:33

It sounds almost conklin like performance to me.

But anyway, you cant link a chorus DSL connection up to a commercial fibre set up. Never ever going to happen for many reasons, which im sure people here can elaborate on if needed.

The wireless link from the school is the only feasible way unfortunately. This would be quite a bit of work, i'd suggest you see if Lightwire has service available in your area:
http://www.lightwire.co.nz/tools/rural-coverage-map/

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CraigY

59 posts

Master Geek

#962684 7-Jan-2014 19:55

Using Google Earth, the house is located at: 38 05 36.86 S, 175 05 28.47 E (as it was in 2010). The ADSL cabinet is: 38 04 33.88 S, 175 06 56.59 E.

The 'back fence' of our property is at: 38 05 51.95 S, 175 05 20.82 E which is at 250 meters I think. The school is at 160 meters. There is one hill in between about 170 meters, just enough to shadow the school by a few meters. My thought was to install an antenna at the school pointed at the location above. I might need a 'repeater' in between the two sites. From the 'back fence' location I would then have a wifi modem/router that could then pass the signal (500 meters) down the hill to the house.

A lot of equipment to setup, but could be done. Before I did this though I thought I would check all avenues available in the ADSL line. As mentioned, I get a great 3 Mbps service between 1am and 5 am .. I could live with this. But during the day this drops to below 1 Mbps and we have seen it as low as 18 Kbps.

Another idea would be to put a 3G high gain yagi at the back fence and use the Vodafone RBI service to bring in 6 or 7 Mbps. We initially tried this using a location slightly above the house site and did actually get 5 Mbps 3G service from Telecom. But Telecom does not offer a RBI plan so it was costing us $50 for 2 GB data. Whereas under the RBI plan, Vodafone can offer 15GB for $120/month .. which is okay. Vodafone came out and tried to install a 3G service but no luck .. apparently even though the Telecom and Vodafone antennas (near Pirongia) are adjacent to each other, there is enough of a difference where we could not get Vodafone.

Since then we took our HTC One Vodafone mobile to the top of the hill (the back fence location given above) and we got 5 bars and excellent internet on it. So what we could do is put a 3G high gain antenna up there and bring wifi down. We called Vodafone again but did not get a reply .. I think they are very suspicious of this new claim.

Ideally we would use the ADSL copper line as a second internet connection (backup) and use the much higher speed 3G from Vodafone as the primary. Alternatively we could look at something faster by putting a digital wireless link between the school and the house.

coffeebaron

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#962713 7-Jan-2014 20:25

@craigy have sent you a message.

Cheers
Fraser

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InstallerUFB

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#962733 7-Jan-2014 20:48

The Cabinet you are reffering to is PIR/B (Pirongia) - this cabinet appears to be a 30 channel PCM cabinet which is feed from (TAW) Te Awamutu via (OHA) Otorohanga on a small count Fibre

coffeebaron

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#962767 7-Jan-2014 21:36

InstallerUFB: The Cabinet you are reffering to is PIR/B (Pirongia) - this cabinet appears to be a 30 channel PCM cabinet which is feed from (TAW) Te Awamutu via (OHA) Otorohanga on a small count Fibre

How feasible would it be to utilise these "small count Fibre" to feed a mini DSLAM + VoIP feed POTs lines? Many places where these feeds run right next to a Conklin.

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oktdavid

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#967255 15-Jan-2014 07:29

Chorus has an obligation to provide UFB to schools within a certain time period while residential and business is based on a different timeline.
The ADSL equipment is different from the GPON equipment used for UFB so it is not possible to just make a card change. In addition, all the physical cables will still have to be installed from the Exchange to your premise to provide UFB, so it is not just a simple card swap.
VDSL is an alternative to provide high speed broadband but it only works if your premise is very close to the cabinet. You can get 30Mbps if you are up to 300m away from the cabinet or exchange but speed tapers off quite significantly from there. Don't think you can get any good speed at 2km.

chevrolux

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#967256 15-Jan-2014 07:35

coffeebaron:
InstallerUFB: The Cabinet you are reffering to is PIR/B (Pirongia) - this cabinet appears to be a 30 channel PCM cabinet which is feed from (TAW) Te Awamutu via (OHA) Otorohanga on a small count Fibre

How feasible would it be to utilise these "small count Fibre" to feed a mini DSLAM + VoIP feed POTs lines? Many places where these feeds run right next to a Conklin.

They would still need to install a new cabinet. The VoIP NEAX cards work with the ISAM-V ports - I think.
So costs would still be up around the $20-50k mark.

coffeebaron

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#967505 15-Jan-2014 12:48

chevrolux:
coffeebaron:
InstallerUFB: The Cabinet you are reffering to is PIR/B (Pirongia) - this cabinet appears to be a 30 channel PCM cabinet which is feed from (TAW) Te Awamutu via (OHA) Otorohanga on a small count Fibre

How feasible would it be to utilise these "small count Fibre" to feed a mini DSLAM + VoIP feed POTs lines? Many places where these feeds run right next to a Conklin.

They would still need to install a new cabinet. The VoIP NEAX cards work with the ISAM-V ports - I think.
So costs would still be up around the $20-50k mark.

Smaller than $200k :)

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webwat

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#978487 1-Feb-2014 11:55

If your speed gets as low as 18kbps the I suspect its a very overloaded Conklin. Ask your ISP to get Chorus to investigate whether theres a severe congestion issue and supply them with some speed tests at different times of day so they can prove it.

Time to find a new industry!