Chorus chair challenges telcos on slow VDSL uptake

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#1660959 30-Oct-2016 15:32

yitz: "Forward looking cost model"... more like "copper tax"... maybe they should use the revenue from the copper tax to pay for more VDSL installs.

This precisely.

yitz:

Is there a technical reason Chorus wants everyone on VDSL?.

The technical reason is that they could lose $40 (or so) copper tax from each of those 400,000 customers if they moved to wireless. Spark has already said they want about 50,000 users on wireless before the end of the year.

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#1660974 30-Oct-2016 16:10

VDSL limit WAS about 800m, since the change to the 998 band plan its gone out firther and its more to do with the attenuation figure anyway, the distance was just an estimate.

your attenuation was 15.6-16.5dB which is about the threshold for VDSL.

cynnicallemon

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#1660991 30-Oct-2016 16:45

Jase2985:

your attenuation was 15.6-16.5dB which is about the threshold for VDSL.

Threshold maybe but, I bet you I cannot get Chorus to come out and do a physical check for free to determine once and for all?

Darren0

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#1661005 30-Oct-2016 17:15

cynnicallemon:

Jase2985:

your attenuation was 15.6-16.5dB which is about the threshold for VDSL.

Threshold maybe but, I bet you I cannot get Chorus to come out and do a physical check for free to determine once and for all?

Measurements tend to be pretty accurate when there's a connected line, but given you're from 15.6 onwards means that your best chance is already not good enough.

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#1661006 30-Oct-2016 17:15

cynnicallemon:

Jase2985:

your attenuation was 15.6-16.5dB which is about the threshold for VDSL.

Threshold maybe but, I bet you I cannot get Chorus to come out and do a physical check for free to determine once and for all?

And that's probably the way it should be. Given you seem to be right at the limit (in fact past it seemingly) and that limit is basically at the crossover where there's minimal if any benefit to VDSL over ADSL, why should someone else pay to check out your specific case?

It's a simple fact that due to the design and implementation of the cabinetisation program there will remain some people that are only in ADSL coverage areas (but many if not most of those are in planned Fibre coverage areas). Further investment in the copper network is probably going to come from recovered equipment and I know that there are some truly bad areas that have received upgrades... However (unfortunate for you as it may be)... extending VDSL coverage by it's very nature would be expensive.

Changing the threshold drastically, or allowing people to disregard it would create issues for the RSPs (and users). We'd love everyone to have access to Fibre today, or everyone on DSL to be in a VDSL coverage area, but that's not the reality we live with. I haven't followed your other posts closely but I think I recall you are saying you can receive the Wireless BB services (which will give much better speeds) but don't want to pay for the expected usage you would have.

Are you in a planned fibre area? Sounds like for speed and unlimited you need to wait for Fibre. For Speed today you could go for Wireless (which works really well BTW) or for unlimited today, you can stay with ADSL.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Jase2985

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#1661013 30-Oct-2016 17:27

cynnicallemon:

Jase2985:

your attenuation was 15.6-16.5dB which is about the threshold for VDSL.

Threshold maybe but, I bet you I cannot get Chorus to come out and do a physical check for free to determine once and for all?

the problem then is how far above can you get someone to come out? then what happens if you still cant get it? do you pay a fee for the call out for nothing found?

they have made the limit based on their testing and knowledge. yes there may be some people with longer lines that may get good speed but more often than not its not the case. it also can affect others lines by putting higher power siganls on the line which leads to more cross talk.

you just have to accept you cant get it and if your lucky wait for fibre. if not you might have to go for some form of wireless solution

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cynnicallemon

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#1661019 30-Oct-2016 17:55

Talkiet:

And that's probably the way it should be. Given you seem to be right at the limit (in fact past it seemingly) and that limit is basically at the crossover where there's minimal if any benefit to VDSL over ADSL, why should someone else pay to check out your specific case?

Your quite correct, why should someone else have to pay for my peace of mind.

Why should I have to pay 100% of the copper tax for what is probably poor copper?

Talkiet:

Are you in a planned fibre area? Sounds like for speed and unlimited you need to wait for Fibre. For Speed today you could go for Wireless (which works really well BTW) or for unlimited today, you can stay with ADSL.

AFAIK no scheduled plan for fibre.

I have tried Skinny Wireless with reasonable results but with data from our last years usage on ADSL I will have to raid the piggy bank for about $200+ on a bad month with an average month being $150.

Yeah, looks like ADSL until next decade - enjoy your 4K and 8K streaming.

But going back to the press release, I think Chorus need to wake up if they think they can keep milking the copper tax from users they seem to think are a captive audience.

richms

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#1661027 30-Oct-2016 18:25

yitz: "Forward looking cost model"... more like "copper tax"... maybe they should use the revenue from the copper tax to pay for more VDSL installs. Is there a technical reason Chorus wants everyone on VDSL? Would there be less interference than currently from ADSL/VDSL co-existing in the binder? I understand part of the 998 band plan change aligned the frequencies used between ADSL/VDSL. ... or maybe they want to kill off local loop unbundling by 2020 to run a homogenous VDSL-only copper network with vectoring and call it "FibreX".

No, the more VDSL on the network the worse it gets for everyone else. Neighbour upgraded and I lost another 4 megs downstream - that is different to the fault dropping it to 10 megs that I really should get resolved.

Richard rich.ms

cynnicallemon

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#1661032 30-Oct-2016 18:37

richms:

No, the more VDSL on the network the worse it gets for everyone else.

So we all jump to wireless and suffer the same when the tower reaches capacity - life is fun isn't it...

richms

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#1661041 30-Oct-2016 18:45

cynnicallemon:

richms:

No, the more VDSL on the network the worse it gets for everyone else.

So we all jump to wireless and suffer the same when the tower reaches capacity - life is fun isn't it...

At least they are still upgrading and maintaining wireless services. Copper only seems to get looked at when it breaks entirely and then they do the least work possible to get it back to "we can charge for this" status.

Richard rich.ms

cynnicallemon

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#1661045 30-Oct-2016 19:00

richms:

Copper only seems to get looked at when it breaks entirely and then they do the least work possible to get it back to "we can charge for this" status.

That appears to be what people think. I can understand Chorus concentrating on moving forward with fibre but not at the expense of those left behind.

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hio77

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#1661047 30-Oct-2016 19:03

Okay, ill bite. Ill start off by saying that anything said here is My own personal opinions and not direct attacks/nitpicks on chorus, they have reason for the lines they draw and decisions they make which do make sense most of the time.

I'm a strong believer in putting your best available product forward, with that master filters should be required for every connection... ADSL, VDSL it does not matter the performance is degraded without regardless. (ignoring the case of a straight naked connection here as thats a totally different topic)

1mbit upload is simply not enough for TCP Acks even on a full speed connection in many cases, so for me i do prefer on the side of a more symmetric connection.

The profiles ADSL itself runs on is rather conservative. Chorus should use a 9dB profile atleast (as they have done on VDSL 8B) for ADSL connections, Personally i would like to see 6dB which would prominently only be an issue on lines which do not have a filter installed (that comes back to my first statement.) - heaven forbid that horrid 15dB stability profile is put on a line, that is not fixing the real issue at all usually!

As we have seen with UCLL 6dB is the default, 9dB is the in-between and 12dB is stability. Along with this, Annex M support is available.

Now i will state, im not Totally keen on the mixing on Annex M and Annex A in a bundle due to the corsstalk there, but we cant get away from that one. Just as crosstalk from ADSL and VDSL is there.

ADSL does have a bit of love coming its way, with DLM hitting ADSL i do hope chorus are implementing it with the target of closing gap between real world and theoretical performance on ADSL. In saying that, DLM in itself is a product i'm always of the opinion of being too agressive, Particularly with the Interleaving values.

VDSL brings many features that are exciting, it is true however that it simply is not built to be a total replacement for ADSL. Vectoring being another big factor that will help with the issue on crosstalk dropping rates. being a PTM connection you are gaining less overhead loss too, Look around at providers many moving onto DHCP rather than PPPoE we are starting to get the point to which overhead is such a tiny amount!

I do feel that given the correct circumstances, VDSL could be used to provide connectivity at a longer distance while still improving the connection itself.. There are also more band-plans compatible with the already existing deployed, Particularly for closer lines where crosstalk at the lower end could be further reduced by the fact that the upper end would provide all that is required.

Now anyone around here who knows me well enough knows, VDSL is like a massive toy for me. it has fun little quirks, I love to play with it, tweak it, perfect it... so that is all ill comment on for vdsl.

My final statement about VDSL is, The floodgates for personally tweaked lines on vdsl, causing reverse effects to neighboring lines has been opened. One rather extreme case does come to mind, while i will not give details this quote I think it does sum the situation up a fair bit "Tweaking the line that high has caused a neighboring VDSL line to drop by over 10mbit" (paraphrased fyi)

UFB is upon us, the numbers of lines that are "capable of VDSL but only on ADSL" are just like the numbers of UFB capable locations where copper service is still used.

I take a very black and white approach to UFB availability, Where UFB is available, copper services should not be supplied without reasonable circumstances causing that to be impossible. In most case, i would look at this as being a, secondary connection over anther medium b, temporary connection while installation is completed. Now this approch could be harsh, but at the end of the day this limits crosstalk on copper services, in some cases copper services could be totally decommissioned even. I'm sure a rural user would really appreciate that unused whisper cabinet in the middle of a UFB area being relocated...

In general, do remember consumers look at internet often by purely their downstream rates, Many of us techys do not. Consumers look at their ADSL as working perfectly fine while other mediums may be possible, Many techys also will not.

It is difficult to convince the general public that their perfectly working ADSL connection once upgraded to VDSL is not preforming just as perfect because its a different technology or a fault caused by the internal wiring. a simple search on geekzone for threads on vdsl being slower than adsl will land this being the issue 95% of the time.

Lastly, Not everyone owns their home.. often there is a hierarchy that has to be contacted and convinced before any action can be taken to improve things. bodycorps and the such can be the most painful to get past this with. Remember the line "if it is not broken, why fix it"

I will finish off the by simply saying, HFC should not be named or identified in a way that causes confusion with any chorus product, This just further makes things harder for the average user.

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cynnicallemon

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#1661065 30-Oct-2016 20:08

A bit long but an interesting none the less, even after a few glasses of red.

I agree that 1Mbps is not enough although QoS can make that seem better. That 1Mbps that you may get with speedtest is more like 600-700Kbps average if you use nperf.

When you have two kids youtubing, listening to music online and skyping at the same time it can get pretty slow here.

You make an interesting point at the end about homes and ownership. Some people may think that the average internet user doesn't really care about their speed/internet performance but, I've noticed that some real estate agents now list the types of broadband you can get at a particular home they're selling/renting. Obviously they think it's important to prospective buyers/renters.

That raises another point, take for example my location. If it listed for sale and the real estate ad stated VDSL was available (via some API linked to Chorus website) and someone purchased it thinking they could get VDSL and then they find VDSL is not available, who is legally at fault? It's just hypothetical, it could be fibre instead of VDSL.

richms

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#1661068 30-Oct-2016 20:19

If the real estate agent is stupid enough to actually say "VDSL is available" then probably them, if they are a bit less stupid and say "Chorus indicate VDSL availability" and have disclaimers as to the accuracy etc then you, for buying it without confirming.

Richard rich.ms

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#1661084 30-Oct-2016 21:07

cynnicallemon:

A bit long but an interesting none the less, even after a few glasses of red.

I agree that 1Mbps is not enough although QoS can make that seem better. That 1Mbps that you may get with speedtest is more like 600-700Kbps average if you use nperf.

When you have two kids youtubing, listening to music online and skyping at the same time it can get pretty slow here.

You make an interesting point at the end about homes and ownership. Some people may think that the average internet user doesn't really care about their speed/internet performance but, I've noticed that some real estate agents now list the types of broadband you can get at a particular home they're selling/renting. Obviously they think it's important to prospective buyers/renters.

That raises another point, take for example my location. If it listed for sale and the real estate ad stated VDSL was available (via some API linked to Chorus website) and someone purchased it thinking they could get VDSL and then they find VDSL is not available, who is legally at fault? It's just hypothetical, it could be fibre instead of VDSL.

I could talk internet for hours on end without stopping, sit me down with a bottle of burbon and ill empty it before i stop ;)

QOS can improve it a ton, but there is only so much you can do when you get to massive connection counts.

most real-estates go off the address lookup, which goes off shapemaps.

shapemaps are way off in SOME cases, Yours included.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

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