DSL Prime: Real Speed, Not Angels on Pinheads

DSL Prime says that if it delivers DSL speeds, it's not the fiber the government gave the bells billions for.

by Dave Burstein DSL Prime [July 19, 2004]

BellSouth Cut "Fiber" Speed More Than 80 percent
Originally shipped 10/10 Mbps, cut to 1.5/0.384 Mbps
BellSouth has installed perhaps a million lines of "fiber to the curb," but hasn't connected the users at speed. I've now discovered, talking to a former Reltec engineer, that the original systems were designed with 10 Mbps upstream and down to each home (ordinary Ethernet). However BellSouth chose to downgrade the speed to a tenth of what the system was designed for. My assumption is they didn't want other customers complaining about their relatively slow speeds.

Brent Fowler of BellSouth writes, "The initial Fiber to the Curb (FTTC) data offering utilizes Ethernet (10 Mbps) from the ONU to the customer's house. The Ethernet was provisioned over two pairs in the copper drop. In addition to voice and data, this FTTC product also provides video service. BellSouth refers to this architecture as Integrated Fiber in the Loop (IFITL). This system was utilized as part of our FTTC overbuild initiative, resulting in BellSouth passing about 180,000 homes with this architecture.

After the IFITL overbuild deployment, BellSouth changed the data delivery strategy from the ONU to the house from Ethernet to ADSL for various reasons. The product currently being deployed utilizes ADSL data delivery from the ONU to the customer's house over the same pair as the telephone line. Ultimately, as bandwidth requirements increase, BellSouth will migrate to utilize other DSL delivery strategies from the ONU to the house (i.e. ADSL2+, VDSL)."

2004 technology means that 10/10 should be 50/30 or higher. That speed costs less than $100 per line, dropping rapidly, and can be delivered simply by adding new line cards to the existing Reltec/Marconi/AFC/Tellabs gear BellSouth has in the field.

Editorial: Real Network Speeds, Not Angels on Pinheads
BellSouth is arguing in D.C. that the fiber in the loop, even if it isn't delivering high speeds to customers, "provides service-equivalence to fiber-to-the- home." That's of course not true. It's only admitted into public debate because D.C. is arguing about dictionaries, not reality.

"Fiber" is just melted glass, not a guarantee of "advanced services." So the debate over whether anything with "fiber" in the network deserves special treatment is obfuscation built on would-be clever lawyering by Dick Wiley's firm. If the speed of the line is the same as DSL, what it offers the customer is the same as DSL. If the speed is 100 Mbps, it has the advantages we associate with fiber. Time for BellSouth to step up, and win a D.C. battle by delivering great service to their customers.

Mike Powell knows that BellSouth's limited selection of video isn't what the Internet is about. He's spoken eloquently of "Freedom to Access Content. First, consumers should have access to their choice of legal content." Powell hasn't related that end-to-end principle to the actual plans of telcos to impose their choices instead, but keeping the Internet open is worth fighting for. Powell's sharing a podium with Larry Lessig at Stanford this week, the Internet's most thoughtful intellectual, and I hope he listens carefully.

Editorial: Science Behind Closed Doors
Three or four times a year, someone inside a company I cover decides the company behavior is unreasonable, and suggests to me a story. Choices like that happen in many businesses, and I've done my best to report what develops. For example, a large telco was offering illegal inducements to get certain statements before the FCC. Going public with the details could ruin a career or worse, but two separate people were repulsed by the behavior and passed the story to me. I in turn discussed it with an FCC Commissioner and implied it in my reporting, keeping the sources obscure.

Nearly all businessmen would prefer to be ethical, but often discover the choices are hard.

Walt Bogdanich in the New York Times reports a similar story of an individual faced with choices, which he can now attribute because Harvey Levine is no longer part of the system.

"Harvey Levine remembers the day in the mid-1990s when, as a vice president of the Association of American Railroads, he suggested that railroads, not just drivers, might share responsibility for grade-crossing collisions.

The reaction was swift.

'Another vice president said, 'Why don't you shut up and sit down,' recalled Dr. Levine, an economist and a former railroad employee. 'I knew the next sentence out of my mouth was going to cost me my job.'

With two children in college, Dr. Levine said he did not argue the point."

We all hope never to have to make decisions like that.

Copyright 2004 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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