----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Bulk" <frnkblk@iname.com>
Subject: RE: iCloud - Is it going to hurt access providers? The copper technologies of DOCSIS and xDSL are well established in residential deployments and they are asymmetric by design. I don't think near-symmetric speeds are on the CableLab's and Broadband Forum's short list of future features. Even GPON is 1:4. As more fiber is deployed, I believe deployments will eventually migrate to some variation of EPON where symmetricity is built into the design. In the meantime it is what it is.
That's as may be... but the real question, I think, is this: What's the asymmetry of the *intermediate* networks? It wouldn't make sense for cablemodem providers to provision symmetric transport inside their MANs if they didn't have to... so if they *don't* have to, how hard can the push it with the way they're provisioned now? Or is the transport natively symmetric, as I suspect, and they're just letting it all sit there on the return side. Must gall their sisters... :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274