On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
"In the foreseeable future, having a 15 Mbps Internet capability is irrelevant because the backbone doesn't transport at those speeds," he told the conference attendees. Stephenson said that AT&T's field tests have shown "no discernable difference" between AT&T's 1.5 Mbps service and Comcast's 6 Mbps because the problem is not in the last mile but in the backbone."
Regardless of the chitter-chatter about IPTV in this thread, I can say pretty definitively that the 6Mbps I am getting via DSL (I'll get to cable next) is much faster in practice than 1.5Mbps DSL. I most certainly can sustain ~4Mbps for a single stream video feed, with the remaining headroom still mostly usable. Now, when you get into a shared channelized medium like cable (Comcast), there is a difference in the backing network, and congestion is a much bigger threat. That said, I was using Comcast when they went 3Mbps, and at the time, I could sustain 2.4Mbps downstream from an external ASN with no problem. I still have MRTG graphs showing it. FUD, indeed. I have no idea how to sustain 2.4Mbps on a 1.5Mbps DSL connection, but if someone here knows how, I'm all ears! (...The frustrating part about those figures is that I might as well have FTTH, because my DSLAM is less than 50 feet from my premises -- it's in a green-monster canister on the corner of the block. The modem says I *could* attain better than 9Mbps down and 2Mbps up, were such service available to consumer low-lifes like myself. <g>) -- -- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com> <todd@vierling.name>