[GordonSweet]

Can someone please explain to me why BT needs to spend £thousands on millions of miles of phone lines with fiber optic cable for faster Broadband, when we have satellites capable of handling multiple ultra fast TV Channels? Why is satellite Broadband so slow and little faster then most cable Broadband?

Also since friends lucky enough to have fiber optic lines still do not get the fill 20 Mb initially pumped into the lines, how far does the fiber optic cable run to a person’s property ?

Gordon

[tehcamel]

Satellite communication is slow because you have approximately 2-3 second up, and 2-3 second back to earth for each transmission

that's ok for tv transmission, but for alot of internet, even though the throughput can actually be pretty quick, the latency is slow.


if that makes sense at all? I can't really answer the rest of your question, except to say that it's not normally fibre to the household.

Fibre is used in the core infrastructure,m because it can carry MORE data, faster.
So you might have, for arguments sake, 100 houses on a street, connected to one of those grey pillars. Each of those houses has 20MB internet, for instance. THat's 2000MB/sec to that grey pillar.
THEN, they use the fibre to run it back to the exchange


does any of this help?

(this is just my understanding, and may not be correct)

[Dumber]

I will get optic fiber in Q1 next year for my internet connection
I can't wait


Anyhow this might give you some more insight:
http://www.networkworldme.com/v1/new...26&sec=cabling

[GordonSweet]

Thanks from an Amateur

[Ossian]

Originally Posted by tehcamel

Satellite communication is slow because you have approximately 2-3 second up, and 2-3 second back to earth for each transmission

Dunno where your satellites are, but any I've used are in geostationary orbit, so approx 36000 km above the equator. Lets call it 40K KM each way so 80,000 km round trip

Speed of light is 300,000 km / sec so approx 0.25 sec latency on the round trip -- not so good for gaming but adequate for data

Still agree with most of your points, though.

BT are mainly running fibre to the street cabinets, with copper (or Al for Gordon) the rest of the way. Fibre to the house would be nice, but not yet

[Wofen]

Originally Posted by GordonSweet

Can someone please explain to me why BT needs to spend £thousands on millions of miles of phone lines with fiber optic cable for faster Broadband, when we have satellites capable of handling multiple ultra fast TV Channels? Why is satellite Broadband so slow and little faster then most cable Broadband?

Also since friends lucky enough to have fiber optic lines still do not get the fill 20 Mb initially pumped into the lines, how far does the fiber optic cable run to a person’s property ?

Gordon

Cable TV is not a stream of data, but a broadcast of data, IE, a Single device sends a signle to a large number of devices, and never waits on a reply.

TCP/IP needs a stream, ie, 2 way communcation. A Sat is not able ot do this, as it can not recieve infomation from all the thousands of recievers at the same time.

The dish you have in your backyard for sat TV can not transmit data.
A Dish that can transmit data cost thousands and thousands of dollars to install, and you need to basiclly own a satilite for it to be worth it (I did work for a company that paid to launch a satilite to get internet to the Solomon Islands.) That is EXPENSIVE (like in the hundards of thousands of dollars).

It is much cheaper to lay fiber cable then to launch the hundards and thosands of satilites needed for full speed boardband network.

Also, we only have so much room in our sky, and its already getting busy.

Wofen

PS: Fiber does not carrier MORE data, just moves it faster (Each second the same number of packets are sent, its just that a fiber packet might take .01 second to get there, ADSL takes .1 second, so fiber is 10 times "faster"
Also, Satilites do not use light to send data, but radio waves, which are MUCH MUCH slower.
I believe the standard sat to earth base lat is .5 to 1.
Also, satilite is very depented on weather.
And did you do research for the Australian goverment? they tried to say Wifi could replace fiber.

[GordonSweet]

So do I take it guys if we do not happen to be some young kid who wants to play silly high speed games online, there is a case for servers taking the trouble to offer us mature users faster satellite broadband? Thus avoiding the need for 90% of us, who are living in less affluent areas having to wait for 10 to 20 years for fiber optic cables.

Gordon

[Wofen]

Originally Posted by GordonSweet

So do I take it guys if we do not happen to be some young kid who wants to play silly high speed games online, there is a case for servers taking the trouble to offer us mature users faster satellite broadband? Thus avoiding the need for 90% of us, who are living in less affluent areas having to wait for 10 to 20 years for fiber optic cables.

Gordon

If by Old you mean you do not use any streaming tech, then sure, but if you want to..
Watch Movies online
Watch clips online
Listen to music online
Video Chat
VOIP
Run torrents/ download things
Then I would recommend Fiber over Wifi.

The only reason Wifi is as fast as it is, is becuse only 1% of boardband uses Wifi.
If you where to increase that by 1% of the total, that would double the amount of users on Wifi, and quater the speed of it.

Its that, or they spend Hundards of Thousands of dollars putting more sats in orbit.

If you do not live in a area where you will get fiber, I do not see how this is even a question? If you will never get it, no point, if you do not get it for 20 years, then go with wireless.

Wifi will NEVER replace fiber (or solid land based cables) for meny meny reason.

How about this, do you want to check the weather when its raining.... well on Wifi you cant (Weather plays a major part in the speed of Wifi).
How about you have alot of Gumtree in the area, Gum tree create a Electro magnetic signal, that stops wifi.
How about you wish to do offsite backups to a cold sit, cant really do that on wifi becuse the speed will change nightly, and could though out your backup.

I find it funny that you think "Young kids playing on the internet" is only 10% of the population. I think you have it the wrong way round. For the 10% of you who do not need to do any of the above, then yes, wifi is for you.

But by god, saying that Wifi replaces Fiber, and then aguring the point is just silly.

Thats like saying that Planes replaced cars.... (2 technologys that provide the same service, one is heaps more advance then the other, but the more simple one does more then 10 000 times the work).

Wofen

PS: Sorry if I got alittle heated, but the Australia Fiber plan basiclly got canned becuse someone told the goverment that Wifi will replace fiber. It will not and its impossible for them to even attempt it. It has ben proven there is not enough room in the sky for the number of sats needed to provide "fast" internet.

[GordonSweet]

Thanks. I will just see if I live long enough to see fiber come to deprived Hastings. I see from the BT site we are competing with the likes of Cambridge. So it is highly unlikely we would be given priority over an important center of learning.

Needless to say more affluent Eastbourne had fiber some time ago. ----- Money talks.

But as I posted here before and to Ofcom, I still cannot see why the greedy servers cannot be forced to charge us according to the broadband speed they can detect we are getting, say £1 per 1 Mbps !!

Gordon

[Wofen]

Originally Posted by GordonSweet

Thanks. I will just see if I live long enough to see fiber come to deprived Hastings. I see from the BT site we are competing with the likes of Cambridge. So it is highly unlikely we would be given priority over an important center of learning.

Needless to say more affluent Eastbourne had fiber some time ago. ----- Money talks.

But as I posted here before and to Ofcom, I still cannot see why the greedy servers cannot be forced to charge us according to the broadband speed they can detect we are getting, say £1 per 1 Mbps !!

Gordon

Becuse the speed you get is dependent on weather. Even with cables on a rainy day you will lose about 5% speed (due to water in the air effecting static discharges (there is a term for it, but cant remember)).

Also, the line speed changes day to day, its also possible to increase your line speed by doing some very simple things (upgrade phone points, new routers, Earthing your lines... ect). If the ISPs where to charge on the speed that you actuly recieved, rather then there max, then people could take advantage of these things to lower there speed to next to nothing untill there need it, then jack it right up as far as they can.

I do not see why you are worried about fiber if you believe wifi will be fast enough, as ADSL (which should be avaible world wide (well, anywhere with phone lines)) is faster then wifi.

While ISP are not the nicest of companies, there is enough compertition in most parts of the world to keep them semi-honist.

Wofen