Verizon To Use New Tech With Old Cables 188
Ant wrote to mention a ZDNet article about a new initive to get modern high-speed net access into homes utilizing old coaxial cable lines. Right now Verizon digs up streets and lays out expensive fiber to get homes online, but new tech may let them accomplish that task for much less hassle and expense. From the article: "Later this year, it plans to use new technology from the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) , an industry group that promotes using coaxial cable installed for cable TV to transmit broadband around the home. The organization says that its technology supports speeds up to 270 megabits per second. Because most homes already have coaxial cable installed in several rooms, Verizon can significantly reduce its Fios installation costs by using existing cabling to connect home computers to its broadband service."
Verizon? (Score:5, Funny)
RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition is good; too bad they aren't competing with ISPs from Japan or Korea, else we'd get getting 100M/100M connections for $10-15 a month.
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been living in the US for 30 years, 5 different states, a dozen different addresses...and I have never been able to choose between two cable providers for a given location (actual coax-to-the-house cable). As far as I'm aware, consumers actually having a choice of cable providers is exceedingly rare in the US.
The only competitive pressure the providers face that I know of is having too many customers switch to DSL/satellite/what-not and being bought out by a more successful provider.
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Now: FIOS->New CAT5
With this: FIOS->Existing coax
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Did no one read the article?
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2, Funny)
sorry it's late thats the best I can do.
What? (Score:3, Funny)
The article? Hell, I didn't bother to read your whole response! As a typical slashdot reader I am far to busy thinking how to vote in the next poll to read anything. I just post here.
What was it you were saying again?
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2)
Maybe for some people. For me it was FIOS->"It's on the side of my house, now get the fuck out".
I don't understand why people want the phone company in their house messing with their stuff, especially considering how messy their wiring usually turns out. They never clean the bits of wire up off the floor either.
270 Mbps is hardly "competitive with fiber..." (Score:3, Informative)
270 Mbps on coax - the OP was correct, Whoopty-frickin-doo!
Re:270 Mbps is hardly "competitive with fiber..." (Score:2, Interesting)
You miss the whole point of fiber... (Score:2)
This move by Verizon is based entirely on short term financials, but at some point fiber will be needed to keep
Re:You miss the whole point of fiber... (Score:2)
Which means jack for a typical home computer. It's not enough to get a billion bits per second into your computer — your system has to be capable of doing something useful with all those bits. Few computers can even do disk access that fast!
Someday home computers will be able to deal with that much info — but by then the network technology will have evolved too.
Story: when we upgraded our comp
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2)
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Funny)
Am I missing something? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
* Assuming that you subscribe to cable TV as well
Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it should work. 270Mbps is not that much on coax. Television production studios have been runing smpte 259M (component 4:2:2 standard def. video @270Mbps), over '59 coax for years. Granted, it is much better stuff than in your average house, but it is often over much longer distances.
I would guess that the 270Mbps is the raw wire speed and will have a lot of error correction. That and
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:2)
"cut corners wherever possible, including using unshielded cable. "
really? so they use a single wire then?
I know you were implicating the lack of a foil wrap around the braid, but technically the braid is still a shield.
Compare that to the solid silver stranded core and silver clad copper braid, with 3 foil wraps that I use in some of my instrumentation and it might as well be unsheilded.
-nB
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:2)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:2)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:2)
Sure, but what about the twenty year old cable that's already in the house? That's what VZ is looking to leverage, and I think there'll be a lot of neighborhoods where they end up pulling CAT5 anyway, just because the quality of cable in the walls is for shit.
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:2)
Good (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good thing it's not Rogers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good thing it's not Rogers (Score:2)
Heh. Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Ask any telecom tech what he thinks about letting a cable guy do phone wiring, you'll get an earfull. Cable guys are the basest of all wire technicians. From what I've seen, they're the least trained, the poorest equipped, and do the shoddiest work.
In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In related news (Score:2)
If they just get fiber to the MPOE (Score:2)
New Bits in Old Wires (Score:2, Funny)
new? (Score:1)
Re:new? (Score:2)
270mbit cable connection in Montreal? I'm still here strugging with Sympatico to provide me 1.5mbit. Videotron offers cable Internet but they do so for $90 a month for 8mbit.
So where do you see 270mbit? Tell me.
Re:new? (Score:2, Informative)
Aargh - I was just getting used to twisted pair! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Aargh - I was just getting used to twisted pair (Score:2)
1. You most likeley used 50 Ohm BNC's but the Cable systems use 75 Ohm F-connectors. Those are somewhat more reliable than BNC's, and are much easier to replace.
2. Those early nets were daisy-chained from connector to connector, and any break would take down part of or the whole network. With the co-ax system the Cable system uses, they are usually radiating in a "star" configur
Re:Aargh - I was just getting used to twisted pair (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm... sounds like the token fell out. Why don't check to see if it rolled under your desk?
Re:Aargh - I was just getting used to twisted pair (Score:2)
What makes this so different from cable internet? (Score:1, Insightful)
I suppose they're probably using a higher frequency to transmit the data as opposed to existing cable internet.
The other concern is, won't the cable companies charge Verizon an arm and a leg to use *their* cable networks? I would imagine this would drive the price of this new solution up through the roof, to the point where its cost makes it prohibitiv
Re:What makes this so different from cable interne (Score:2)
ZDNet just sensationalized it some.
"old" cables? (Score:4, Insightful)
Matt Wong
http://www.themindofmatthew.com [themindofmatthew.com]
But 75-ohm coax cable is old technology (Score:2)
It works great for many things, no question. Provided the tolerances are tight, you can use it for uncompressed HD video (and the broadcast industry does) at distances around a kilometre. However that doesn't change the fact that it's a very old standard. Still extrememly useful
Re:"old" cables? (Score:2)
Is this really a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
What are the chances they will actually pass the savings on to the consumer? Exactly nill. Anyway, since everything and the kitchen sink will soon be relient on an IP address and broadband connection, is this really a good idea? Just lay the fiber and get it over with.
I thought they had learned.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I thought they had learned.... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, a band-aid costs about $0.10, whereas surgery could easily run more than $10,000. Both have their place, and I'm sure Verizon has done the math to see which will be most profitable in the long run.
Re:I thought they had learned.... (Score:2)
Re:I thought they had learned.... (Score:3, Informative)
This shows what is possible today with coax. Production studios are shipping uncompressed digital HD over coax all the time (smpte 292m runs at 1.4Gbps), although they are often having to replace connectors and take more care in bending radius. 270Mbps shouldn't be a big deal if the cable is properly terminated and not kinked.
Verizon FiOS Fiber to the home (I have it) (Score:3, Informative)
So this article summary is misleading. The fiber is *still* going to the home, it's just that they will not run Ethernet into the home if they don't need to. Instead using the pre-existing Coaxial runs which are already in place.
Only delaying the inevetible.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Only delaying the inevetible.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because by then the current board members will have retired and the current CEO/CFO will not have to find a way to keep the stockholders happy while all the company's revenues go into network upgrades. The next boss can deal with that.
Re:Only delaying the inevetible.... (Score:3, Funny)
Eventually the sun will burn out, so why not buy these flashlights from me?
Eventually we're all going to die, so why not have your funeral today?
Not a huge difference (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:2)
This may be new to verizon... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yawn! Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Interesting)
Stock Market laps it up like candy. Thinks Company X is going to become the new King of Content Delivery (because, you KNOW all the company's competitors and going to sit on their hands and have their kiesters handed to them by Company X).
Then there will be delays of getting the project actually going. Maybe even some slight downplaying of actual speeds of conetnt delivery.
At some point someone with a PhD in physics or a heavy EE background gets ahold of the actual method of content delivery and point out it simply isn't possible in the real world because of interfereance, older lines than they used in the lab, ect.
Marketting dept for technology company downplays statement made by PhD/EE. Slashdot crowd made up of people who know WAY too much about the national power grid and enough about radio spectrum to work at the FCC pop up to defend the scientist's statements.
More backpedaling of speeds for new service. Marketting direction of new tech starts to veer slightly into the "will allow service in areas not currently reachable by standard broadband providers" direction.
Companies who have not yet publically committed to using tech start to back out. In the others unfortunately, corporate inertia takes over. Whoever greenlighted the project doesn't want to try and back out and look stupid for having wasted plenty of company money at this point.
New tech has limited rollout, shows to be the flop we knew it was the whole time. You never hear about the new tech in the media again and it becomes one of those fringe technologes only seen in rural regions. Perhaps eventually phased out as traditional broadband service (Cable/DSL) are pushed into the region.
A few years pass and major Telcos/Cablecos grouse about the cost of last mile hookups and getting ot that last few % of homes in the middle of nowhere. Stock is tanking on high network infastructure costs gobbling revenue.
But then a company no one's ever heard of pops up with the idea of...
Re:Yawn! Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
Not just communications, but any over-hyped product. Reading it, I was immediately reminded of the unbelivable hype about the Itanium, which caused companies like Compaq, HP, SGI, etc., to hitch their company to a sinking ship (pardon the "Itanic" pun).
Re:Yawn! Nothing to see here. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yawn! Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/ [misterbg.org]
Who owns the existing coaxial cable? (Score:2)
Re:Who owns the existing coaxial cable? (Score:3, Informative)
The cable company owns the cable 1 foot away from the house entrance point. After that, it belongs to the homeowner/landlord. This was decided when the DBS guys started business and some cable companies wanted to block them from using the inside wiring.
Of course! (Score:2)
Good business sense (Score:2, Interesting)
Phone companies managed to get usable broadband over ancient phone lines, and all I have to do is plug in a little adapter to my telephone. This is a good re-use of existing infrastructure, and stock holders should look favorably on this. Of course, a smart company would take some of the resulting savings and keep a fund ready for eventual replacement of their lines.
How are they making money? (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA cites those costs for 2005 as $1,200 and $1,400 respectively.
How exactly is this a profitable business venture when their optimisitc goal is to spend over $1,600 per household for installation of a service that they sell for $40/month, with relatively little commitment to stay with the service?
Re:How are they making money? (Score:2)
Because it's a long term investment. I had the 30/5 FIOS package installed at our place just before Christmas last year. I'm not a CFOI, but I could hold my own in conversation with the installers, being especially interested to learn the cost of the ONT and other equipment the
Old Coax Cable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Old Coax Cable? (Score:2)
Baseband signals, like classic coax Ethernet, are a pain, because they go all the way down to DC, which means you can't filter out hum from power lines. Ethernet only worked because it used strong signals on really good coax. It's not going to work over the crap cable TV uses.
Not 10Base5 or 10Base2, but 10Broad36 (Score:2)
Not quite. 10-Base-5, like 10-base-2 is ethernet on coax at BASEBAND. What Verizon is proposing is Ethernet on an RF carrier over coax. I.e, "broadband". But that's been done too. It was 10-Broad-36.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10broad36 [wikipedia.org]
Re:10BASE-5 vs. cable TV? (Score:2)
Using UWB, Firewire over Coax is doing 400Mbps (Score:3, Informative)
"The HANA exhibit will showcase how Pulse~LINK's CWave -On-Coax and the 1394TA's S400 interface provide a powerful, whole-home distribution capability that can run over pre-existing in-home coax cable AND co-exist with legacy cable and satellite programming. The demonstration will consist of two 1394-enabled CWave(TM) UWB transceivers, one in the Trade Association's booth and another in the Pulse~LINK booth, with splitters and several hundred feet of coax cable between them. 1394 HDTV audio and video will be streamed bi-directionally between the two booths in the HANA suite, showing how coax cable in the home works as a broadband backbone with 400Mbps application layer throughput for seamlessly transporting multiple simultaneous streams of digital content to 1394-equipped devices throughout the home."
http://www.pulselink.net/pr-jan02-2006.html [pulselink.net]
Just when you thought Verizon was an innovator... (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as possible... (Score:2)
I'd say as long as possible... "infrastructure" == "assets", aka, "sunk costs".
Do you replace your car before you need to?
Do you replace your carpet if it can just be steam-cleaned back to "presentable"?
Sheesh - no grand conspiracy here... if they can make a buck on what they have, they will.
Re:As long as possible... (Score:2)
Do you replace your carpet if it can just be steam-cleaned back to "presentable"?
You really probably don't want to know the answers to those questions.
Most people have been well trained by marketeers to do both of those things you describe.
Regardless, they're not doing what the parent suggests. They're switching to the fiber because the aging copper lines are getting more expensive to maintain than the new fiber is to install. They only want to use legacy wires on
They're already using this.. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not really sure how it's going to be cheaper -- coax isn't that expensive, and they were more than happy to replace the sub-par cabling that MediaOne/AT&T/Comcast had left behind. They even ran more wire inside the house to accommodate the way I wanted to setup things.
Re:They're already using this.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They're already using this.. (Score:2)
Better idea for Verizon - STOP SPAMMING! (Score:3, Interesting)
AOL and other ISPs have taken aggressive and extremely effective approaches by filtering port 25 traffic on their networks. As a result, the spam and zombie activity from their customers has dropped off dramatically. ISPs like Comcast and Verizon still have yet to do this and they're a major source of internet pollution.
Until Verizon controls the illegal activity of their users, I urge all system administrators to block all port 25 traffic from Verizon IP blocks such as:
68.160.* * - 68.170+
70.16.*.* - 70.23.*.*
70.104.*.* - 70.124.*.*
71.100.*.* - 71.251.*.*
141.150.*.* - 141.158.*.*
151.199.*.* - 151.200.*.*
etc.
Screw you Verizon. Control your idiot users!
Re:Better idea for Verizon - STOP SPAMMING! (Score:3, Interesting)
Not so bad, actually (Score:2, Interesting)
Verizon (and investors, including in a small part myself) doesn't know if FIOS will be profitable yet. There are a lot of competing techs that are a threat. They can't compete in speed, but they make up for it in thei
Ennh... (Score:3, Funny)
Ever heard of CCIR 601? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:back to the 19th century (Score:2)
Re:Will this anger Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will this anger Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Will this anger Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your cables are your own (Score:3, Informative)
This was actually decided by a court case years ago, you own the cables in your house (Hence, Verizon now charges you when there are problem in your home). One question I would have is whether the cable TV and FIOS and live on the same cable, or if this is a way to force adoption of FIOS TV [verizon.com]
Verizon has been surprisingly willing to cable up homes accepting FIOS for almost no money, I've been wondering how long that can
Re:pushing cable asside... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is the real headline here -- basically what Verizon wants to do is run fiber to your house, to the outside service entrance or basement or whatever, and then unplug the Cable Company's wires from where they attach to the wires inside your house, and plug themselves in there. Then their signal -- instead of the Cable Co.'s -- goes to everyplace you have a cable jack. Which is quite a few places, in many modern homes.
For you, the customer, they can say "hey, you don't need to run Cat 5 all over your house this way"
I think it's their way of responding to the Cable Companies who are bundling TV+Highspeed Internet+VOIP packages, where they install a VOIP box and plug your analog phone into it, effectively cutting out the phone company.
Frankly I think it would be better if both companies agreed on a common wiring standard (hey, how about Cat 6 UTP?) and then plugged THAT into whatever network line the customer wanted to use -- whether it was the Cable Co.'s or the Telco's.
Re:pushing cable asside... (Score:2)
But how does that save them so much money? The majority of expense isn't the c
Re:pushing cable asside... (Score:2, Insightful)
The
More then 10 years (Score:2)
It was really old tech even then.. I kept wondering why cable companies didnt do someting like that themselves since it was proven technology.
Re:Oh, you mean THAT Verizon? (Score:5, Informative)
I switched from Comcast cable modem service to FIOS this past December.
1) Comcast was ~$45/month for 6.6/512k. With FIOS, I splurged and I'm paying $54/month for 30/5. You can, however, stay at $45/month with FIOS and get 15/3. Not to be biased, Comcast is rumored to be increasing their speeds to 16/?? without a price raise, at least around here. But, as a previous reply mentioned, torrents on a 30/5 line are rather sweet.
2) I'm a pure Linux shop at home. The installers had no problem with that. They were more concerned with my Linksys router which I was told has issues with PPPoE at or above 15Mb/sec. They welcomed me to plug it back in, so it wasn't a sales pitch. I eventually found many FIOS forum posts from people experiencing exactly what they described.
3) Their TV service isn't actually available here yet (Comcast stronghold, currently in legislation), but I know from other areas that it isn't IPTV. Their initial test area was somewhere in Texas I believe, and it's interesting to read their reactions to the service, which is extremely good.
Looks like you're wrong on all points. That must suck. A lot.
Re:Oh, you mean THAT Verizon? (Score:2)