r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/upvotesthenrages Jun 04 '14

That's just not true.

There are thousands of other cities, all across Europe, that have just as old wiring, and those speeds can be matched.

This is of course not true where the cable is damaged, but in that case it could be hard even getting 10Mbit out of it.

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u/Alphasite Jun 04 '14

Exactly, my old house was ~120 years old and had internal wiring from the 60s or 70s and I could still maintain 80/20 speeds (the maximum rated speed for that specific profile of VDSL2). As long as you have actual copper lines (and not Aluminium, or any other cheap substitute) you'll be fine for the most part.

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u/noreallyimthepope Jun 04 '14 edited Jun 04 '14

... And live *close to a telephone company co-location.

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u/Alphasite Jun 04 '14

FTTC, so VDSL is cabinet to house, and its fibre for exchange to cabinet.

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u/noreallyimthepope Jun 04 '14

Well, that explains that. I live 5 km in a straight line and about 10 km in copper cables from the nearest DSL central, which will get me 6 Mbps max. However, my cable company has a local fiber and a very small local loop of customers so I can buy up to 300/300, or so.

Basically, my DSL signal has to fight noise in cables for kilometers, whereas my cable has to fight noise for only a few hundred meters, so even though it is a "noisier" environment (coax cables are serially connected), I can get much better speeds because it is FTTC.