[sllug-members]:Comcast_Is_Starting_The_Tiered_Internet_Whether_We_Like_It_or_Not

[Troy Bowman]

On Sun, 2007-09-02 at 01:32 -0600, Jared A Barneck wrote:

<snip lots of FUD>
> How does Utopia connect to the internet?  Could it be that they will 
> just put there routers in a room with the Telco's routers?  Like they 
> will be a CLEC?  So you will still just being going through your fast 
> new Utopia fiber to the same old internet connection you had before.  
> And when you realize this, some one will ask: "Did you really believe it 
> will get better with another ISP with another name?"

Utopia is just the fiber and link-layer (lower than IP protocol)
switches.  Optical fiber as a medium has virtually unlimited bandwidth.
The hardest part is getting the fiber installed.  But once it's in, it
will be used for several decades.  The thing that actually limits the
bandwidth is the technology on each end of the fiber, and that
technology is constantly improving.  Even right now, with
wavelength-division multiplexing it is possible to attain terabits per
second[1].  DSL also multiplexes over several high-frequency channels to
attain its bandwidth, but copper (in both DSL and Cable) is still quite
limited (the pipe can't be as fat (bandwidth), as quick (latency), or as
long (distance)) and can't even come close to competing with optical
fiber.

So, it's like this:

My house <--> Utopia <--> Xmission <--> Internet

The connection between my house and Xmission is often called "The Last
Mile".  Xmission isn't in The Last Mile business.  Their business is
sharing really beefy connections with a lot of people who use the
bandwidth sporadically.  There are several ways you can get to
Xmission's beef like Dial-up, DSL, Wireless, and UTOPIA.

Xmission's connection to the Internet is multi-gigabit through several
connections[2].  The point of getting Utopia is so that The Last Mile is
no longer the bottleneck.  If Xmission keeps doing things as they have
been doing things, they'll always have the beef on the other end.  With
UTOPIA, the bottleneck will most likely be out on the Internet somewhere
on some congested router.


../troy

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber-optic_communication#Wavelength-division_multiplexing
2. http://stats.xmission.com/routers/public/

<snip more FUD>