From the Inquirer: HERE'S ONE we didn't miss last week, but we think many US and other readers ought to be reminded of again, because fresh data has emerged. According to a report from iSuppli, Centillium last week said it had made the eXtremeDSLMAX semiconductors which is set to extend broadband over ordinary copper into practically every US home. The chips allow for downstream data rates of 50Mbit/sec and the analysts say this will give broadband to subscribers who are as much as 22,000 feet from the central office over ordinary phone lines. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8819
I've had no problems 50Mbit/sec sounds nice. Betcha it'll be years before it comes anywhere near the UK though...
Re: Re: ADSL breakthrough could mean 50Mbit/sec for all Nope! Heh if they are going to be that silly why don't they go the whole hog XtremeDSLMAXOverdrivezXXX Apparently this all might become a bit pointless though as most operators are looking at schemes like NTLs 1GB a day limit or removal of flat rate services. Could be around 1p a MB... which doesn't sound much, until you realise that could be £8 a day or £240 a month if you use a 1MBit/s service to its specification. So essentially no matter what connection you will be using you will have to confine yourself to modem speeds to be actually able to afford to use it. Or they could charge on a QOS basis, which is even worse as you have no measure of how much you are going to be charged.
JStormant: While what you said is correct, what we don't constantly have reports on is the ever-decreasing cost of the faster connections. By the time this is available, ISPs will have equivilently more bandwidth themselves. Whether or not the pricing schemes reflect this is another matter... I, for one, would prefer an even worse contention ratio to bandwidth caps. While its true that on most days I rarely download over a few hundred MB, I like the ability to use my service as advertised. Even if that means my download rates are worse during peak hours.
I think we will be back to the old BT style model of telephone usage where you will be charged a certain amount, either for how long you use, the amount you download or the QOS. Although bandwidth for ISPs is getting cheaper, I don't necessarily think that will mean it will keep getting cheaper for the consumer, quite the opposite in fact. I suspect the ISPs will start thinking more and more about improving their bottom line. Look out for gentlemans agreements and price fixing in the future to keep prices high.
