[clug] [OT] Broadband clangers

[Alex Satrapa]

On 12/08/2010, at 11:25 , jeff wrote:

> There was only one problem with the explainations: All the examples are stable technologies. phone 300-3000Hz duplex analogue audio, electricity 50Hz 240VAC single phase or 415VAC three phase.

Changes to phone technology since the Australian 3-pin plug was standardised include at least:
 - Call waiting
 - Conference calls
 - Voicemail
 - Switch to RJ-11 connector

These changes have worked with the existing infrastructure.

> You could add water and sewage to this list. There are also different  standards as you move into the network,eg 115Kv for high tension electricity feeds …

Except we don't pipe 115kV into people's homes. There is a standard that specifies things like fuses, residual current devices, separation of electric ovens from other circuits, etc.

There are rules about water plumbing too - certain size pipes to the home, backflow preventers, etc.

The same applies to plumbing the Internet.

> … ISDN primary rate (E1 speeds) for use with PABXes

Or, to continue the plumbing analogy, the different sizes of water or gas plumbing provided for commercial buildings as opposed to domestic residential use. Or the way a factory can have their own substation and take 115kV directly from the grid.

> The speeds on data networks aren't  stable even at the edge as we are discussing. As the speeds increase new layer 1 (physical) technologies are needed. For example, different fibre is needed for 10Gbps  than 100Gbps over distances greater than about 80 km.

Does anyone actually make use of all 1000Mbps of their gigabit Ethernet networks?  I expect that a gigabit port on the wall will provide enough flexibility in data rates for residential use well into the next decade.  Perhaps we need a different connector, but I wouldn't be in any hurry to put optical ports into residential use. At least Ethernet is a little forgiving of dust!

> What is being referred to as the "Internet" in these posts is really a data feed to the house which could potentially be many different things. It could be multiple virtual circuits at layer 2 to separate out VoD service or broadcast video from voice and video conferencing from lower priority general Internet services and "virtual office" links.

The technology to handle this already exists since we have MPLS and associated technologies to handle virtual circuits.

Let's have a walkthrough of a potential solution:

You get a work-at-home "box" from work (or a "smart grid" connector from the electricity company). You plug your work phone in to one side, the other side plugs into your NBN-approved switch. Your work has provisioned a specific MPLS service to your NBN account. This WAH kit then subscribes to that MPLS service, at which point traffic on that MPLS starts flowing and the WAH kit can establish the VPN connection to work's PABX, give your computer access to work's file server, etc.

Is that too far fetched?