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I have been on telkoms line order for dsl for almost 8 years now. Happened to pass a technician today and asked him when he thought my area would ever have ADSL. His response to me was never because the lines layed down were fibre optic and only copper can support ADSL. Im sceptical about his theory amd wondering if anyone can confirm it
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Question of the Day: Which major South African city would you least like to live in?
Copper versus Fiber Optic
- Thread starter Marz
- Start date
Looney
Executive Member
ROFL! there we go, thats its, that confirms that some of Telkom's technicians are useless. It's called ADSL2+, where u can reach speeds higher than 100mbps via Fibre Optic cables.
Srack0verflow
Expert Member
were there never land lines in your area? i thought the fibre runs between the miniDSLAMs the copper runs from them to the street corner box, the pole, your house?
Scooby_Doo
Honorary Master
Thats correct, you don't get adsl over fiber. Its a technology that runs over copper from the exchange to your home.
You can't be serious? ADSL2+ runs over the same copper infrastructure that ADSL runs over.
sand_man
Honorary Master
Looney
Executive Member
Yes I never said that it cant, but ADSL2+ can also run over fibre, how else do you expect to get 50/100mbps?? Copper cable could never allow that kind of high speeds.
Srack0verflow
Expert Member
i remember Jay Naidoo salivating while explaining how the four strands of copper (in this piece of submarine pipe on his desk) handles 300 megabit
Yes Ive always had land lines...so what am I to assume here? The website says my line is DSL ready...the technicians says its not....the call centre says its not....and even the Telkom stores say its not.
The neighbour behind me has ADSL so I have no idea how to procede from here.
The neighbour behind me has ADSL so I have no idea how to procede from here.
Sting
Ghost in the Machine
Place an order and demand a reference number. Let the correct people decide whether you can get ADSL or not and not some admin type person.
Deckert
Well-Known Member
Good golly. Do your research man.
ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+ are originally copper technologies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_Digital_Subscriber_Line
The A in ADSL is for "assymetric", referring to the way the limited frequency spectrum is used on a copper wire to increase modulation speed in one direction while limiting it in the other direction. Your old 56k modem worked in the same way (looking up the V.90 standard is left as an exercise to the reader).
Fibre does not have this limitation and typically runs fully symmetrical. The high speeds achievable over fibre far exceed only 100Mbit/sec - speeds of 10Gbits/sec are commonly available over multi-mode fibre, while lab-tested transmission speeds have achived terrabit speeds over several hundreds of kilometers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber-optic_communication
There is a concept known as ADSL over fibre, but it refers to the way in which traffic is carried to the end-point equipment and does not employ fibre for the last mile. For example IS have ADSL over fibre, but it refers to ADSL connectivity (copper) getting it's bandwidth via international fibre links (as opposed to satellite).
--deckert
Srack0verflow
Expert Member
and if sales tells you can get ADSL again, just hang-up and redial, eventually you'll get thru to someone willing to do their job
Maybe the tech meant that the exchanges in that area are already used to capacity, and Telkom has no intention of installing more, which would give more connections? I was under the impression that connecting exchanges via fibre was the way to go. So I wonder what the tech thought those cables were going to get used for.
Sting
Ghost in the Machine
You are correct - all exchanges are interconnected via fibre. Some of these techies could not find their way out of a paper bag. They only understand (hopefully!!) their own little portion of the network and have no clue as to what happens beyond that.
Sting
Ghost in the Machine
The newer ones work off W-CDMA which is what Telkom 3G are/were using to roll out their network. All they do is limit you to mobility within your own mast's range, i.e. you cannot roam. Calls are based on normal fixed line rates, not mobile rates.
Previously they used things like RURTEL, DECT, SR500, etc which were also not bad if installed and maintained properly. The problems around these systems were that the masts were installed in way our places (out of necessity) and there was no Eskom or municipal power available. So Telkom had to provide their own solar power to these sites and the thieves then decided to steal the solar panels!!!!
Oh my hat. There is simply no winning here is there? Then (as mentioned in the other thread), would fibre not be the better suited option to prevent theft? Unless ofcourse you can steal fibre and resell it, but I'm not sure if that can happen, or who will even buy it.
Sting
Ghost in the Machine
No, the thieves then vandalise the fibre out of spite. Also take into account that in order to transmit a signal over fibre, you need to amplify the signal after every x number of meters. This also requires power....
The only way is to clamp down on the scrap metal merchants and the legislation was passed a year or so ago (the Second Hand Goods Bill). The overwhelming majority of cable theft is controlled by syndicates and they are well connected. And that links back to the other corruption thread!!!
ROFL so there we go again. Catch22 until further notice
Ok, so my solution then would be to totally ignore servicing the low density areas, thereby saving cost on security, and use that money to give me FTTH
/jokes.Clearly no winner here. I suppose it comes back to good old policing and crime prevention, which means more money for SAPS, and there goes my fibre dream out the window, cause Telkom profits to Gov will have to subsidise that by way of nice chunky profits.
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Srack0verflow
Expert Member
i'm afraid copper will still be with us for some time to come, in regards to the last mile i mean. why have a gigabit going into every home when the phone only needs 9.6 kilobit for voice? not yet anyway, the costs involved in generating a photon signal from your side aswell can't be small i think, or doesnt it work that way?