Fibre Optic woes!

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BeLgaRiOn

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Could someone please explain to me why Telkom cannot provide ADSL on Fibre Optic cables... Every other developed country can. Why can't we?
 
No.. you're wrong
No-one can provide normal ADSL on fibre.

DSL Was developed for Copper twisted pairs. The ADSL signal will not survive the transition through a Fibre media converter.
 
Oh, right. Thanks then :) . What 'broadband' service can they then provide on Fibre optic cables?
 
AFAIK it can be done by using a mini DSLAM, but as this is an additional expense to Telkom it is only used when demand (for all 16/32 ports) is satisfied, and the potential users are ready to sell their souls.
 
Telkom has enough trouble keeping their copper in the ground, and now you want them to worry about fibre to your house ?!?!

Not gonna happen anytime soon.

Obelix
 
Actually no, there is ADSL over Fibre available. Telkom just dont want to put in extra effort.
 
BeLgaRiOn said:
Every other developed country can. Why can't we?
Click to expand...

That is wrong, after reunification in Germany, the German Telkom improved all the telephone infrastructure in Eastern Germany with fibre-optic cable. That was BEFORE ADSL come to the market.
And now? The eastern part of Germany has NO access to DSL...
 
ADSL over fibre is technically possible, but our systems here do not support it (afaik on the exchange side there is something that would have to be changed).

The only way to get around it is a convertor on the user side. According to the last bit of information I heard that was upwards of R10000 for the device and installation. Not really worth it, so Telkom almost never does it, even when begged.
 
According to the last bit of information I heard that was upwards of R10000 for the device and installation.
Click to expand...

And if you have to buy the device from Telkom, you will be paying R100,000 for it!
 
GimmeMore said:
And if you have to buy the device from Telkom, you will be paying R100,000 for it!
Click to expand...

Damn you know i first thought LOL, but then I was like, oh he is probebly right. And the fact that we expect to be screwed is so sad :(
 
Hi Belgarion & others

I think CARoper is correct here…a mini DSLAM will solve the problem of Fibre Optic Rings. To the best of my knowledge Telkom is actually implementing this technology (or will sometime soon) which should increase ADSL availability around the country. I know there were some problems with the initial mini DSLAMs (South Africa temperatures for one), but I think this has been solved. Maybe somebody with a Telkom contact can confirm this information…

Regards,

RPM
 
On the "ADSL over fibre" story...thats physically impossible, so the statement is an oxymoron.

ADSL is an electrical frequency technology - essentially data is sent and received by using electrical impulses on the different frequencies available on the copper cabling.
ADSL is also seen as a last mile solution - ie. ADSL/copper is not generally utilised for much of the backhaul from the exchange, mainly because electrical impulses fade quite fast over distance.
This is why ADSL is usually not available if you live too far away from the exchange.

Fibre is an optical technology - lasers are used to transmit inject light through fibre in differing burst rates (ie. 1s and 0s). Fibre optics is NOT an electrical impulse medium like ADSL.
Additionally, fibre is far more expensive to implement because of the laser equipment and the need to have highly skilled technicians to maintain and expand fibre networks. Hence it is not generally used as a last mile solution - ie. fibre is not generally run from the exchange to your house.
Fibre is viewed as the best backhaul technology because the bandwidth and reliability of fibre is far better than anything else out there, plus fibre data can travel much longer distances before needing to be repeated.

So to answer the question of why ADSL is not provided on fibre:

Its physically impossible, because fibre is a completely different medium to ADSL.

If your question was "Why can't Telkom provide broadband data over fibre to my house?", then the answer is, yes they could, but they wont.
Very few countries have seen fibre rolled out to homes because of the cost implications.
Most advanced countries have seen fibre expand up to the exchange, thereafter DSL is used to connect the home to the fibre.
 
There is no need to deploy fibre to our homes and businesses. The ADSL2+ standard supports up to 25Mbps and VDSL, 54Mbps. Besides, what would be the point of a 25Mbps ADSL line with a 3GB cap? Broadband for 16 minutes? i don't think so...
 
lewstherin said:
On the "ADSL over fibre" story...thats physically impossible
Click to expand...
Directly you are right, but technology exists which does the convertion.

lewstherin said:
If your question was "Why can't Telkom provide broadband data over fibre to my house?", then the answer is, yes they could, but they wont.
Click to expand...
Says who? First off Telkom is already rolling out fibre to many complexes where previously they would use multiple 4+0 copper lines. Then the complexes DP runs copper from there to the unit.
Also if you can justify enough usage Telkom will put in fibre. Enough usage is along the lines of 30+ phones or a ton of bandwidth usage (very few)
 
ok...let's all go browse through howstuffworks.com
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dsl.htm

The fiber Telkom's talking about, is your exchange (usually a sub exchange). To get around that they use a mini DSLAM with only 16/32 ports instead of the usual 480 and put it in the Box instead of the exchange. From there it will go over fibre into the ATM network. I've never heard of fiber being supplied to your house for a phone line.

From the box to your house is always copper.
 
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DFantom said:
Says who? First off Telkom is already rolling out fibre to many complexes where previously they would use multiple 4+0 copper lines. Then the complexes DP runs copper from there to the unit.
Also if you can justify enough usage Telkom will put in fibre. Enough usage is along the lines of 30+ phones or a ton of bandwidth usage (very few)
Click to expand...
Thanks for repeating exactly what I said...no ways Telkom will run Fibre To The Home (FTTH).
They may run fibre to your (sub)exchange, but never into your home. And obviously the conversion tech exists - this was implicit in my explaination (ie. "Most advanced countries have seen fibre expand up to the exchange, thereafter DSL is used to connect the home to the fibre")

Nonroker - do a google for FTTH. Countries like Japan/Korea/and even some counties in the US have rolled out FTTH. They offer ethernet speeds... :eek:
 
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lewstherin, yes. That I know off. VDSL is based on the idea that you have FTTC (Fiber to the Curb), so only the last few metres will use DSL, that's how they get 54MBps etc.

Maybe I wasn't to clear. I meant for a phone line. They won't waste money with fiber, when copper will do. Obviously FTTH is meant for data services and VOIP

Anyways...the fiber in SA is most probably not FTTC .. probably FTTE/FTTN (Exchange/Neighborhood). I believe some suburbs (Kensington) have this already. But Telkom will still use ADSL and not VDSL (btw VDSL max distance is 1200m) because of bandwidth/technology costs.
 
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