7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
jstergis
Enthusiast - Level 2

Anyone know specifics about availability of a DSL service that's faster than 3 mbps?  I've called a couple of times over the past few months and have always been told that it's not available here.  Unfortunately, that means the quickest service I can get is 3 mbps, period...and I don't see Fios coming to where I am anytime soon, since it's such a small town.

I'd gladly pay for a quicker service if I could get it.

I've been told I'm 7/10 of a mile from the DSLAM.  Specific location is Peru, MA.

Any information would be great!  Thanks!

Re: 7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
jmw1950
Specialist - Level 2

Tjhere are two tiers above the 3mpbs,  3-7mbps, and 7-15mbps. The 3-7mbps service is usualy available if you are close enough to the Central Office (CO).

The 7-15mbps DSL service is only available in certain markets. It is generally offered in the Big City when they have to go head to head with Cable, and aren't planning on FiOS service anytime soon.

 You need 3 things for the 7-15mbps service to be offered:

1). Short distance from Central Office, if you pair run is only 7/10th of a mile, you could probably get about 10mbps, perhaps a little more.

2). ADSL2+ hardware (which may already be in place).

3). Backhaul Capacity from the CO. Basically there needs to be upstream capacity to sell the downstream capability, and if I had to guess, I'd say that is where the problem is.

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Re: 7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
jstergis
Enthusiast - Level 2

Thanks for the reply!  Sounds like it would be unlikely for them to offer the 7-15 here, since it's a very rural town.

From what Verizon has told me, they don't offer the 3-7 here either, though.  My best guess is that they don't have the backbone to support those speeds up here, as they've been telling people who don't currently have any DSL that there "aren't enough slots" for them to get it.

It's incredibly frustrating because I'm spoiled by 30/30 fiber at work and there's nothing available except DSL here...and while 3 mbps is a LOT better than dialup, it's still painful for plenty of things.

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Re: 7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

I might just append to Matthew's post, just to clear some things up about how this all works out as well.


@mattheww wrote:

1). Short distance from Central Office, if you pair run is only 7/10th of a mile, you could probably get about 10mbps, perhaps a little more.

2). ADSL2+ hardware (which may already be in place).

3). Backhaul Capacity from the CO. Basically there needs to be upstream capacity to sell the downstream capability, and if I had to guess, I'd say that is where the problem is.


Number one is true. You'll be needing a cabling pair that is not only short enough in length, but also in good enough condition to support the speed. Most copper pairs tend to work out just fine in regards to what they can support, but it never hurts to check!

Number two is absolutely true as well, however, the availability of ADSL2+ doesn't always mean higher speeds are available. In some areas, Verizon operates ADSL2+ DSLAMs within remotes, and these are often newly placed remotes that are meant to extend service or improve service in a fringe area. Even though ADSL2+ is theoretically able to go to 24Mbps down, 3.3Mbps up (Annex. G), Verizon will most likely not sell anything higher than 3Mbps on remotes. Most remotes, such as the Catena equipment (Standard ADSL) that Verizon uses are fed by OC-12 lines which deliver roughly 622Mbps to the remote, however once at the remote banks of lines are muxed into T3s which break the bandwidth down to about 45Mbps per bank. The Litespan remotes (Standard ADSL), which were deployed early on have OC-3 lines feeding them, where once again, they are limited to about 120Mbps total on the fiber circuit or are also being provisioned on T3 lines in banks. The Catenas and Litespans can have no issue with syncing at 8Mbps/900Mbps, the max ADSL will really operate on, but the problem lays with the backhaul configuration and also some of the equipment that won't cope with anything more than 3Mbps very well. So ultimately, it's a measure of Quality of Service that Verizon is trying to maintain on old equipment.

Now if you're coming directly from the Central Office, you've generally got less trickery involved. A copper circuit straight to the CO will probably land you on what we've got in our CO. Alcatel High Density and Ultra Density DSLAMs. The High Density DSLAMs are Standard ADSL, Ultra Density are configured with ADSL2+ cards. My CO, despite having fiber direct to the DSLAM, does not offer up any greater speed than 3Mbps from what I've been made aware of, even on those located in the Ultra Density equipment. My CO is already serving out FiOS to half of the region it serves, so this might be the real reason why they aren't offering up anything higher as FiOS is being deemed a replacement in the future hopefully. I would also point out that many of the lines in my area are old, and I'm sure they would have some nice issues trying to run more than 3M on many of the short lines with the condition a lot of them are in.

Number 3 most definitely applies as well. Many areas don't have the capacity to serve 15Mbps out of the CO while leaving room for other traffic. While this can be seen an inexcusable especially with COs that already serve FiOS, it's just the reality of things. Some areas due to a lack of upgrades have actually started limiting lines to 3Mbps, rather than allow people onto 7 or even 15Mbps speeds because the capacity was never brought in to handle the increase in load. This is a case of poor planning, not customer demand.

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Re: 7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
jstergis
Enthusiast - Level 2

@Smith6612 wrote:

I might just append to Matthew's post, just to clear some things up about how this all works out as well.


@mattheww wrote:

1). Short distance from Central Office, if you pair run is only 7/10th of a mile, you could probably get about 10mbps, perhaps a little more.

2). ADSL2+ hardware (which may already be in place).

3). Backhaul Capacity from the CO. Basically there needs to be upstream capacity to sell the downstream capability, and if I had to guess, I'd say that is where the problem is.


Number one is true. You'll be needing a cabling pair that is not only short enough in length, but also in good enough condition to support the speed. Most copper pairs tend to work out just fine in regards to what they can support, but it never hurts to check!

Number two is absolutely true as well, however, the availability of ADSL2+ doesn't always mean higher speeds are available. In some areas, Verizon operates ADSL2+ DSLAMs within remotes, and these are often newly placed remotes that are meant to extend service or improve service in a fringe area. Even though ADSL2+ is theoretically able to go to 24Mbps down, 3.3Mbps up (Annex. G), Verizon will most likely not sell anything higher than 3Mbps on remotes. Most remotes, such as the Catena equipment (Standard ADSL) that Verizon uses are fed by OC-12 lines which deliver roughly 622Mbps to the remote, however once at the remote banks of lines are muxed into T3s which break the bandwidth down to about 45Mbps per bank. The Litespan remotes (Standard ADSL), which were deployed early on have OC-3 lines feeding them, where once again, they are limited to about 120Mbps total on the fiber circuit or are also being provisioned on T3 lines in banks. The Catenas and Litespans can have no issue with syncing at 8Mbps/900Mbps, the max ADSL will really operate on, but the problem lays with the backhaul configuration and also some of the equipment that won't cope with anything more than 3Mbps very well. So ultimately, it's a measure of Quality of Service that Verizon is trying to maintain on old equipment.

Now if you're coming directly from the Central Office, you've generally got less trickery involved. A copper circuit straight to the CO will probably land you on what we've got in our CO. Alcatel High Density and Ultra Density DSLAMs. The High Density DSLAMs are Standard ADSL, Ultra Density are configured with ADSL2+ cards. My CO, despite having fiber direct to the DSLAM, does not offer up any greater speed than 3Mbps from what I've been made aware of, even on those located in the Ultra Density equipment. My CO is already serving out FiOS to half of the region it serves, so this might be the real reason why they aren't offering up anything higher as FiOS is being deemed a replacement in the future hopefully. I would also point out that many of the lines in my area are old, and I'm sure they would have some nice issues trying to run more than 3M on many of the short lines with the condition a lot of them are in.

Number 3 most definitely applies as well. Many areas don't have the capacity to serve 15Mbps out of the CO while leaving room for other traffic. While this can be seen an inexcusable especially with COs that already serve FiOS, it's just the reality of things. Some areas due to a lack of upgrades have actually started limiting lines to 3Mbps, rather than allow people onto 7 or even 15Mbps speeds because the capacity was never brought in to handle the increase in load. This is a case of poor planning, not customer demand.


I'm off of a remote DSLAM at the beginning of my road.  I have no idea what lines feed it.  There is a CO (well, I'm told it's a CO...it's a small Verizon building and I almost never see anyone there) about four miles away from that DSLAM.

I'm told that the DSLAM had been there for quite a while before we had DSL available.  A guy on my road had Verizon ISDN lines and he was having problems with them on a weekly basis.  According to him, they lit up the DSLAM because they got tired of dealing with those issues.  We've had it for around 5 years now.  Supposedly, Verizon won't offer service to any new subscribers up here and people I talk to say that they're told there are no "open slots" so I'm wondering if bandwith has more to do with not offering anything better than 3 MBps than anything else.  There really aren't all that many people who have DSL up here...they cut it off pretty quickly after they made it available.

I know that there are fiber lines running within 7/10 mile of me because an AT&T cell tower is fed with them, but I don't know if Verizon uses them or something else to feed the DSLAM.  Incidentally, I can often get 4-5 MBps down off that cell tower...too bad the uplink and latency is so bad on it...it's probably not practical to have cell based internet for a house anyway.

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Re: 7 or 15 mbps DSL Availability?
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

By no means is it practical to have cell phone Internet for a home unless it's the only option besides satellite. Towers are easy to congest, and with the games carriers play using Sandvine units to throttle (I love ruining their boxes by playing games with them, by the way) and putting data limits on the connections, it's just not worth it.

Verizon may mean "No more open slots" as in the DSLAM you're connected to could simply have no more ports for additional lines. Verizon could easily be out of ports on their DSLAMs but still have capacity to serve higher speeds. The question is, why they don't. With the remotes, as outlined above, Verizon just doesn't run the type of capacity to the remotes that they could have to offer higher speeds. If they are running OC12s, which offer up an adequite amount of bandwidth to remotes, the configuration of the DSLAM as far as connectivity per bank goes or what the DSLAM itself can handle is what is also up for debate. Then there's the CO we're dealing with. So to sum it all up, don't expect anything higher than 3Mbps on most remotes with Verizon. Other providers may offer up higher speeds, but often they are severely overselling the remotes by not supplying enough capacity to them. In the rare case an ISP has the correct equipment in place, then it's smooth sailing.

As far as Fiber lines being nearby, almost every street in my area, even the most rural of streets has some sort of Fiber cabling on it. The question is, why you cannot order it without the installation fee costing as much as a good home and the price per month costing an average paycheck worth of dough is beyond me. It's just sitting up there getting weathered away and destroyed. Might as well make use of it! If whoever owns the fiber on those poles didn't price it so rediculously for residents, it'd be a little more available. So far, I know of only one person who, due to inadequite connectivity where he lived, actually had to fork up the cost of a T3 line (A full-blown T3) and get it installed in his home. The only reason he did that was because he had others, living in a multi-family home, who wished to use it and Cable or DSL was not available. It was as expensive as heck and provided an SLA they didn't want, but 45Mbps up and down was a charm for them.

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