[OT-ish] How big is the UK 'net?

[Ian G Batten]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Ken Brown wrote:

> the UK they usually fall for the hype and mean ADSL (which I personally
> don't expect to take off, BT will continue to sit on it timidly the way
> they sat on ISDN, which they delayed for so long it was near obsolete
> before most people could afford it). Still nothing like the kind of
> network speeds most workplaces and colleges now have. 

I don't follow this (yes, disclaimed, I'm the IT director of one of the
two main manufacturers of DSL for BT and I was involved in the original
IP/DSL architecture work).  DSL is 500K down, 250K up or, at the worst,
500K down, 128ishK up.  As the employer of 1000 people, we have a 2M
internet connection, and once you get outside academia that sort of
contention ratio is pretty standard.  If you think ``most workplaces''
have current Janet bandwidth, you are sorely, sorely deluded.

> Your email scheme presumably involved large outgoing volumes  ad well as
> incoming? Not good for ADSL (Part of the point of ADSL - almost the
> whole point, really - is to throttle user's ability to send. It is the
> favourite protocol of the Murdochs and the cable TV companies and the
> big record companies who want us to be able to download large files from
> them, but not to be able to serve files to anyone else). 

Again, huh?  The reason for DSL being asymmetric is that there are only
so many bins to go around, it can't be fullduplex (in the sense of using
the same frequency in both directions) because of massive crosstalk, and
overall 500/250 was held to be more useful than 375/375 or whatever else
you fancy.  There's some simplification there because of launch power
issues --- exchange sited equipment has more --- but there really is no
conspiracy.  Remember, a trailblazer modem circa 1990 cost a grand and
got about 16Kbps out of a phone line: you're getting a fortyfold down,
twentyfold up improvement and you're still whining?  What technology
capable of wide-spread deployment do you have available at 25 quid a
month?

> For ordinary modem users - the vast majority of private Internet users -

DSL is installing at around ten thousand per week.

ian