Upload Speed

Why are the upload speeds so slow on fibre networks? I understood with copper that there was a throughput limitation, however that goes away with fibre. So why do VM and BT only offer 20mb/s upload? Sure it should be the same up and down?

With the rise of cloud services such as OneDrive, Dropbox, Amazon Drive, etc., should they not be increasing these speeds so we can upload our content more quickly?

VM have just told me they have only recently increased their upload speed to 20mb/s and both have no plans to increase this at this current time.

Seems pretty poor to me.

VDSL2 is up to 20 Mbps compared to the up to 1.1 Mbps of ADSL2+ so a big change.
Virgin Media DOCIS is increasing the upload of products over time as you've seen.

Technical reason being that as both systems rely on RF signals to satisfy the larger demand for download capacity, e.g. stream UHD content systems are designed to use more spectrum for download and upload.

For many FTTH networks around the globe that use GPON similar compromises occur. Where point to point fibre is deployed the technical reasons don't exist, but economic ones may do, e.g. to avoid people running a 1 Gbps data centre on a �45 connection in a student flat.

thanks for the explanation, it kind of makes sense, especially the last piece. Just getting fed up of my content taking a while to upload. Surely they can do better than 20MB by now.

Adding to MrS's comments. Some of it is down to how the ISPs deal with public demand and givernement drivers. People seem to want "download speed" and targets are always around download.

It is technically possible that the tones used could be reallocated to get greater upload. For example by increasing those used in U0 and U1 however that would take speed away from D1 which could then make VDSL impossible for some users. It is a balancing act and when the various plans were set up a lot of work went into various options to find one which gave the greatest potential satisfaction and usability.

What would you prefer? Say 35 down and 10 up OR 15 down and 30 up?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

to avoid people running a 1 Gbps data centre on a �45 connection in a student flat.

That cracked me up that did LOL.

Paul

What I would prefer is 200 down and something like 50 up.

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

What I would prefer is 200 down and something like 50 up.

Well I am waiting for G.Fast to go live everywhere, that way our FTTP (when it finally gets done) might get an increase

Paul

I don't think so - GFast is a copper based service, nothing to do with FTTP!

While nothing to with FTTP suspect the hope is that they might mirror the G.fast 330/50 product onto the GEA-FTTP network as a product option above the existing top end product.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

While nothing to with FTTP suspect the hope is that they might mirror the G.fast 330/50 product onto the GEA-FTTP network as a product option above the existing top end product.

Hold up, Have I missed something? Fibre isn't going to be the best product? What's G. Fast?

300/50 would be lovely on FTTP.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

I don't think so - GFast is a copper based service, nothing to do with FTTP!

I never said G.Fast was anything to-do with FTTP.

I was referring to when G.Fast comes out for FTTC their speed will increase and when theirs increase there is no reason why FTTP speed doesn't increase at the same time, there isn't really a limit for FTTP apart from the price, only what BT set it to.

In fact there was tests done in Denmark which got a transfer speed of 43Tbps down a single fibre strand, granted it was a new design of fibre cable and that was back in 2014.

Using a new type of optical fiber, researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have transmitted data over a single optical fiber at a speed of 43 terabits per second (43 Tbps) to set a new data transmission world record. This beats the previous record of 32 Tbps set by researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Currently BT are or will be trialling 500Mbps (G.Fast) and 1Gbps (Premium FTTP) options, that's what I was getting at.

Paul

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

While nothing to with FTTP suspect the hope is that they might mirror the G.fast 330/50 product onto the GEA-FTTP network as a product option above the existing top end product.

Hold up, Have I missed something? Fibre isn't going to be the best product? What's G. Fast?

300/50 would be lovely on FTTP.

G.Fast is the extra hardware that will be fitted to current FTTC Cabinets giving homes on a short copper distance to their fibre cabinet a change chance to get faster speeds that than 80Mbps.

As far as I know I think G.Fast uses new tech and extra frequency bands to get its faster speeds.

From what I have read and been told G.Fast will be based around 500Mbps and FTTP will be increased to 1Gbps as a premium service.

But like I said that's what I have been told by certain engineers, so this may or may not be true LOL.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Tue 27-Sep-16 18:40:27)

250/125 isn't too bad

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

While nothing to with FTTP suspect the hope is that they might mirror the G.fast 330/50 product onto the GEA-FTTP network as a product option above the existing top end product.

Hold up, Have I missed something? Fibre isn't going to be the best product? What's G. Fast?

300/50 would be lovely on FTTP.

G.Fast is the extra hardware that will be fitted to current FTTC Cabinets giving homes on a short copper distance to their fibre cabinet a change chance to get faster speeds that than 80Mbps.

As far as I know I think G.Fast uses new tech and extra frequency bands to get its faster speeds.

From what I have read and been told G.Fast will be based around 500Mbps and FTTP will be increased to 1Gbps as a premium service.

But like I said that's what I have been told by certain engineers, so this may or may not be true LOL.

Paul

That's more like it. Thanks for the info. I was worried then that as our homes will only have fibre we would be left behind those with copper lines. But that doesn't seem the case

1gbps sounds lovely, I bet they still set the upload for 20mbps lol

In reply to a post by adriandaz:

250/125 isn't too bad

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Looks excellent, KCOM, can't say I heard of them. Is that a lease line or regular FTTP? OR something else?

KCOM has a lightstream product that is FTTH/FTTP

The 1Gbps over FTTP is probably going to be higher than 50 Mbps upload as the roll-out and trials are targeting business areas

Higher upload tends to increase the price though, both on the wholesale and ISP side of things.

Hmm. Not sure who told you VM have no plans to offer more than 20Mb. Watch that space.

They did. On twitter today. No immediate plans as they've only just rolled out 20Mb

They aren't testing doubling the upstream capacity for their health.

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

That's more like it. Thanks for the info. I was worried then that as our homes will only have fibre we would be left behind those with copper lines. But that doesn't seem the case

1gbps sounds lovely, I bet they still set the upload for 20mbps lol

Well a University in Denmark managed to get 43Tbps down a single strand of fibre using a single new design of laser.

Also the G.Fast Speed is the combined down and up stream speeds and would depend on how long the copper from the cabinet to the home is.

Copper length to combined speeds.
< 100m = 500 to 1 Gbps
100m = 500 Mbps
200m = 200 Mbps
250m = 150 Mbps
500m = 100 Mbps

VDSL2 (FTTC) uses a frequency spectrum of 0 to 17MHz (vectored), where as G.Fast uses 0 to 212MHz.

I also read some place that the G.Fast is bolted to the PCP Cabinet and that a FTTC isn't used / required, and that it only supports up to 96 ports / lines using 4 blocks of 24 ports where as the large FTTC cabinets can hold up to 288 ports / lines.

So it seems that granted you might get faster speeds with G.Fast, but their is a great chance you will miss out due to being slow to order.

But with the 1Gbps FTTP / FTTH that will be a premium service which will probable cost a lot more, considering their 300 / 20 service costs about ~ £50 pm.

Paul

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

What I would prefer is 200 down and something like 50 up.

I'm curious. What is it that you want to do that requires those speeds?

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

They aren't testing doubling the upstream capacity for their health.

Well I can only go by what VM told me.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

What I would prefer is 200 down and something like 50 up.

I'm curious. What is it that you want to do that requires those speeds?

Does it matter? but if you really want to know, uploading several thousand photos, videos and other data to OneDrive etc. Also streaming video from my NAS when I'm away from home.

G.fast in the wave to 2020 will be bolted to the PCP http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7447-update-on-g-...

But for access to power and the fibres, this initial roll-out will be areas where there is a VDSL2 cabinet already.

We modelled how many needed to cover the 10 million premises, and even have that on a map at https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=... of course no guarantee areas shown will be enabled, but the theory used was sound.

Worth noting that G.Fast uses Time division duplexing (TDD) rather than the Frequency division duplexing used by ADSL/VDSL. The potential benefit of this is that there can be flexibility on the downstream/upstream split on an individual line basis, if Openreach are prepared to allow it.

Have talked about this, and the consensus seemed to be that to operate in the vectored environment that G.fast is by default the splitting will have to be the same across all lines in that pod.

When you do video and photo editing for a living and need to share with clients etc then thats when you need those speeds. In many cases for me upload is more important than the download speeds.

In reply to a post by puntoboy:

In reply to a post by adriandaz:

250/125 isn't too bad

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Looks excellent, KCOM, can't say I heard of them. Is that a lease line or regular FTTP? OR something else?

KCOM are Kingston Communications. They are a provider who I think server Hull, There is no BT presence in Hull so Sky and others also compete there, again I think,

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

G.fast in the wave to 2020 will be bolted to the PCP http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7447-update-on-g-...

But for access to power and the fibres, this initial roll-out will be areas where there is a VDSL2 cabinet already.

We modelled how many needed to cover the 10 million premises, and even have that on a map at https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=... of course no guarantee areas shown will be enabled, but the theory used was sound.

That's about right, I did see the G.Fast Pod on the right side of the PCP Cabinet.

Paul

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Have talked about this, and the consensus seemed to be that to operate in the vectored environment that G.fast is by default the splitting will have to be the same across all lines in that pod.

I think maybe the 24 ports on that card will have to be the same, the other 3 cards "could" be different.

Paul

Mr S,

Any idea about G.Fast plans where an AIO is in use ?
Do you think they would still put a pod on the side of do you think it's likely to then be a separate unit.

It's likely going to be a few years at least before we start to see mass roll out of G.Fast I would guess. Just wondering what the business case would be and where the focus areas would be.

In reply to a post by Pgre:

When you do video and photo editing for a living and need to share with clients etc then thats when you need those speeds. In many cases for me upload is more important than the download speeds.

The business tiers have better upload in some areas.

Can't be that many people relying on bog standard residential services with no SLA or expedited support to make their money now, surely?

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by Pgre:

When you do video and photo editing for a living and need to share with clients etc then thats when you need those speeds. In many cases for me upload is more important than the download speeds.

The business tiers have better upload in some areas.

Can't be that many people relying on bog standard residential services with no SLA or expedited support to make their money now, surely?

Nothing to do with money for me, everything I do is personal. But I'd still like a decent upload speed.

AIO are probably going to have to wait until G.fast is pushed away from cabinets into footway boxes and up poles. That's my understanding but who knows what will happen in 4 or 5 years.

Plenty big enough footprint of standard PCP/VDSL2 cabinet arrangements to full fill the 10 million target.

I have a Business Line, but don't have money to burn on a FoD connection and when you work from home in a residential area you don't have that many choices.