Limitations of voice traffic on an adsl telephone line

I have just found out we are not in the second rollout phase of super fast broadband. Extremely galling when the villages less than 2 miles either side will get FTTC. Anyway the next stage are the alternatives such as point to multi point wireless or satellite plus a few others. It occurred to me to look at not so obvious alternatives for increasing existing poor speeds. Are there any telecom specialists or engineers on this forum that can clarify the following.
Generally ADSL co-exists on the same circuit as voice traffic. Are there any overheads or restrictions place on a circuit in order to carry both signals? I only ask because if a provider could supply a gsm mast in the village and encourage everyone to give up their telephones for a mobile phone, could the ADSL only lines provide better performance if not carrying voice traffic?
John

Nothing to be gained, unless someone comes up with a new type of DSL that utilises the extra 25 Khz or so that the ADSL does not use for voice.

In short ADSL already dominates the copper pairs it is carried over.

There are systems like BET that can bond two pairs to boost very long lines form 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps, but at a cost of a few hundred per line not very economical

Thanks for the clarification MrSaffron. I suppose I suspected that was the case. I was perhaps hoping that removing voice might remove some of the "noise" on the line and allow higher sync speeds.
John

On ADSL the lowest frequencies are already allocated to upstream rather than downstream, so would require a rearrangement of that too, in short far too complex to be of benefit when other solutions are available.

Remember the technical side for slow broadband has been fixed, it is just the relative costs and benefits for those building the networks that mean you don't always get the best technology available.

Morning Andrew

Noting and agreeing with your comments has raised the question as to whether anyone has noticed any interference from the simultaneous use of the line, whether E or D side, with ADSL or VDSL, where the line has conventionally been considered to be "clean" etc?

If your village is big enough and rich enough, you could offer to help the council and BT fund a cab.

This would cost about £25k so needs 100+ premises prepared to pay £250 each. Less than 100 prem and it doesn't really cost in.

Other alternatives are a radio based solution try asking Kjoma for an idea of costs

Before moving back to urbanisation I lived in (a not very remote) Scottish island off the west coast. Copper was not an option at many thousands per line.

I used satellite, expensive but fast downloads.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

If your village is big enough and rich enough, you could offer to help the council and BT fund a cab.

This would cost about £25k so needs 100+ premises prepared to pay £250 each. Less than 100 prem and it doesn't really cost in.

Other alternatives are a radio based solution try asking Kjoma for an idea of costs

We have about 500 houses but many are social housing so can't expect them to stump up £250 or even £100. As for £25k is that done by Openreach? It was a few years ago but the last time we enquired BT wanted £100,000!!
Our local MP has called a conference about Filling the Gap and involving County Council and BDUK. There are also two exhibitors Gigaclear and Avonline Satellite Broadband? I and another villager are attending on behalf of Parish Council to see what grants if any are available for alternative schemes. I believe BDUK are giving vouchers to individuals to help cover installation costs.
If nothing else Satellite is better than nothing but the download limits are paltry compared with ADSL. I have also had contact from a company called County Broadband who do point to point and point to multipoint wireless at reasonable monthly charges. They obviously want more than a single end user and want an introduction to the Parish Council perhaps to start a local campaign and sign up prospective users?
I have heard a lot about latency with wireless but is it an issue unless you are gaming on line or video conferencing? I assume downloads and streaming video etc aren't so noticeable?
John

Could you get enough people to sign up to Gigaclear? The economics are not to bad if you already pay for and ADSL service.

The latency on fixed wireless systems should be little different from ADSL - it depends on the system design but not the technology. The high latency is for satellite wireless systems because the signal has to travel so much further. As with all shared bandwidth systems, the performance of downloads & streaming over fixed wireless depends on the level of usage of the system. There will be unavoidable slowdowns during periods of peak use but competent operators will meet their stated figures during uncongested periods.

Even for a local wireless ISP there is a minimum cost of installing a new mast and the links to the rest of their network in order to provide service to a new area. They have to recover that in some way, either through setup charges or via a sufficient number of subscriptions for a minimum period. If you negotiate with them collectively, you may be able to get the minimum down to 20-30 rather than 100 but the all-in cost of the service is never going to be as low as a mass market ADSL service.

So the question for you and your parish council is: how many people are there willing to pay significantly more than the mass market rate for an increase in speed from, say, 2 Mbps to 10 Mbps. Most wireless operators know that despite all of the complaints it is rare that more than 20% of households will actually commit themselves to this.

Of course, if you have a nice local benefactor willing to pick up (part of) the tab for the base installation cost, then your options may be different but don't expect anything more than waffle and bureaucracy from BDUK. Business (!) vouchers are not designed to cover the cost of building basic infrastructure and the money is running out, so don't expect much help from that source.

In reply to a post by gah789:

The latency on fixed wireless systems should be little different from ADSL - it depends on the system design but not the technology. The high latency is for satellite wireless systems because the signal has to travel so much further. As with all shared bandwidth systems, the performance of downloads & streaming over fixed wireless depends on the level of usage of the system. There will be unavoidable slowdowns during periods of peak use but competent operators will meet their stated figures during uncongested periods.

Even for a local wireless ISP there is a minimum cost of installing a new mast and the links to the rest of their network in order to provide service to a new area. They have to recover that in some way, either through setup charges or via a sufficient number of subscriptions for a minimum period. If you negotiate with them collectively, you may be able to get the minimum down to 20-30 rather than 100 but the all-in cost of the service is never going to be as low as a mass market ADSL service.

So the question for you and your parish council is: how many people are there willing to pay significantly more than the mass market rate for an increase in speed from, say, 2 Mbps to 10 Mbps. Most wireless operators know that despite all of the complaints it is rare that more than 20% of households will actually commit themselves to this.

Of course, if you have a nice local benefactor willing to pick up (part of) the tab for the base installation cost, then your options may be different but don't expect anything more than waffle and bureaucracy from BDUK. Business (!) vouchers are not designed to cover the cost of building basic infrastructure and the money is running out, so don't expect much help from that source.

Thanks for that. I was aware of slowdowns during peak periods but was not aware that latency was no worse nor better than fixed ADSL.
If suitable we were hoping to offer the village hall to install the mast on as it pretty much in the centre of the village and quite a tall building. However there is currently no direct line of site to our nearest town which is Harlow where a previous wireless broadband provider had equipment. We were looking for an intermediate jump point in between but nothing appears suitable without the erection of a mast.

Have you considered 4G Mobile Wifi? If you have a good 4G mobile signal it will give you 40 Mbps speed or more at your computer.

Huawei-E5377s

Huawei-E5377

4G Data SIM

If you have 500 houses I am surprised you do not have a cabinet already.

At that size I am surprised you are not being covered by the BDUK funding, Have you a village name or Postcode to look at. Andrew may then be able to give you more details on what is or is not covered. This would then give an idea why you are being ignored (if you are).

With the newer takeup figures OR need less money to provide a cab, 20% takeup would give 100 FTTC lines which needs much less subsidy.

You wouldn't need everybody to pay just enough to meet the required amount.

You may also be surprised how many in social housing want higher speed for streaming videos etc.

In reply to a post by E7er:

Have you considered 4G Mobile Wifi? If you have a good 4G mobile signal it will give you 40 Mbps speed or more at your computer.

Huawei-E5377s

Huawei-E5377

4G Data SIM

Nice thought but you have got to be joking. I moved from Vodafone to T-Mobile because they were the only suppliers in the area that had a reasonable signal when they partnered with Orange and shared network infrastructure. We had an Orange mast within 1/2 mile of the village. Then when the bought the 4G spectrum they de-commissioned some of their masts in order to save money one of which was the one in the village!! As a result we now have very poor indoor GSM signal let alone 3G or 4G. Many of the locals complained and T-Mobile's answer was to provide us all with phone boosters which use our broadband further reducing our current poor adsl service. I cant get 4G at all and only 3G if I go down the bottom of the garden and clamber up the kids climbing frame. Also until suppliers give a truly unlimited package it far too expensive when I am trying to download 3gb windows 10 updates and other ISOs. Unfortunately we are stuffed all round.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

If you have 500 houses I am surprised you do not have a cabinet already.

At that size I am surprised you are not being covered by the BDUK funding, Have you a village name or Postcode to look at. Andrew may then be able to give you more details on what is or is not covered. This would then give an idea why you are being ignored (if you are).

With the newer takeup figures OR need less money to provide a cab, 20% takeup would give 100 FTTC lines which needs much less subsidy.

You wouldn't need everybody to pay just enough to meet the required amount.

You may also be surprised how many in social housing want higher speed for streaming videos etc.

I live in Hunsdon SG12 8NJ on the Herts and Essex border about a mile from Harlow The village is served by two exchanges. Much Hadham for the north of the village and Stansted Abbots or Roydon for the remainder south of the centre. Both are in excess of 5 km from the village. I have regularly been in touch with the Herts and Bucks Connected Counties team and following publication of the last rollout map asked specific questions about our village. We were told we were not part of the second phase rollout and would have to look at alternatives. Part of the problem is that Much Hadham hangs off the Puckeridge exchange and BT need to upgrade the Puckeridge exchange before anything can be done at Much Hadham. The nearest village to us is Widford and they will be getting a cabinet by all accounts.

If the Cab in Widford is provided with FTTC it may be the the North of Hunsdon will be served from the same Cab.

You can check some of the Phone numbers or addresses using the Bt Wolesale checker ( available from https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html) don't use the post code checker.

If they are connected to Cab 6 this appears to be at the cross roads in Widford, clearly seen on Google. ( Difficult to see the number )

There is also a Cab somewhere else as Cab 1 serves the Global Karting at Little Samuels Farm. This may be in Hunsdon! You can check the numbers as they are usually visible in white paint. ( As is Dib Dabs Cakery and the Fox and Hounds). So this covers most of Hunsdon

One of the issues is that Most of the telephones I have found are not served by BT Whoesale so you have to use the address checker to check.

I would suggest keep pressurising the Council to get Cab 1 included.

Thanks Kitcat appreciate your help with this.

Cab1 is outside Hunsdon Village School and from discussions with the Openreach engineer when installing new lines in our Village hall for ADSL(we have two and a load balancing router to get improved performance) he had to go to that cabinet to make the connections.

Widford does not have FTTC yet but is in the 2016 rollout.
Yes we keep badgering them and will continue to do so. It helps a bit that I know the guy from Herts County Council from my days as IT & Comms Manager with the Fire Service
Fozzie

Fozzie

Glad to be of some help. If Cab 1 does get upgraded most of the village will get over 60Mb Downstream and 20Mb upstream available.

You need to 'prove' there is the demand available, a local petition with 100+ signatures is a start. If you can get people prepared to say they will order may be even more forceful.