----- Original Message -----
From: "eldad moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Regarding the prices, well - I do thing it is expensive,
>but you have to realise that Bezeq invested more then
>$200 million on the adsl infrastructure !!!
>The prices will get down at some stage...
How did you get the $200 million figure ? the whole point in ADSL being is
that you don't need to upgrade the infrastructure - you just move everything
on the twisted pairs any user gets !
The only investment Bezeq need doing is buying DSLAMs, which (for the 10,000
switchboards that should be available for ADSL by march, as Bezeq claims)
would mean $20000 for a DSLAM set . I _know_ that a DSLAM doesn't cost
anywhere near that figure.
The only other erquirement for ADSL (the other two being a normal twisted
pair copper line to the subscriber and a DSLAM in the switchboard), is very
fast ether channel between the switchboards, some which bezeq has for last
decade or so. so I have no idea where you got this nice and round figure
from (maybe from Bezeq reports to the "Knesset" ;-) but it sure doesn't
sound realistic.
The other opinions that you describe here are also a bit lacking on the
factual side :
>The major advantage of the adsl is the downstream,
>which is higher them all other options at the market
>at the moment.
>Each customer gets 3mb (mega bits) of downloading
>and it's the fastest internet around at the moment.
ADSL is up to 8MBit downstream for a very short connection (about a mile or
less from the switchbaord) which almost any urban Bezeq user fall under that
category, or 6Mbit for twice the distance - which covers all the other
cases, except a very limited number of special cases which wont have ADSL
available anyway. Bezeq limits the downstream to 2Mbit (and not 3 like you
claim), because they're cheap and don't want to upgrade their internal
network (see the bogus $200 mil again).
>The upstream is 64kb to all of the customers!
>No one has more then that.
>About the future - nothing is clear yet -
>especially not an extra cost for more uploading
>capacity.
>(Why the hell do you need more then that -
>how much uploading you do anyhow...)
most users on the net (ok, most of the users in the world - less sure about
israel) aren't passive users - this isn't television (which is one of many
points where Bezeq fails to understand the medium). end users do upload
stuff - files to web servers, they stream live media from web cams and
"internet radio" web casts, they video chat, swap media file using media
exchange networks like Gnutella and do other stuff - all require large
upstream pipe - and ADSL technology does allow for an upstream channel of
upto 1.5Mbit.
>In any case - it is completely not to the point to
>talk about adsl and isdn in the same breath!!!
>
>adsl is a pure direct digital connection between
>customer's line and the operatoin port through the
>ATM network (which is the fastest network around).
ISDN is also a digital network, similar in concept to ADSL, but utilisizing
just the frequency range used by normal voice - which limits its bandwidth
to the theoretical 64k of normal voice range.
ADSL by itself does not require the ATM fast switching, it's just that its
nicer to have the ADSL throuput channeled using ATM, and it allows Bezeq to
force the ISPs to buy expensive ATM connection from ... you guessed it -
Bezeq :-)
There are other forms of networking that are very fast (I think some are
even faster the ATM), all suitable to be the backend for ADSL.
Also, the digital channel formed by ADSL is just between the ADSL modem and
the DSLAM. the other parts (the connection from the ADSL modem to the
consumers computer, and between the DSLAM to the ISP) are composed of
different ethers - the only thing connecting them is the VPN software -
which could run on any other medium - for example , an analog modem.
The ADSL prices are just the highest that Bezeq allows itself to charge and
still thinks it will get customers. if it will charge more, it will be
cheaper for customers to buy some otehr connectivity, like FR; and if home
users will buy FR, it will grind the already saturated FR network to a halt,
forcing Bezeq to -- good grief! -- invest some more money in expanding its
internal network.
I'm not saying Bezeq is the devil incarnate, just that they're not the
farest people around. I guess that competetion will do good to the nice
Bezeq folks too (and I don't mean "fast" internet access using the cable
system).
As it stands right now - I'll stick with ISDN, maybe even my full 256K,
which according to my latest calculations will be just a bit more expensive
then ADSL, but will give me 4 times the upstream rate - good enough to run a
web server.
That's my rant - sorry , I had to discharge some steam :-)
Oded
..
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem
worth
stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe
it.
-- Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
