Active Broadband Adds Support for PPPoE (SDN for G.Fast)

Active Broadband Networks announced the availability of "PPPoE support for its Software-Defined Broadband Network Gateway (SD-BNG), providing a cost-effective alternative to xDSL providers deploying G.fast.

DSL remains the predominant broadband service delivery mechanism, with more than 60% of the world’s broadband service delivered using this technology. During 2015, many DSL operators will begin to migrate to support G.fast, a DSL standard for local loops that improves broadband service performance over copper by providing speeds that exceed 100Mbps. 

As a consequence of making this upgrade, operators will need to revisit their broadband remote access servers/broadband network gateways (BRAS/BNG) infrastructure to accommodate the speed increases they are planning to deliver to their customers.

Support for PPPoE is an enhancement of the SD-BNG platform’s current IPoE support, and includes support for IPv6 and multicast.

See "Active Broadband Announces Cost-Effective Solution for xDSL Providers to Increase Capacity at the Broadband Edge" - here.

[ABI]: 123M Fixed LTE Connections by 2019

Yet again analysts are expecting mobile access technology to be an alternative to residential broadband access and replace cable or DSL.

Already 4 years ago, 8.5% of UK households said they are using mobile service at home, as their only access service (here). Other expected it to fail - see "Analysys Mason: Mobile Broadband will Fail as an Alternative to Fixed Broadband" - here) but shortly after saw the light with LTE "Analysys Mason: Will LTE be a Threat to Fixed Broadband Providers?" - here.

3 years later, LTE is seen again as an alternative, mainly to cover for lack of a fixed infrastructure. I wonder what would be the cost of 300 GB quota service with LTE.

A new report by Jake Saunders [pictured], VP and 4G practice director, ABI Research finds that "1.26 billion households do not have DSL, cable, or fiber-optic broadband. Fixed and mobile telcos are looking to LTE to make the connection .. By the end of 2014, ABI Research anticipates there will be 14.5 million residential and commercial premises with fixed LTE broadband access. By 2019, that figure should grow to 123 million .. the shipment numbers for residential LTE gateways and commercial LTE fixed wireless terminals to grow from 9.3 million in 2014 to nearly 44 million in 2019"

See "LTE Reinvigorates the Broadband Wireless Access Marketplace" - here.

O2 Germany Follows DT w/DSL Caps (100-300GB)

Deutsche Telekom's decision to implement data caps on its DSL service (see "DT Implements Data Caps (but Excludes its Own Video and Voice Services)" - here and "DT CEO: "We cannot Explain our DSL Throttling Policy"" - here) opened the door for the other providers.

Michael Filtz reports to ZDNet that "O2 Germany has announced [here, German] that starting in July 2014 it will begin implementing its first national broadband data caps As part of the company's proposed 'Fair Flat rate' plan:

• If DSL users on the company's 'All-in M' and 'All-in L' plans exceed 300GB for three straight months, their speed will be limited to 2Mbps when they use more than 300GB of data again on the fourth month. Additionally, the throttling will continue in subsequent months if users continue to break the 300GB limit. Normal download speeds for these plans are up to 16 Mbps and 50Mbps, respectively.
   
• And users on the budget 'All-in S' plan can expect the throttling to kick in much sooner: they'll have a 100GB cap each month, where their speeds will be reduced from 8Mbps to 2Mbps, regardless of whether they've exceeded the threshold in the previous month".

See "O2 bringing in broadband data caps in 2014 in Germany, power users face throttling" - here.

Will DT Throttle DSL Speeds for Exceeding Quota?

Sean Buckley (pictured) reported to FierceTelecom that Deutsche Telekom "is going to start throttling DSL speeds on users who go over a set bandwidth limit, according to rumors reported on a telecom blog .. The telco's 16 Mbps Call and Surf or Entertain speed package will incorporate a 75 GB cap. It will also implement a 300 GB limit on Fiber-100 and Fiber-200-400 users .. Deutsche Telekom said that it is considering throttling excessive users, but has not revealed any new tariffs, adding that they will "make an appropriate announcement".
See also "DSL, wie in DrosSeL?" - here (German).

See "Rumor mill: Deutsche Telekom to begin throttling DSL users" - here.

$2M DPI Win for Sandvine - US DSL Provider

Sandvine announced that it has received a "over $2 million in network policy control orders from a telecom provider in the US. The service provider purchased Sandvine's Policy Traffic Switch (PTS), Fairshare Traffic Management and Usage Management products to increase the quality of experience for subscribers across their DSL network .. Sandvine was selected based on its congestion and policy management capabilities"

See "Sandvine wins $2 million order from telecom provider in US" - here.

2012 - Usage Based Billing Starts for US DSL Services

 

End of year is the time for either predictions (which I disregard as they usually made by vendors and say that the products they sell will be the hottest trend next year; extreme example - here) or summarizing the year. 

For the latter,  a story by  Sean Buckley to FierceTelecom provides the current status of Usage based Billing in North America DSL services.

Unless we will see last minute changes, AT&T, Frontier and CenturyLink will introduced UBB for "2% of their customers using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth .. will get a 150 GB allowance, while U-verse subscribers have a 250 GB cap on services .. Any subscriber that exceeds the new usage cap three times over the life of their account will be charged $10 for every 50GB over the 150 GB or 250GB limit. (AT&T case). Verizon and  Sonic.net are not going to charge overage fees.  

During the year I followed the case of Bell Canada (see "Canada: Final(?) Decision - No UBB for Bell Canada Wholesale Service" - here) in which, during the year long saga, led Netflix to offer optimized streaming video flow that will reduce volume by 66% (here).

To understand the effect of UBB we can learn from an experiment in New Zealand, in which TelstraClear removed data caps for one weekend. The result - "Customers used two and a half times more data overall than the previous weekend" (here and chart).

On the other hand we also saw a research claiming that "Data caps are a very Unfair Tool when Targeting Disruptive Users" - here.
 

See "Year in review 2011: Usage Based Billing (UBB) will punish all broadband users" - here.

What Happened when TelstraClear Removed Data Caps?

During the recent weekend, TelstraClear [New Zealand] let its broadband customers to enjoy unlimited service ("unmetered").

This was announced on November 28 (here) saying that "TelstraClear is letting kiwis surf the web, watch video and email to their heart’s content all the first weekend in December. From 6pm on Friday 2 December until midnight on Sunday 4 December, data used by TelstraClear residential broadband customers will be free." 

Well, the weekend is over, and Truenet, a "company dedicated to the accurate measurement and reporting of broadband measurement" shared with the public the results:

"TrueNet analysed the impact on our TelstraClear probes, both Cable & ADSL. The impact was clearly evident, but of little concern, even though TelstraClear National speeds reduced by almost 40% for ADSL customers and 64% for Cable customers .. The charts shows that TelstraClear Cable speeds reduced to almost exactly the same as TelstraClear ADSL speeds. This is what we would expect, ie the speed has reduced to the available capacity, with both technologies having equal access to capacity and thus having equal speeds".

".. TrueNet's interpretation is that TelstraClear's experiment with unlimited broadband was a success with average speeds ranging from 3.3Mb/s to 7Mb/s with a limited number of outages".

TelstraClear was very happy to adopt the above statement. In a press release (here) the ISP said that "Customers used two and a half times more data overall than the previous weekend. Total usage was 359 terabytes (TB), 216 more than the weekend before, and enough to completely fill 216 large computer hard drives".

Steve Jackson (pictured), TelstraClear head of consumer markets, said that "We expected customers to take advantage of this opportunity and were upfront from the start .. We made substantial increases in our national and international capacity before the weekend, and put further capacity in place when the demand exceeded this .. We acknowledge that some customers were unhappy with their internet experience, just as we note that many have reported they didn’t mind slower speeds because they were able to use far more data than they otherwise would"

US Broadband - Cable Grows Faster than DSL/Fiber

  

According to a report from the Leichtman Research Group "the eighteen largest cable and telephone providers in the US -- representing about 93% of the market -- acquired about 350,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2011 .. The top cable companies accounted for 77% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies .. AT&T and Verizon added 628,000 fiber subscribers in the quarter (via U-verse and FiOS), while having a net loss of 578,000 DSL subscribers"  

See "About 350,000 Add Broadband in the Second Quarter of 2011" - here

Ofcom: ADSL Actual Download Speed is Only a Third of Advertized Speed

 

The "up-to" term used by ISP is proved, once again, to be different from the actual speed provided to subscribers, even on DSL networks (as oppose to DSL carrier usual claims when compared to shared media access services, such as cable or wireless). 

Ofcom [UK regulator] published new ststics on UK boradband speeds. "UK consumers are benefiting from a boost to broadband speeds .. The average UK broadband speed increased by 10 per cent in six months – from 6.2Mbit/s in November/December 2010, to 6.8Mbit/s in May 2011 .. But the gap between actual speeds and advertised (‘up to’) speeds has also increased .. The average advertised speed in May 2011 was 15Mbit/s, 8.2Mbit/s higher than average actual speeds of 6.8Mbit/s".

"Today’s research found that superfast services offer significantly faster speeds than copper ADSL broadband, with much smaller differences – or no difference – between headline speed claims and actual speeds .. However, over 75 per cent of UK residential broadband connections are currently delivered by copper ADSL telephone lines.  The research found that the average download speed received for ADSL ‘up to’ 20Mbit/s and 24Mbit/s ADSL services was 6.6Mbit/s, and more than a third of customers (37 per cent)on these packages received average speeds of 4Mbit/s or less"

See "Consumers benefit from UK broadband speed surge" - here, full document - here and previous report - here.