PR people know that many journalists do not read and study press releases carefully.
So when Alcatel-Lucent announced a breakthrough to 300 Mbps over copper it was the headline of the day in many blogs, including the renowned Om Malik.
Alas, the details…
Yes, the Bell labs guys are technological wizards. Amazing technological tricks.
Yet:
- the 300 Mbps is the maximum bandwidth available for the sum of upload and download, so symmetrical its 150/150 Mbps.
- reached by bonding of two pairs of copper, means 75/75 Mbps per pair, which is some 50 % better than the previous incarnation
- lab tests always are far better than real life,
- the lack of predictability is the main problem with DSL, the actual performance is very sensitive to the widely varying condition of the outside plant and might be much, much less than the maximum.
So don’t hold your breath. When steamships were introduced the maximum speeds reached by sailing ships quickly surged. To no avail, because the price of more speed was thoroughbred nervous behaviour of the sailing ships, making them extremely difficult to run.
