[Gllug] Home grown DSL

[William Palfreman]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Mike Brodbelt wrote:

> Kieran Barry wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, William Palfreman wrote:
> >
> > > Did anyone else see the Robert X Cringely article about DIY DSL links?
> > > (http://www/pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823.html)  I'm up for this.
> >
> > I was very interested in this, at least as an idea.
> >
> > > I checked with BT and they rent out copper pairs at £33 per month, and £58
> > > per month beyond your local exchange.
>
> Interesting.
>
> > > Add a pair of DSL modems ($300) at
> > > either end, and that's 2Mbits full-duplex!  I'd rather spend a few
> > > weekends laying fibre segments between one person and another than I would
> > > pay BT extortionate inter-exchange rate, but, well, that's an option,
> > > isn't it?  Those parts would do 100Mbits. (Whoor!)  Anyone else
> > > interested?  Think how good those WAN skills would look on your CV :-)
> > >
> > Right. Anyone else live around sunny Southall?

I've just checked with BT, and the proper name for these circuits is an
EPS 8 or 9 circuit - one is two wire, one is four.  The maximum range is 4
miles or one exchange:  you can't do it through two exchanges.  That
definitely rules out Haringey to Southall. How I worked it out was to
give the BT private circuit people a call on 0800 169026 and give them the
post code for the two points (my postcode, N4 1LR) and in this case the
postcode for Boots in Southall.  They also corrected the price for an EPS
8 circuit to £384 per year.

> >
> > How many people would be needed before a leased line is competitive with
> > cable/ADSL?

I don't think we should see this as a solution to having an ISP.  I see it
as having some cool network links to throw isos down and do networked
gaming. The quality uplinks can come when the network is a bit bigger and
we all have more money. This is more in addition to our existing
connections, plus of course it gives a failover in case your own
connection goes down.

> A lot. You can get 2Mb ADSL for 119ukp/month, which works out at roughly
> 1700 ukp /year, after VAT and stuff. Last time I checked, a 2Mb leased
> line would set you back at least 10 times that (and probably more).
> You're getting a better service for that, admittedly, but by the time
> you've got enough people together, you end up with a 2Mb line with a
> 20:1 contention ratio, and you're pretty much back at ADSL level of
> service. You've got a symmetric link of course, and an SLA, but you go
> through a lot of grief to get there. Also, your ISP probably won't allow
> you to resell the bandwidth to your co-conspirators legally :-)
>
> However, this is a great thing to do if you want a fast point to point
> link. It's probably also good if you get 2Mb ADSL, and then 3 links to
> your friends like this, and share the ADSL cost.

Well, for anyone who wants 2mbit point-to-point, my postcode is N4 1LR.
Feed that to the BT people on the number above.  Given shared costs I go
up to about 3 links like this.  If the other end is paying I will happily
do an unlimited number of these links, obviously!

Regards,
Bill.


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