[jt1990]

At my dad's store, we're just barely outside the three mile range for DSL. Our local phone service offers "Symmetrical internet," but they don't give a whole lot of detail on it. I've done some research, but pretty much all I can find is people yapping about how fast it is (up to 1Gbps in some places) but I can't find a distance. On their website they advertise speeds from "3.0Mbps to 45Mbps" but they don't give a distance limit. We've been stuck on satellite internet for the last two years and are getting really sick of it (especially since they changed their maximum download limit without telling us ) Anyone know anything about this type of internet? Is this the same thing as ADSL? Is it the same thing as SDSL? I have no clue...

[Advertisements]

Symmetrical internet is the same idea as ADSL but basically you can upload at the same speed as you download.

Typically Internet connections you can only upload half as fast as the download speed but as the download speeds go up quite often the upload speed doesn't change. Symmetrical internet changes that.

So basically if it takes 25 minutes to download a file, it can typically take anywhere up to a few hours to upload it. Symmetrical Internet - upload it in 25 minutes.

[Neil Jones]

Symmetrical internet is the same idea as ADSL but basically you can upload at the same speed as you download.

Typically Internet connections you can only upload half as fast as the download speed but as the download speeds go up quite often the upload speed doesn't change. Symmetrical internet changes that.

So basically if it takes 25 minutes to download a file, it can typically take anywhere up to a few hours to upload it. Symmetrical Internet - upload it in 25 minutes.

[jt1990]

Nice! Now to find out of they offer it in the town I'm in... I'm not counting on it

[warriorscot]

Probably not, although 3 miles should be close enough to an exchange for an ADSL it works out to 8 or 10 miles usually 3 should be enough for at least a 2meg ADSL line, more if its ADSL2.0. Keep checking the services it doesn't take much to upgrade the exchanges and its usually done over time so you might suddenly find you can get better internet than you thought.

[jt1990]

The town I'm in doesn't even have ADSL, just plain old DSL and it won't quite reach the store.

[warriorscot]

Bummer, what it was like in our country when we still did not have ADSL fitted in all the exchanges was that we could get a petition and send it in to the company responsible to upgrade the exchanges and they would prioritise your exchange for an upgrade. Its worth a try looking to see if that is possible for you to do or another means if the exchange isn't an antique its a fairly simple upgrade so as long as the companies are confident of getting enough subscribers they will usually get on the problem fairly quick.

[jt1990]

Well, talked with our phone company. They can build us a SDI line, but it'll cost about $675. Per month. We're looking at a T1 Line instead, which is $300-$400 for a 1.5Mbs connection instead. If we switched to VoIP phone that would save a lot of money on the phone bill, but we're not sure if it'll be worth it. We're just not sure. Thanks for your advice everyone!

[jt1990]

Well, a quick update...

I just found out on Wednesday that we can now get DSL here! They've come out with a new technology (about a two weeks ago) that acts as a repeater for the signal so that it boosts it. So next Wednesday we are getting a 3.0Mbps DSL line here!!

[RjBass]

Congrats. I live in a UVerse area and am upgrading to it next week and I can't wait. ADSL with 15mbps down. Should be pretty nice.

[jt1990]

Sweet! They're supposed to be pioneering a 10.0 Mbps connection in a nearby town this coming spring.