Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Origin Broadband, in Sheffield and Doncaster, is installing their own field cabinets and published actual data from their first installs. Many customers are getting actual speeds of 80+ megabits down and 20+ megabits up, depending on how close they are to the cabinet. Origin's prices range from about $28 for 24 down, 2 up to Origin Max, as fast as they can get you, for less than $60. Install fees are a little high, $85-$120. 

   Neil Hart writes me "It's an initiative part funded by the EU and the city councils in the area. It doesn't rely on BT infrastructure (except the wire to the home) and is entirely independent. We are able to offer all of our customers a service free of any restrictions, limits, caps, contention or fair usage policies. We are a local company set up by local entrepreneurs determined to do things differently to the big players. We can offer speeds of up to (and in some cases over) 100mb."

Andrew Ferguson, who does outstanding work at ThinkBroadband, also provided this summary of the predicted speeds of VDSL2 profile 17a. He notes "these figures look low compared to the real world figures" from Sheffield. The Origin customers are amng the first to be connected on new cabinets. As more customers are added, the additional interference will probably reduce speeds. 

Ferguson's data suggests that 85% of Brits will be able to get 25+ megabits if BT deploys to their cabinet. If Britain ever gets things together in standards to allow vectoring, results may be even better.