AT&T Trialing 80 Meg Bonded

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson once asked me "Why would anyone want more than 24 megabits?" with a look that made clear he thought no one ever would. He was wrong, of course, with a quarter of Japanese actually paying (a little) more to upgrade from 30 to 100 where available. Randall is smart enough to learn from experience, and John Stankey mentioned to Reuters they will trial bonding two lines to deliver 80 megabits. Karl Bode at DSLR caught the mention and in a follow-up heard from AT&T they will also use vectoring for higher speeds. (I doubt vectoring is ready for the field in 2010 until proven otherwise.)
Unless T offers high speeds at reasonable prices this is mostly a pr stunt. 80 megabits from two bonded VDSL lines will reach 1,000-1,500 feet fairly reliably with today's technology and bonding will improve that. However, at last report the business plan of AT&T didn't include using bonding for higher speeds any time soon. They are likely to use use two linesfor extending the reach of their 25 megabits of IPTV for customers between 3,000 and 5,000 feet.
Bonding, vectoring, and possibly moving fiber closer has long been the AT&T contingency plan if 50 and 100 megabit cable really hurts. So this is probably more a "proof of concept" than an indication of likely product. The cablecos could clobber the telcos in broadband by offering 50-100 meg for the French price of under $40, but so far "detente" means they are charging $99.
On the other hand, CenturyLink is serious about bonding two lines to offer 25 down, 2 up. Bode reports they are expanding the offering to Florida and several users stopped by DSLR with speedtest results in confirmation. Written by Dave Burstein


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