[colug-432] Comcast and connectivity alternatives

[Rick Hornsby]

On Feb 16, 2014, at 11:28, davelist at mac.com wrote:

> 
> AT&T has run fiber to newer neighborhoods so you if you are lucky enough to have fiber to your house, you might be able to get those speeds. I made another post about this but maybe you didn’t see it. I finally got fed up with TW (after about 13 years with them) and switched to AT&T U-Verse. I don’t have fiber to my house. There is an AT&T box near my neighborhood (about 1/4 mile straight line distance from my house) that I suspect has fiber to it and then phone lines to my house. 

Yep.  They run fiber to the DLSAM (the big beige cabinet looking thing on the concrete pad) and then it goes over the existing copper phone lines to your house.

Prior to the local DSLAMs, you had to be within about 3 miles of a central office (basically, a switching station) to get any DSL service at all.  The copper pair just can’t carry the signal that far.  The closer you were to the CO, the better speed you could get.  The DSLAM essentially moves the CO to your neighborhood.