U.K. DSL at 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps, in May 2012

U.K.'s Origin Broadband is launching new broadband access services offering "faster than 40 Mbps service" starting in May 2012.


The  £35.50 per month version of the service will run VDSL2, allowing some consumers to get speeds up to 100 Mbps, depending on how far they are physically located from the Origin optical transceiver (cabinet, typically). 


Short access loops are the key to higher speeds using digital subscriber line technology. That is one reason European service providers often are less keen on investing lots of their own money in fiber to the home: in dense urban areas in Western Europe, DSL works just fine, compared to fiber services, at the the moment. 


In North America or Australia, which have less dense population, and consequently longer access loops, DSL has not perform as well. The cable industry's  marketing argument that DSL is "old" technology is clever, but not entirely correct. 


Access loop length is the issue for all versions of DSL, since signal attenuation for any baseband signal is an issue. Of course, signal attenuation is an issue for all communication systems, but cable systems can use repeaters (amplifiers) on their copper network. 


DSL, in its consumer broadband form, tends not to use repeaters, at least in urban areas. 

Distance to Cabinet	Downstream	Upstream
147 m	106 Mbps	22 Mbps
171 m	121 Mbps	27 Mbps
183 m	98 Mbps	9 Mbps
245 m	104 Mbps	21.6 Mbps
248 m	107 Mbps	27 Mbps
269 m	98 Mbps	27 Mbps
392 m	81.5 Mbps	19.8 Mbps
416 m	96 Mbps	30 Mbps
490 m	76 Mbps	24.2 Mbps
612 m	56 Mbps	22 Mbps
857 m	32 Mbps	8.5 Mbps
1372 m	22 Mbps	1.7 Mbps