ATT DSL Elite Plan...only getting about 5100kbps

[pinkoos]

Thanks for all of the replies so far. Very interesting to find out all these tidbits I didn't know about.

[Bill in NC]

U-Verse is fiber to the curb (FTTC), then copper wire to your home.

Verizon FIOS is fiber to the home (FTTH) (you provide the electricity)

deckeda wrote:
[quote=numbered]
... dsl's problem is that the roadmap for bandwidth increases is not as good as cable or fiber. AT&T has made a decision not to go with fiber to the home.

I was told by AT&T that their U-Verse product uses fiber to the home in order to provide greater speed.

[AllGold]

The numbers you're getting are about right. AT&T advertises the maximum sync speed, not accounting for overhead. As mentioned, ATM overhead of ADSL is greater than cable.

Also, Comcast generally adds extra to the speed they advertise to account for overhead. For example, Comcast's 6Mbps tier is actually provisioned at 6600Kbps. As much as I hate Comcast, I have to give them credit for getting that right. (But they lose points bigtime because their PowerBoost gimmick isn't a sustained speed.)

On the other hand, AT&T U-Verse DSL is different and doesn't have as much overhead so speeds with U-Verse are pretty close to the advertised rate.