> Out of curiosity I checked to see if their DSL is Symmetric. Well, it isn't (too much to hope for, I guess), but they do show their upload bandwidths.
Well, it's not possible to provide high upload bandwidths on ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+, because you only have so much frequency to play with and your end-user devices can only output so much power (else you get plenty of interference from nearby lines).
SHDSL provides for higher upload bandwidth, but that's because it is limited on the download front. I think the maximum the current ADSL2+ spec allows for is about 24Mbit down/3Mbit up, with Annex M.
I know that with DSL, upload and download compete with each other. My point was more that, if you control the last mile copper, you have the choice of sacrificing download so people have better upload. In conjunction with a static IP, this could be great for home servers, at (presumably) not so high a cost.
So, I wondered if they had made that choice, and they didn't. I can understand that: most customers don't want to give up half their download bandwidth so they can share more with bit-torrent, or host a server they would never care to configure anyway. Lack of education and tragedy of the commons say that download is the priority.
Maybe we would have been better off if symmetric bandwidth was simply mandated by law ("thou shalt propose symmetric bandwidth at no higher cost than asymetric bandwith")?
Well, it's not possible to provide high upload bandwidths on ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+, because you only have so much frequency to play with and your end-user devices can only output so much power (else you get plenty of interference from nearby lines).
SHDSL provides for higher upload bandwidth, but that's because it is limited on the download front. I think the maximum the current ADSL2+ spec allows for is about 24Mbit down/3Mbit up, with Annex M.