If you have line of sight between the DSLAM location and your home? Slam a microwave on to it and you get 10Gbps over such distances easily. And if you can't afford that, 1Gbps at 60Ghz you can get for a couple of 100 bucks and can go as far as 10km (LOS only).
Since I moved away from VDSL2 area to Fiber to the home place, I can not really understand these issues anymore. Why go and abuse copper wires to the absolute limit when its not a solution long term any way. Its dead technology.
It's always an edge case and full of problems like this one. Fiber in contrary is so darn simple and straightforward. Router (of choice) + SFP or SFP+. Done! Simple. Easy. Always works! (if not, try another fiber patch cable or the right port maybe. That's about it).
So my recommendation: talk to your fiber provider of choice (real FTTH not that shitty GPON stuff) instead of wasting time on copper with all kinds of "lets squeeze the last bit out of a noisy copper wire" options. It really pays off to go the extra mile there.
But if you don't have the choice, consider move to another place if having good internet is your daily bread and butter (which is probably the case for most of us on this list). Seriously, it helps a lot in peace of mind.
Another option these days is switch to 5G wireless and set up a IPSec tunnel to your preferred router in the Datacenter. I get like 150 - 450Mbit on 5G depending on where I am at. Still faster than VDSL2.
Benoît Panizzon wrote on 01.04.21 12:26:
Hi Jeroen
Interesting topic!
Swisscom deployed 'FTTS' at my home last year, promising 'at least 500 mbit/s with g.fast' for every household, causing the municipal administration to reject plans for proper FTTH from competitors, this as a sidenote.
Actual situation: I live about 250m away form the DSLAM in the street. After several cases opened @ Swisscom, they found out it is just about a little too far away for g.fast to work properly.
In this 'at the limit' situation I tested two ZyXEL XMG3927-B50A (to make sure I had not a broken one) in bridge mode (PPPoE on Mikrotik). Tested directly at the HÜP.
Results:
- g.fast is slower than VDSL2 at this distance in both up and down speed (way slower than what Swisscom announced).
- XMG3927 shows very strange packet delays. There is no packetloss, but latency sometimes jumps to about 500ms or more, for single packets (usually small packets like tcp syn) causing re-transmits, without apparent reason. This happens in g.fast AND VDSL2 mode. Also happening if ethernet interface is set to 100Mbit/Fduples. Opened Case @Studerus, They never heard of that issue.
- Older VDSL2 only Modem: VMG1312-B10A odes not show this lately issue (so I kept that modem)
I know, that the XMG3927 has wider filters (up to 500Mhz or so) to allow g.fast. I know there are a couple of low power 430MHz transmitters in my neighbourhood. Could they be the cause of that issue?
Looking forward of other's experiences with g.fast bridges.