LTE vs DSL/Cable. Why is LTE so much faster?

[michal1980]

shouldn't it be easier to get better speeds wired rather then wireless?

 

[paperwastage]

blame the cable/dsl telecoms for not spending money to upgrade their infrastructure

cable is capable of 1gbps or more(see Google Fiber). DSL could go over 100mbps, example.

LTE has been improving (speedwise) and cheaper to deploy (1 cell tower can serve dozens/hundreds of users versus having to run a line to 100 individual users), but that speed is shared amongst all users and is not stable/guaranteed. cable/DSL/fiber can be shared/dedicated

 

[postmortemIA]

shouldn't it be easier to get better speeds wired rather then wireless?

over copper wire? not really. can't transmit data over long distances at high rates
fiber? yes.

 

[Eric1987]

blame the cable/dsl telecoms for not spending money to upgrade their infrastructure

cable is capable of 1gbps or more(see Google Fiber). DSL could go over 100mbps, example.

LTE has been improving (speedwise) and cheaper to deploy (1 cell tower can serve dozens/hundreds of users versus having to run a line to 100 individual users), but that speed is shared amongst all users and is not stable/guaranteed. cable/DSL/fiber can be shared/dedicated

Google Fiber is fiber optic cabling. Its no't coaxial. Big difference. But you're right otherwise.

 

[uclabachelor]

shouldn't it be easier to get better speeds wired rather then wireless?

This issue has more to do with politics and capitalism rather than differences in technology.

You can get 300Mbps+ on a coaxial cable, the same cable you use for cable tv.

 

[Zor Prime]

My ISP is a cable provider and offers 200Mbps service ... and I'm in West Virginia, not exactly known for groovy, up-to-date infrastructure with the exception of some Internet backbones running through.

 

[imagoon]

Docsis 3.0 (cable) supports gigabit speeds and Docsis 3.1 is slated to support 10gig. I don't think we will see that on LTE any time soon. In addition the 1 gig speeds on Docsis 3.0 uses only 24 channels of the 158 that are currently defined so there is a lot of room to grow.

DSL has radiation issues since old phone lines where designed around around about 4khz of signal for voice. DSL slams a lot more down those lines than they were designed for and the performance shows.

 

[serpretetsky]

DSL slams a lot more down those lines than they were designed for and the performance shows.

heh, was that pun intended?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Deploying fiber optic cable to the last mile is expensive. It is easier to drop copper to cell sites for Fast Ethernet connectivity, but that isn't really the last mile. The last mile in cellular is an air interface, which doesn't require digging up the local neighborhoods to get to the cell phone.

Also, what does one think they'd have to pay to get Comcast-equivalent of 300GB data caps? Yeah, good times.

 

[michal1980]

This issue has more to do with politics and capitalism rather than differences in technology.

You can get 300Mbps+ on a coaxial cable, the same cable you use for cable tv.

so much more a lack of true competition in wired service vs wireless, then an actual technical limitation?

 

[fire400]

I have LTE enabled service on T-mobile. I get 1 bar at my house. 2 bars if i'm lucky. and the bars are NOT "LTE."

comcast @ 25mbps

now which one do I use for Internet? comcast.

i go down a couple blocks, and I'm on LTE with the iphone 5c with 4 or 5 bars.

"faster" in the sense of location? I don't know... whichever is convenient, that's what I'll use first.

 

[imagoon]

so much more a lack of true competition in wired service vs wireless, then an actual technical limitation?

Not really sure what you are inferring. LTE can do 300Mb/s theoretical. However tech for tech cable (coax, fiber, twinax etc) will always win. If you need more bandwidth (the true meaning of the word not fake 1.5Mb/s of bandwidth incorrect usage) you add another cable. Repeat as required. Each cable is a separate bandwidth domain. With air you have 1 spectrum and that is all. Sure you can split it apart by aiming antennas this normally requires distance between at least one end of the point to point or they will over lap each other.

 

[jjsbasmt]

At certain times I can pull 52 Mbps down and 21 Mbps up on Verizon LTE in my area. Since I live in the country, I'm forced to use 2-3 Mbps DSL as my main provider.

 

[Cogman]

There is no reason for cable to be slower than a wireless transmission. Cable tech can, and often does, use wireless transmission tech to get higher speeds.

DSL is a different beast. Where cable often has an idyllic transmission medium, DSL does not. Cable lines are shielded and isolated so the signal going down a cable line will have very little interference. DSL, on the other hand, goes over phone lines which are often bundled together and outright exposed to the outside world. Interference is a big issue with DSL.

Fiber is the best of all worlds. Zero interference happens on a fiber line so you can bundle 1000 of them together. On top of that, the light doesn't tend to interfere so you can bundle 1000 signals in a single strand.

 

[jay long]

In general the wire runs faster, because wireless will be affected by some wave interference signal itself, and its' signal was also much worse than the wire.

 

[Cheater912]

The cable companies limit your speed. That's about the only reason why LTE could be faster than cable.