Digital Home Thoughts: Ericsson Serves Up DSL at 500 Mbps

"Swedish telecommunications gear-maker Ericsson has just performed its first live demonstration of VDSL2-based technology that enables transfer rates of more than 500 Mbps per second—and that's over six twisted copper pairs—just like an ordinary phone lines—bonded together into one big pipe. "

Ericsson is taunting North America with its demonstration of 500Mbps DSL. VDSL-2 works by reducing noise in a pair of copper wires, allowing it to go faster and longer. Combined with line bonding allows them to reach the incredible 500Mbps speed. I'm excited with the concept of having Internet access that could drive several HD video streams at once, I know it'll be years before I see anything like this. With reading about how all the Internet carriers in the United States and Canada are having problems with capacity, providing connections 5-100 times faster than what is currently available is bound to cause a hiccup or two. Then again, they may decide to put a 10GB data transfer cap on the connection!