symmetric vs. asymmetric [was: Verizon Policy Statement on Net Neutrality]

[lowen at pari.edu (Lamar Owen)]

On 03/02/2015 03:31 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> On Mar 2, 2015, at 08:28 , Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu> wrote:
>>
>> ...it would be really nice to have 7Mb/s up for just a minute or ten 
>> so I can shut the machine down and go to bed. 
> How much of your downstream bandwidth are you willing to give up in order to get that?
>
> Letâ??s say your current service is 10Mbps/512Kbps. Would you be willing to switch to 3Mbps/7Mbps in order to achieve what you want?
>
> What about 5.25Mbps/5.25Mbps? (same total bandwidth, but split symmetrically)?

Any of those would be nice.  Nicer would be something adaptive, but 
that's a pipe dream, I know.  I'm aware of the technological limitations 
of ADSL, especially the crosstalk and power limitations, how the 
spectrum is divided, etc.

The difference between 10/.5 and 5.25/5.25 on the download would be 
minimal (half as fast); on the upload, not so minimal (ten times 
faster).  But even a 'less asymmetrical' connection would be better than 
a 20:1 ratio.  4:1 (with 10Mb/s aggregate) would be better than 20:1.