ADSL / Broadband at 100mbps – Thats Superfast!

An Australian researcher has provided an algorithm to produce speeds of up to 100mbps on existing ADSL networks.

If this is correct, this will be one of the most significant shifts in the internet\’s infrastructure.

Content will shift to more real-time and social networking sites and rich media sites will boom. Web TV will also become more viable with near LAN speeds.

Aussie maths whiz supercharges ADSL

By ASHER MOSES – SMH | Monday, 5 November 2007

An Australian researcher is on the road to riches after discovering a way to make broadband connections up to 100 times faster.

University of Melbourne research fellow Dr John Papandriopoulos
is in the throes of moving to Silicon Valley after developing an
algorithm to reduce the electromagnetic interference that slows
down ADSL connections.

Most ADSL services around the world are effectively limited to
speeds between 1 to 20Mbps, but if Dr Papandriopoulos\’s technology
is successfully commercialised that speed ceiling would be closer
to 100Mbps.

Stanford University engineering professor John Cioffi, known by
some as the \”father of DSL\”, was one of the external experts
reviewing the research, which made up Dr Papandriopoulos\’s PhD
thesis.

Professor Cioffi, who developed the computer chips inside the
first DSL modems, was so impressed he offered the 29-year-old a job
at his Silicon Valley start-up company, ASSIA, which is developing
ways to optimise the performance of DSL networks.

Dr Papandriopoulos, whose efforts also earned him the University
of Melbourne\’s Chancellor\’s Prize for Excellence, said he would
leave for the US in about two weeks. He has already applied for two
patents relating to his discovery.

Melbourne Ventures, the University of Melbourne\’s
commercialisation company, is now shopping the technology around to
vendors of DSL equipment and modems. The vendors would then sell
the supporting equipment to internet providers worldwide for
placement in their exchanges.

Richard Day, commercialisation associate at Melbourne Ventures,
was optimistic about the technology\’s licensing prospects but said
it was too early to tell how lucrative it would be.

\”That\’s a question which is impossible to answer, simply because
we don\’t yet have a feeling for the extent to which it could be
adopted … [but] it has the potential to be adopted worldwide in
any country that has a copper network,\” he said.

Dr Papandriopoulos is in the process of assigning the
intellectual property for his invention to the university, but he
stands to receive significant royalties from any licensing
agreements.

\”Many years ago people used to pick up the phone and make a
phone call and you\’d be able to hear a faint or distant telephone
conversation taking place, and that\’s called cross-talk,\” Dr
Papandriopoulos said when attempting to explain how his algorithm
worked.

\”That is not an issue for voice calls these days but it becomes
a problem when you\’re trying to wring more bandwidth out of these
existing copper telephone wires [which power ADSL broadband
connections].\”

\”This cross-talk in current day DSL networks effectively
produces noise onto other lines, and this noise reduces the speed
of your connection.\”

Dr Papandriopoulos said his algorithm served to minimise that
interference and thus maximise the line speed.

He said others had researched the same area but his project was
attracting significant interest because it was more practical and
easier to implement.

If it is successfully licensed to equipment vendors, Dr
Papandriopoulos expects the technology to be implemented by
internet providers around the world within two or three years.

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