Om Malik writes about VDSL2, and how much bandwidth it can deliver. It turns out that the new VDSL2 specification is about to be ratified by the ITU sometime next week, and that seems to be generating a lot of excitement among FTTN / FTTC proponents. Does this mean that last-mile copper solutions will be in fact effective for all customers, no matter how many miles they happen to be away from the CO?  As I wrote before, there is an inverse relationship between the loop length and the bit rate that can be supported by such last-mile copper solutions (be they ADSL2+, VDSL2, etc.).  For a minimum level comfort zone, for HDTV, around 19 Mbps are necessary (from a future proofing network perspective).  This means that the maximum loop length supporting that would be somewhere between 5 and 6 kilofeet, which won't cut it in about 57% of the cases for a carrier like SBC.  So FTTN or FTTC solutions represent a "go after the low hanging fruit" type strategy. 

On the other hand, in Canada, the situation is quite different, as Canadian carriers such as Bell Canada and MTS have very good loop length profiles.  In fact, according to Bell, 85 to 90 percent of its customer dwellings are within 1,200 meters of the node.  So FTTN with VDSL2/ADSL2+ seems to be the right approach for Canadian ILECs such as Bell to bring the triple play to all of their customers as quickly as possible.