Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet

Espectr0 writes "Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts gave The Associated Press a preview of his speech for the Consumer Electronics show, and said that Comcast expects to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second over cable. At that speed you could download a high-definition copy of 'Batman Begins' in four minutes. The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year." Here's a note about Cisco's announcement of their DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem.

Comments

That's Incredible.

[cromar]

Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.

Re:That's Incredible.

[ccarson]

Step 1.) Create super fast Internet
Step 2.) Lobby anti-net neutrality
Step 3.) Charge extra for super fast Internet
Step 4.) Profit!

Re:That's Incredible.

[gbulmash]

Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.

Yeah. Comcast is bitching and moaning about bandwidth usage at current speeds and doing all sorts of dirty stuff to "shape" usage. If they increase speeds by 15-20x, their wailing and gnashing of teeth will know no end (or upper decibel level).

On the consumer side, they'll probably roll out speeds and pricing only comparable to FIOS and not get anywhere near the higher end speeds at all, or they'll offer 50-100 megabit speeds on business accounts for $200-300 a month.

Still, Verizon just made FIOS available in my neighborhood. I was waiting to see if they'd roll out FIOS TV too and get the package (dump Comcast altogether). Now I may wait to see if Comcast rolls out the new speedy stuff around here to compete with FIOS in the near future. Could be worth the wait.

- Greg

Re:That's Incredible.

[TheWanderingHermit]

And if we do see that kind of speed for personal use, anyone actually using it to download a fair number of DVDs will find themselves dropped from Comcast.

Re:That's Incredible.

[sm62704]

Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.

Dude, you need to stay away from the east side of town!

Re:That's Incredible.

[SCHecklerX]

Somewhat related.

I just moved, and decided that it would be easier to deal with transferring current comcrap than to initiate service with somebody else. I told them to move my existing service, so if they gave me something else, I'll argue and not pay....

But my bandwidth has been peaking at about 20Mbps, and averaging around 15-17 inbound, and 2-5Mbps outbound. This is up from about 8Mbps/300kbps at the previous residence. Nifty fast.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm now in a more rural area and not having to share with as many people or what, but I won't complain about it.

Re:That's Incredible.

[CMF Risk]

All the bling in the world will do you no good when they only roll it out to already bandwidth-saturated markets(with FIOS and more), while they leave everyone else out in the cold.

Yay for market lock-ins

Re:That's Incredible.

[hal2814]

"Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling."

So I'm going to have to give my service provider a bunch of gold teeth, spinner rims, and chrome things that aren't usually made of chrome just to get some decent bandwidth?

Re:That's Incredible.

[sm62704]

Racist? What have YOU been smoking, son?

Re:That's Incredible.

[evanbd]

you yuppie little shit.

And this is better because...?

Re:That's Incredible.

[ynososiduts]

I live in the New York Metro area, next to Newark NJ, and not only do I not have problems with Comcast but I get nearly 3 times the advertised bandwidth. They advertise 8, but I get closer to 18 - 22. 0 throtlling of Bittorrent traffic too. I think I may have a unique case though considering all of the anti-Comcast talk around here.

Re:That's Incredible.

[jonsmirl]

FIOS OTN is my basement is running at 680Mb/s. I'm paying $40 to get 20Mb/s of that. They have 2.4Gb/s OTNs but there's no need to deploy them yet. Coax cable plants are legacy.

Re:That's Incredible.

[kurt555gs]

With 256 K/bs upload speed

Re:That's Incredible.

[Shakrai]

was waiting to see if they'd roll out FIOS TV too and get the package (dump Comcast altogether)

Why wait? Dump 'em now. I dropped my cable package down to "lifeline" service (local tv stations only) and wouldn't even have had that if I could have gotten decent reception with rabbit ears.

I actually like TV but it's just not worth the fucking money. In my area it now costs $55/mo for basic cable. $660/year. More if you want digital cable, DVR, or any of that. And it goes up every year. I can recall before Time Warner came in and bought up the local cable companies -- basic cable cost about $25/mo for 60 channels. Now it's $55/mo for 68 channels. I guess those five home shopping networks, BBC America and Spike TV really cost them $30 more....

It's just not fucking worth it. Having the networks will get you most new shows. Cable only shows can be downloaded, oftentimes quite legally (The Daily Show). There's also DVD rentals of older shows (Netflix anyone?).

Re:That's Incredible.

[Nullav]

On the consumer side, they'll probably roll out speeds and pricing only comparable to FIOS and not get anywhere near the higher end speeds at all, or they'll offer 50-100 megabit speeds on business accounts for $200-300 a month.

Then again, maybe we'll see a much-needed price war. (Half of me is expecting more colluding and price gouging, while the other is thinking about how Verizon started rolling out fiber and 15Mb symmetric connections, instead of just matching everyone else's offers.)

Re:That's Incredible.

[jonsmirl]

No, I get 5Mb/s up. I can check it with Speakeasy and it is really there. For $200/mth you can get 40/40Mb symmetrical service.

Re:That's Incredible.

[ikkonoishi]

Nah you will see those speeds.... on your billing statement, and the advertisments.

Of course they will always have a little * next to them with small print on the bottom of the offer that says "* Not a guarantee. Actual speeds vary according to how well we are screwing you."

Re:That's Incredible.

[R2.0]

"Coax cable plants are legacy."

Really? I always thought "legacy" was something kept around after being mostly supplanted because there was some external reason. Since FIOS is at elast a decade away from getting the market penetration that cable has, aren't you a little premature in that designation?

Re:That's Incredible.

[plague3106]

Or, they'll roll it out, say its 160MBit connection, but oh, opps, it's not guaranteed.

Re:That's Incredible.

[jonsmirl]

I declare something legacy when it doesn't make sense to deploy it anymore. No one would do another coax plant build out in today's market, they would all build out with fiber.

I'm anxiously awaiting the 100 uncompressed HD channels were supposed to be getting on FOIS this spring. They are the same 100 channels that DirectTV is already transmitting.

I love Comcast's announcement at CES of a 1000 HD channels and HD on-demand offerings. What kind of marketing double speak is that? Let's count the apples and oranges together so we can hide the fact that we don't have any oranges.

Re:That's Incredible.

[feardiagh]

Just so you know the current revision of the Speakeasy speed test caps out at about 22Mb/s. It will report speeds higher but they are not necessarily accurate. This is because of the way the speed test is run. It will probably be updated in the near future though.

Re:That's Incredible.

[darjen]

I completely agree. I was paying over $100 for digital cable (+HDTV) and internet from Time Warner. When I moved, I canceled the cable and downgraded my internet to 768mbps and now I'm paying them $15/month. I have a cheapo HDTV antenna and tuner that gets excellent reception of all the local networks. I don't watch all that much TV anyway, and Netflix is able to otherwise fill the void. I upgraded to their 3 at a time plan for about $20/month total. So now I'm paying about $35 a month for hdtv, movies/old shows, and internet.

Re:That's Incredible.

[rpillala]

If you still have cable internet through comcast, your basic cable works whether you subscribe to lifeline cable or not. I don't watch live TV anymore but I have cable internet (only) here and my TVs tune in to regular channels fine.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Mercano]

Oversized gaudy jewelry is also accepted.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Brian Gordon]

Watch out, they're cutting off analog TV transmission soon and you'll be high and dry for a new customer price hike when cable realizes they can charge whatever they want.

Re:That's Incredible.

[stoanhart]

He said he has a HDTV tuner. I believe that means he is catching digital signals, not analogue.

Re:That's Incredible.

[The Great Pretender]

West Seattle here and get 23-26Mbps inbound and 1.5-2.5Mbps outbound. Definitely not a rural area

Re:That's Incredible.

[Jerry Beasters]

Get FIOS. I live pretty much in the exact same area as you (could be the same town) and it's fucking fast. I mean like ridiculously you would never expect it to actually be that fast, fast.

Re:That's Incredible.

[u-235-sentinel]

Just make sure you are downloading those movies from Concast and NOT their competitors otherwise they "could" terminate your internet access for using it too much.

They have caps which vary from region to region. I've spoken with people who download 600 Gigs a month with no issues. Then there are those who have downloaded under 100 Gigs and were terminated for using it too much (despite the fact that they signed up with "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee").

Sucks I know but it's what Concast does. Sad huh.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am guessing you are also single without children and work a full time job or go to school full time.

$1800+/yr for the full cable package including 120+ channels, 20+ premium channels, ~40 HD channels, DVR, On Demand, etc. is a steal if you are a full-time stay-at-home parent. As it is I'm eyeing satellite TV to supplement the HD channels. I still use Netflix, internet, and satellite radio, but without cable I'd go batshit fucking loco.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know where Comcast advertises unlimited usage. I've never seen that advertised before, despite all the groaning and moaning to the contrary.

Re:That's Incredible.

[cromar]

You're right. This isn't racist *at all* (from the Uncyclopedia article on "Crack")

Black Jesus be down wit' dis sheeeet!
Yo Yo Yo! Wut' it iz mutha fucka! Crack iz like da bomb.
Fo' shizzle my nizzle!
So boi wut up? Y U B frontin? I'm down wit' Crack like im down wit' da big G-man.
U dig? If u aint I'll show U how my pimp hand is way strong. Kick yawl down 2 tha H-E-L-Lizzy.
Best chickity-check yo self before you wiggity-wreck yo self, fool. Word.
SOLID

Linking to an article on crack because I said "bling" is only slightly less racist. Seriously. You need to leave the suburbs and come hang out with real people every once in a while.

Re:That's Incredible.

[wpiman]

I love my FIOS. I wonder is Comcast will give 12 times the shitty customer service as well.

Re:That's Incredible.

[geekgirlandrea]

And with what sort of upload bandwidth? How much of the 5.8 TB you theoretically could download in a month could you actually get away with before they shut it off?

I think I'll stick with my Speakeasy T1 :)

Re:That's Incredible.

[davidsyes]

Too bad that:

http://lunapark6.com/usb-hdtv-tuner-stick-for-windows-linux-hauppauge-wintv-hvr-950.html

won't be of much use as an off-the-air device (the coax part will still be useful) by the time the government OTA switch-kill happens.

I can't WAIT til Meraki:

http://meraki.com/

http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/03/05/meraki-rocks-the-casbah/

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/03/meraki-mini-wifi-router-also-does-mesh/

rolls out in SF. I wonder what the consumer-pricing tiers will be, though, when they go full-active instead of technology demonstrator to the Bay Area (or SF).

Honestly, I don't think cable is worth $50+ per month. It's nice enough to be able to go to the library. If SF main cuts off public (2 or 3 hour) internet access, I'll just go to San Jose State/MLK Library. There, they don't even make you get a library card and sign into some lame-ass, per-day, time-restrictive crap that SF does. For such a liberal city, San Fran is trounced by SJ when it comes to allowing the public to surf and download. I downloaded about a GB of upgrades in under 55 minutes at SJSJ/MLK's (DSL?) connection.

The conspiracy-theorist-bug in me makes me think comcast and t-moble have a bug up their asses and don't want SF tampering with their their business models. I think they've paid off somebody to limit patron access. Even if you only go to SF Main 2 times a week, once your day's two or 4 hours is up, that's it, unless someone else with time on that day generously gives you access on their card. Of course, that's risky, sharing time to a stranger.

Does anyone know if SFSU allows the public to come in and surf via one's own laptop? I know SJSJ/MLK is a special case: it's university and county/city sharing, not private like campus-students only.

Re:That's Incredible.

[cbreaker]

It probably depends on the area, like Cox. Cox has bought up a bunch of smaller cable companies across the country, and they're all run pretty much independently. The tech support people often have to use different sets of tools depending on the network you're a part of. Also, they increase speeds and reduce funny business when they're in areas with more competition. NYC is obviously fairly competitive.

My friend has Comcast in Massachusetts and it's actually OK. They don't block any incoming or outgoing network ports. His Bittorrent traffic seems OK. They're still bitches about the upstream, though. He paid extra to get extra speed, and it's still only 768Kbit upstream. My Cox cable modem is faster, and I get 2Mbit upstream, but I have all sorts of blocked ports (53 UDP, 21, 23, 80, 443, 25 in and out, etc..)

Re:That's Incredible.

[jonsmirl]

Verizon doesn't shut you off for bandwidth consumption. Most I've ever pulled down is 400GB in a week. I left an Unbuntu torrent up and hammered the 5Mb up solid for a week too. No one said anything. I have talked to high level people in the FIOS group. Current policy is that you get the bandwidth you paid for. I don't believe FIOS is a shared medium like CATV coax. The FIOS network is being designed to handle IPTV, it has enormous unused capacity.

Someone who knows how bandwidth pricing works may know more about this. But Verizon is a Tier 1 provider. That means that all of the Tier 2/3 ISPs end up paying them for bandwidth. It may be that my net usage makes them money by extracting Tier 2/3 payments given that Verizon has plenty of spare net capacity (which them seem to have). Multiply this times several million FIOS users. Comcast is a Tier 2 and has to pay for their interchange traffic.

The 20/20 symmetrical offering is a business class service with bandwidth and uptime guarantees.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know where Comcast advertises unlimited usage. I've never seen that advertised before, despite all the groaning and moaning to the contrary.

A quick Google search says the stopped advertising like that in the summer of 2003. What's your point?

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I also dumped cable down to the "lifeline" service (from extended basic analog, 60ish channels) because of the cost. Fortunately for me, the Comcast tech who came out to my house felt like it was too much trouble to install the filter on my line and just left it like it was. "Naaah. There's nothing for me to do here. Have a great day." My bill went down and my service didn't. Score one for cool cable guys.

Re:That's Incredible.

[rtb61]

Now consider if you spent that money on dvds and created you own internal cable network. Most movies are discounting to under $10 and TV series seasons discounts to around $30. The year of cable will pay for a solid years viewing of DVD and you still have it rather than cable where you stop paying and you have nothing.

Between broadband internet and DVDs, free to air TV or let paying for repetitive add marred cable, provides me with absolutely nothing.

Next up will be a digital juke box with several terabytes of storage, ripping all those DVD's to a more compact format will take a hell of a long time.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Problems (for me) with that approach:

1. I already have a sizable DVD collection.
2. Storing $1800/yr worth of DVDs is not trivial. I currently abandon the cases and use DVD folders from case logic. My entire collection probably did not cost $1800 and it's already using more space than I really have for it.
3. Assuming a single viewing, watching shows/movies on cable is a much better value. I only purchase DVDs if I plan to watch them more than once.
4. At least half the shows I enjoy are not and probably never will be on DVD.
5. Shows that are on DVD are delayed by at least half a season. I'd still be waiting for BSG season 3. :)
6. There is no way in hell I am converting $1800*x years worth of DVDs to a digital jukebox. I already have a digital jukebox and can barely be bothered to convert my existing collection.
7. DVD resolution is not that great. Sure, it looks okay upscaled, but it's not good enough to start a serious media collection when higher res formats are already available.

When I can download TV shows and movies ala carte in decent resolutions (read: 1080p) and standard formats (read: no or standardized, unobtrusive DRM) at the same time as a regular release, cable won't be a viable alternative. Until then, cable makes the most sense.

Re:That's Incredible.

[ILongForDarkness]

What is funny is just 6 hrs ago I saw a post saying digital download of BluRay wouldn't work for years because even at 36Mbps (which isn't available) it wouldn't be a live feed but would take a day to download a show. Man tech moves fast ;)

Where I really feel the pain is the hosting companies. I mean my company just purchased a new uber expensive top of the line 4Gb dual channel SAN. We aren't even close to having 4Gb/s FC cards in all our servers. At this transfer rate you'll saturate the FC cards with only 10-40 users per server, ouch. Your high end SCSI disk array? It will saturate too, unless you have a very high end RAID controller.

I think this might help promote file sharing to be honest. The idea of going to a website and hitting them with your 20MB/s load just won't appeal to anyone unless they are billing you by the MB or something (some porn). Speaking of which it will really suck for those porn companies that offer 3 day trials or whatever, in those three days you could download everything they have. Then of course everyone would throttle your rate, and the bitching about not being able to use the service your paying for would begin again.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

>I declare something legacy when it doesn't make sense to deploy it anymore.

Well, that's what the rest of us would call "obsolete", I think.

But, if redefining words as you wish floats your boat, more power to you.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can place most of the blame squarely on ESPN, who receives between half and two thirds of the difference between the prices of BST (basic) and CPST (expanded cable).

Re:That's Incredible.

[Richthofen80]

Coax is mostly only last mile. Comcast and Time Warner have mostly fiber backbones and then the fiber is split into 'nodes' which are around 300 households and serviced by coax. Eventually that last step will be fiber; just a matter of when replacing that is cheaper than maintaining it.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

FIOS OTN i(n) my basement

Don't you mean your parent's basement?

Re:That's Incredible.

[renegadesx]

You missed out on shaping P2P traffic to 72k, thats the REAL phase 1 ate super fast Internet is phase 2

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

indeed too bad that if it ever even does happen they will probably keep retardly low total download/upload(GB) limits where they cut off your service if u over use it as they have done in the past.

Re:That's Incredible.

[sydbarrett74]

I can recall before Time Warner came in and bought up the local cable companies -- basic cable cost about $25/mo for 60 channels. Now it's $55/mo for 68 channels. Yep, same here in Chesterfield County, VA. 15 years ago or so, we had Storer Cable. The customer service was superb, and we only paid $20/month for ~70 channels. Then within a year Comcast came in and bought Storer up, and our rates went up to $35/month overnight. They've been inching upward at multiples of the rate of inflation ever since. When I got FIOS hooked up, I gleefully called Comcrap up and told them to go fuck themselves up the arse with a rusty cattle-prod.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is better because...?

Because everyone enjoys hating yuppies.

Re:That's Incredible.

[ecavalli]

Forget the ridiculous costs; the key here is whether we're ever actually going to see these speeds.

These companies have been promising ridiculous speed gains for almost as long as the 'net has been in existence, and yet we're still far behind most of Europe and almost all modern Asian countries.

I'd be happy if they could just make all of our connections live up to the speeds promised in their marketing material.

Re:That's Incredible.

[donaldm]

For "video availability" that will mean more choices or feeds. When you consider it if you have say 100 video feeds each feed being a different movie be it high or standard definition (obviously you make more movies available with this) then at any one time you can have millions of people connecting to just the one feed they want to view at the moment and saving the movie to their set-top box since each feed is available instantaneously to all subscribers. Of course if the movie has already started you have to wait for the next session to start with a popular movie having three or more time offset feeds. A good set-top box can time shift so a smart person can start their recording earlier and then watch the show at their convince and as many times as they want which would normally be over a 24 hour period. The company could even have 30 or more feeds available for requested movies but this will definately cost more. Look at the Foxtel movie selection and you can see the methodology I am talking about although in Australia at the moment Foxtel is standard Definition only.

As for "video on demand" 160Mbps is not that great since I cannot see even a thousand people trying to download the same movie or even a selection of movies around the same time. I know about Torrents but I cannot see this being implemented to spread the download bandwidth so for the foreseeable future "video availability" is much more flexible since increasing overall bandwidth means increasing the number of video feeds rather than just trying for faster downloads.

Re:That's Incredible.

[Shakrai]

I am guessing you are also single without children and work a full time job or go to school full time.

$1800+/yr for the full cable package including 120+ channels, 20+ premium channels, ~40 HD channels, DVR, On Demand, etc. is a steal if you are a full-time stay-at-home parent. As it is I'm eyeing satellite TV to supplement the HD channels. I still use Netflix, internet, and satellite radio, but without cable I'd go batshit fucking loco.

$1800+/yr for the full cable package including 120+ channels, 20+ premium channels, ~40 HD channels, DVR, On Demand, etc. is a steal if you are a full-time stay-at-home parent. As it is I'm eyeing satellite TV to supplement the HD channels. I still use Netflix, internet, and satellite radio, but without cable I'd go batshit fucking loco.

$1,800/yr is a steal??? That's more then I pay for my cellular phone ($626/yr), internet ($360/yr) natural gas ($360/yr) AND electric ($380/yr) bills combined. Granted, my utility bills are low because I live in a small apartment, but even so I find it hard to think that $1,800/yr is a "steal" for entertainment.

Re:That's Incredible.

[SCHecklerX]

The crap talk for me mostly came when they took over my existing cable provider, who I had business class service with. When you are paying extra for that, and there is an issue, and you do not go straight to level 2 and have it resolved RIGHT THEN, it kind of ticks you off.

It annoyed me so much that I told comcast to put me back on their residential plan, because I wasn't getting the service that I was paying for. In addition, the transition was a complete clusterfuck, with each group at comcast not communicating with each other, let alone communicating to ME that they would make a change that nuked my service until one of their technicians could come install their own router at my place. Most frustrating customer disservice I have ever encountered.

Re:That's Incredible.

[chrish]

Canada's really falling behind on high-speed broadband all of a sudden. Rogers (the cable monopoly) is still only offering 6Mbit service (under 1Mbit up), and Bell (the phone monopoly) is only up to 5Mbit (under 1Mbit up).

Sucktastic.

Re:That's Incredible.

[sm62704]

No, you seriously need a sense of humor. Nobody with skin that thin should be on the internet, especially slashdot.

How many Irish does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three, one to hold the bulb and two to drink until the room spins.

Now THAT'S a racist joke. It pertains to my own heritage. Aain, lose the politically correct thin skin and grow a sense of humor or get the fuck off the internet you humorless twat.

Re:That's Incredible.

[cromar]

You'd be surprised how thick my skin is when I don't have to deal with this racist bullshit. I speak my mind, and you are in the wrong. Seriously. You need to reevaluate your sense of humor :(

Re:That's Incredible.

[macdaddy]

ONT

Optical Network Terminal

Re:That's Incredible.

[BarryJacobsen]

Speaking of which it will really suck for those porn companies that offer 3 day trials or whatever, in those three days you could download everything they have. Not that I would ever sign up for one of those, but all of those that I've signed up for you haven't been able to access their whole library of past content - usually only their latest few installments.

Re:That's Incredible.

[macdaddy]

FiOS is PON which is shared (search on the second link for "shared"). The only non-shared fiber medium is simply Ethernet. Most vendors call it Active FTTx. Others call it Active Star Ethernet. When it comes right down to it, it's just Ethernet. It's an Ethernet switch usually with SFP bays for modular optics (though not always as in the case of the Pannaway BAS-500).

FiOS is not being designed for IPTV. Verizon's FiOS video offering is almost entirely RF modulated on 1550nm. VoD, the guide, and other interactive features are provided via IP (unicast) but all normal video functions are not IP. The underlying technology in FiOS does not have the capacity for IPTV unless MPEG4 is adopted and even then it will only have the capacity for a few more years until data speeds intrude upon the bandwidth needs for video. GPON is capped at 2.4Gbps and again is a shared medium not only by user on but also be traffic type (ie voice, video and data share the same pipe). You can always go with smaller splits (16 or even 8 instead of 32) to lessen the number of subs per splitter. However Verizon and the other large telcos are more concerned with getting more FiOS service out in the marketplace and not on the quality delivered to an individual sub.

I know this because we spent the last 8 months studying FTTx options, going through vendor dog and pony shows, RFP process and the ultimate purchase. We went with Occam's active Ethernet solution, giving us a full non-shared 1Gbps to the doorstep. That should be amble growth for the next 3-5 years, even in this small market. Our video solution will be IPTV when we're ready to implement it (RF modulation isn't a viable option with the Active Ethernet so no vendor has implemented it).

Re:That's Incredible.

[sm62704]

Perhaps you would prefer this article, or this article?

Re:That's Incredible.

[jonsmirl]

The people I talked to said FIOS is going to change the modulation scheme for IP TV when it is ready. You are correct it is currently RF modulated but I don't believe their long term plans are to leave it that way.

Re:That's Incredible.

[chrish]

Sucks to reply to myself, but I just checked. Rogers is "up to" 8Mbit/800kbit now, while Bell is 7Mbit/? now. I'll have to contact my ISP to see if Bell's allowed any of the third parties selling DSL to take advantage of this extra 2MBit of bandwidth.

Re:That's Incredible.

[u-235-sentinel]

I'd like to know where Comcast advertises unlimited usage. I've never seen that advertised before, despite all the groaning and moaning to the contrary.

Currently they do not advertise unlimited usage however when 10's of thousands of customers signed up, the company did.

archive.org and check their advertisements from 2000-2003.

Everyone on my block still things they have "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee".

BTW, if you go to my blog, I have it already linked I believe in the February 24th 2007 post (I'd have to check to make sure that's right).

Current contract says you are purchasing a 6/8/10 Meg pipe. There is nothing to indicate what bandwidth you have purchased other than vague AUP/TOS statements with no bandwidth guidelines.

bittorrent

[sankekur]

maybe fast for other things but not for bittorrent

Re:bittorrent

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Tell your bittorrent client to force encryption.

I will assume you are using it to download things like movie trailers and free software.

Re:bittorrent

[westlake]

maybe fast for other things but not for bittorrent

Fine by me.

Who needs BT if the legit on-demand video launches and plays at HD resolution as soon as you request it?

Re:bittorrent

[_xeno_]

Oh, I don't know, people using BitTorrent to download legal things, like Linux distros, OpenOffice.org, World of Warcraft patches, or anything else that offers BitTorrent downloads.

Seriously, why is that insightful? There are plenty of legal uses of BitTorrent that don't involve pirating movies.

(And, of course, things like, uh, porn and fansubs may not be available on demand. Not that I'd know anything about that. Oh, and indie films and less popular films and all sorts of digital things that aren't likely to be available on demand.)

Re:bittorrent

[veganboyjosh]

I will assume you are using it to download things like movie trailers and free software.

oh, it's free software alright...ahem.

Re:bittorrent

[BPPG]

Has that stopped telecoms from interfering with peer-to-peer sharing (including legit p2p) before?

Re:bittorrent

[kellyb9]

While this is true, Comcast has been widely known to throttle torrent traffic. As a customer, I cannnnnnnnnnot wait until FIOS is available in my area.

Re:bittorrent

[just_another_sean]

I am pretty sure the GP was making reference to the recent situation where cable companies, specifically Comcast, were throttling BT traffic.

Re:bittorrent

[Nullav]

Oh, I don't know, people using BitTorrent to download legal things, like Linux distros, OpenOffice.org, World of Warcraft patches, or anything else that offers BitTorrent downloads.

There's plenty of FTP/HTTP mirrors for Linux distros, same for OO.o, and WoW patches. (Speaking of which, the Blizzard downloader always closed right after finishing. How exactly is that helping anyone?)
So yes, there are plenty of legal uses, but it's not exactly necessary to use BT for many of them.

Sure, somewhere, once in a blue moon, someone downloads a public-domain movie/book using BT, but that doesn't make it the norm by any means.

(And, of course, things like, uh, porn and fansubs may not be available on demand. Not that I'd know anything about that. Oh, and indie films and less popular films and all sorts of digital things that aren't likely to be available on demand.)

Not that any of those are legal uses of BT.

I'm not against torrenting stuff (Or even piracy. *cough*), I just hate the 'people download Linux' argument.

Re:bittorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

He's referring to Comcast's throttling of bittorrent traffic. Which includes all of it, legal or otherwise.

Re:bittorrent

[ksheff]

I guess you don't know anyone that records concerts and then distributes the audio & video with the musician's permission. BT is great for that - much better than trying to get on some overloaded FTP site or mailing blank media to someone.

Re:bittorrent

[internic]

There's plenty of FTP/HTTP mirrors for Linux distros, same for OO.o, and WoW patches.

Spoken like someone who's never tried to download a popular piece of software right after release. If you have a reasonably fast connection BitTorrent is often the fastest way to get, say, the latest version of your distro, especially during periods of high demand. My net connection isn't even that fast (only 1.5 Mbps) and I've found this. Considering the connection speeds being discussed in TFA, this point is that much more important. Additionally, for community projects this is a way for people to give back by, in effect, donating their bandwidth temporarily, so it has that advantage over FTP and HTTP as well (where you can setup a mirror, but this is a separate and more cumbersome process that must then be managed).

Sure, somewhere, once in a blue moon, someone downloads a public-domain movie/book using BT, but that doesn't make it the norm by any means.

And I care fuck all about what the norm is. BitTorrent is just a tool for shuffling bits around. I use it for perfectly legal purposes. If other people use it for illegal purposes, by all means go after them, but don't punish me for what other people are doing. And don't think that by targeting this one way of shuffling bits you'll stop whatever the activity is, because it will just shift to some other method. As far as I can see, the existence of trackers in BitTorrent probably makes it poorly suited for legal activity when compared to other p2p technologies.

I just hate the 'people download Linux' argument.

Well some of us actually use it for downloading Linux and such, and we hate it when people act as if we don't exist and back the totally idiocy of targeting a very useful communication protocol because some people happen to use it for illegal purposes.

Re:bittorrent

[internic]

FTP or HTTP. Learn it, use it, love it.

Anything worth getting can be gotten through plain old FTP or HTTP. These are tried and tested technologies. They work everywhere.

The same can be said of sneakernet (via snail mail), but I'm not about to go back to that either. Perhaps you're simply not aware, but there are many (legal) tasks for which BitTorrent is a much more effective tool than a traditional FTP or HTTP server.

Stop being a sheep. BitTorrent doesn't work behind firewalls, it doesn't work through NAT without setup, it requires an open port (thereby opening security vulnerabilities). BitTorrent wastes your bandwidth and your CPU time, and for what? To shift bandwidth costs off the producer and onto the consumer.

If you've ever done much with FTP you'll know that firewalls can be a major stumbling block there too, particularly because not all clients implement all features of FTP. What I get from BitTorrent is faster downloads and the ability to easily and temporarily donate some bandwidth to various organizations. In the case of community efforts, this is one way to help support them. In the case of commercial products, hopefully this results in lower costs of operation and cheaper products for me. Since I'm paying for the bandwidth either way and usually not using all of it, this trade makes a lot of sense.

Re:bittorrent

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Admittedly the HDTV on demand is much better, but my experience with the SD on demands has made me never want to actually pay for on demand service again.

the SD on demands (namely comedy central, mtv, and adult swim) were so highly compressed and garbled that they were mostly unwatchable in many places, with the latency making the fast forward and rewinding horribly slow.

What would be nice is if the On Demand's could detect usage of the official DVRs and send the movies to your harddrive to watch as needed, instead of controlling the remote stream.

Even then I'd still end up using bittorrent more often than not. At least then I can archive it how I want, and have my choice of subs, dubs, and everything else. And I could get stuff that isn't available on demand, like entire seasons of tv shows that aren't being aired anymore.

Re:bittorrent

[_xeno_]

The top level poster may have been, but there was a comment in between that wasn't:

Fine by me.

Who needs BT if the legit on-demand video launches and plays at HD resolution as soon as you request it?

Which is what I was responding to.

Re:bittorrent

[just_another_sean]

The top level poster may have been, but there was a comment in between that wasn't:

Fine by me.

Who needs BT if the legit on-demand video launches and plays at HD resolution as soon as you request it?

Which is what I was responding to.

My bad. I didn't see that (threshold I guess).

I totally agreed with your comment, just thought it out of place. That 'ill learn me to check for low scoring posts before replying...

Re:bittorrent

[drsquare]

Legit things, and even pirated things, are downloaded easily enough using rapidshare rather than bittorrent, which is unreliable and often blocked.

Re:bittorrent

[Pollardito]

(Speaking of which, the Blizzard downloader always closed right after finishing. How exactly is that helping anyone?) i quit playing about 6 months ago, but iirc it actually didn't quit until you hit OK on the patch notes that appeared after you applied the patch. besides, you're still able to do a decent amount of sharing of the partial segments that you get before you've got the full 100%. i regularly would get less than 5-10% of the full patch from the HTTP direct download, it seemed like the smaller patches were the ones that had the least peer-to-peer sharing and those are also the ones that should hurt blizzard the least.

Re:bittorrent

[ElBeano]

I'm not against torrenting stuff (Or even piracy. *cough*), I just hate the 'people download Linux' argument.

You're not against "torrenting", and yet you hate the 'downloading Linux' argument? Somehow I can't understand why or how you can put those statements together. Logically speaking, something is missing. Because otherwise this just doesn't parse out in a way that makes sense. Some bittorrent traffic is undeniably bits from Linux distros being thrown around. Go to openoffice.org and you can see that using bittorrent is an option there. What percentage of traffic for Linux distros legitimizes the argument you hate? It would seem to me that even a tiny percentage does.

Upload bandwidth?

[timeOday]

I think that's the question on all our minds.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Pahroza]

108 Mbit/s is the max usable upload speed based on the DOCSIS 3 standard.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

RTFA. The description of Cisco's DOCSIS 3.0 "modem", linked to from the summary, says:

Cisco Systems Inc. is demonstrating a DOCSIS 3.0 modem that would let operators support downlink speeds of 160mbps and uplinks of 120mbps [emphasis mine -mi].

Whether Cable companies will allow you to use all this is another story — probably not, because that's the simplest way for them to combat file-sharing without affecting downloads from "legitimate" servers... And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc.

But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns...

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[AvitarX]

Hell yeah.

NNTP FTW

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[IdleTime]

Here is how I bet they will do it:
1. When you buy the movie download option, the movies will be delivered at full blazing speed to you.
2. When you do p2p or other download protocols (ftp, nntp, etc), they limit the available bandwidth.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[timeOday]

Is your Comcast port 80 blocked? I've been running a webserver on mine ever since I first signed up (2000 or 2001, it was @Home then), and it still works.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

Possible — it is their network, after all... The only thing you can complain about is false advertising.

The right way to address this problem (should it really appear) is to stop creating artificial mono- and duopolies and allow multiple companies to compete in all markets.

For years and decades the government was violating the freedom of the Market in order to avoid things like multiple cables running along each other to each house, etc. I'm afraid, the loss of competition outweighed the gains from the reduction of effort-duplication.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[stubear]

"And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc."

I've been running my web server (IIS7 with DNS2GO) on ports 80, using 5150 as a automatic fall back should 80 be blocked. So far all my traffic has been going through 80 for quite some time now.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Znork]

"But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns..."

Heh, really tho. I dont think I've _ever_ bought an internet connection for speed. Every single time has been for price (and/or not-screwing-with-my-connection-policies). In the last five years I havent initiated a single change, yet I've had my speed upgraded three times.

With cable companies and DSL providers upgrading consumers just because they can it's no wonder they're whining about having to pay for network upgrades.

How about, you know, not upgrading customers and assigning them the actual bandwidth they have, rather than upgrading the hardware then cutting it down to modem speeds.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[redKrane]

I know that Comcast does not, universally, block port 80. Just a side note.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[g1zmo]

And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc.

I've run ssh, http/https, smtp, ftp, pop/pops, imap/imaps, et al. on all the standard ports for the last 9 years on my cable internet service and never had any ports blocked by the ISP. I've also never had Bittorrent traffic throttled. I can saturate both directions of my 10M/1M pipe with just a few popular swarms.

The account has passed through the hands of several companies over the years, from AT&T@Home to ATTBI to Comcast and now Time Warner (there may have been another one in there somewhere), but it's always been the same account with the same hardware and the same service. Downtime has always been rare, and usually weather-related. I've never had any of the problems I read about on here. I've just been lucky, I guess.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[pitdingo]

But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns...

Wrong. I will keep buying it, because like the vast majority of Comcast subscribers, I have no other choice.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[PitaBred]

I'm gonna chime in... I use comcast, and I have publicly accessible servers running on ports 80, 443, 22, 25, and 993. Comcast doesn't block your ports until you get complained about in my experience.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[AntEater]

Why don't you post the address so we can all verify that it remains accessible?

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns...

Actually when I moved last year I looked at Comcast, but went with Copowi. It's a little slower, but they "guarantee network neutrality", and their cheap package was actually a little bit cheaper than the comparable Comcast package here.

(The big downside is that it's DSL over Qwest lines, and Qwest is perhaps the most incompetent company ever to have existed. If I had to go through the crap they put me through to get it "installed" ever again, I would leave their "service" in a heartbeat.)

Having a network connection I can fully use is more important to me than one that's super-fast but only for approved uses. Would you buy a telephone with higher sound quality but which couldn't receive incoming phone calls?

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[timeOday]

I have posted links to small files on my PC a number of times in slashdot comments with no ill effects.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[shmlco]

Simple solution. Unlimited downloads, uploads capped per month and then charged on a per-megabyte basis.

Do you think the average person is going to spend his own money so that other people can get their music and movies for free?

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

Is your Comcast port 80 blocked?

No, but my RCN is... I don't suppose, the cablecos will be very different from each other, until they can compete in the same markets. Then they may look carefully into what will let them win a few customers from the other guy(s)...

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[nwf]

Cisco Systems Inc. is demonstrating a DOCSIS 3.0 modem that would let operators support downlink speeds of 160mbps and uplinks of 120mbps

Which is likely shared bandwidth per node, which can serve quite a few houses. That's the problem they are facing now. They are severely bandwidth limited, and while 10x will help, it's not going to compete with FiOS. Certainly not in my area where at least 7 Comcast technicians verified I was only getting 512 down and 384 up. That's it (paying for 5 Mbps down, mind you.) I dropped them and moved to FiOS where I get 15/2 for $35/mo (part of a package.)

If it's not their network infrastructure that will kill them (aggregating many houses on a single node), then surely their customer service will. After being promised by a manager he'd personally handle our issue and call me back within 48 hours and, let's see, it's been a year now, nothing from that manager. Plus, they STILL charge for cable modem rentals. I don't need that now.

I think their DOCSIS 3.0 is just talk, it will be many years until we have it available in our area. They just don't want to spend on infrastructure when they can milk most people who have no choice. Those that do, they figure, "who cares, they are in the minority". $45 for 5 Mbps download in 2008? Please.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[webmaster404]

But if the ISP can't provide the claimed speed it is false advertizing. They paid for the bandwidth as much as you did. If the ISP can not deliver the speed they promised then sue them. It is like being on a game show, and winning $5000 but because the person before you got $10000, the game show refuses to pay you or to pay for travel/airfare.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, loser. You always have a choice. Are you so internet addicted that you're Comcast's junkie bitch?

Poor you. Let me be the first to say: GET A LIFE.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Phat_Tony]

No, the majority of Comcast's customers have DSL available, and nearly all of them could choose satellite or broadcast TV. These are easy, competitive alternatives for most Comcast customers, but there are also plenty of more esoteric alternatives, like satellite internet, 3g wireless internet, dial-up internet, moving somewhere with different options, or not using the internet at home. Everyone has another choice, and in this case, for most users, the other choices are much easier to use than in many situations.

It would be much easier to argue that people have "no choice" but to use Microsoft than it is to argue this for Comcast, but I doubt most of the people here agree with the Microsoft proposition.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[falconwolf]

Do you think the average person is going to spend his own money so that other people can get their music and movies for free?

If they don't have to pay as much, yes.

Falcon

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[totally bogus dude]

I think by "capped uploads" he meant you can upload a certain amount of data (at full speed) before they start charging for excess usage. It would neatly curtail P2P usage, or at least lead to many more 'selfish' people and thus degrade the usefulness of the network.

This would only be false advertising if they didn't tell you about the capped usage upon signup, but it's unlikely they'd be that stupid.

Also, I had a hard time parsing your post and I'm still not sure what your point was.

They paid for the bandwidth as much as you did.

"They" being the ISP? Or someone else? I'm not sure how either is relevant.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Erwos]

One thing: blocking 25 and 80 is a good thing by default is a good idea.

Let's not kid ourselves: a huge percentage of home users are botted. Blocking 25 prevents them from shooting tons of spam over SMTP, and blocking 80 prevents them from being used as easily in fast-flux hosting setups (URLs trying to send you to a non-standard port are a huge red flag for anti-spam software). These problems are bad enough with the relatively low speed connections average users get these days - do you really want to see how much spam someone with a 120mb/s connection can send? I don't.

However, I personally believe ISPs should unblock those ports if:
1. The user requests it.
2. The user signs a document that affirms they are competent enough to not become part of the problem.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Erwos]

Gah: "One thing: blocking 25 and 80 is a good thing by default". I need more caffeine.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

One thing: blocking 25 and 80 is a good thing by default is a good idea.

Blocking the outgoing 25 (other than to the ISP's SMTP-server) may be a good idea — to neutralize the bots. RCN does this.

Blocking the incoming 80 is a terrible idea, which has not justification. Unfortunately, RCN does this too...

No other incoming ports should be blocked either...

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Erwos]

Again, it has plenty of justification. Please research "fast-flux hosting" and its role in spamming and phishing operations.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

Please research...

Sorry, no. You are putting forth an argument, you do the presentation...

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Erwos]

It sounds to me like you're neither interested in arguments counter to your pre-existing beliefs nor are you really going to ever say "I was wrong", as is generally the case when people are too lazy to research views other than their own, but maybe some other Slashdotter will be convinced.

Essentially, fast-flux hosting is when spammers and phishers use ultra-short TTLs on DNS names and then switch the IPs that those DNS names point to on a very rapid basis. This makes it much, much harder to shut down phishing and spam websites.

Hint: lots of those of fast-flux hosts are home machines which got owned. If you blocked 80 incoming, they could no longer be used for those purposes nearly as easily, since any halfway decent spam fighting software views emails that contains URLs with non-standard ports as "high likelihood spam". Anything which makes spammers and phishers work harder without severely impacting the usability of the internet seems like a win to me.

Let's face it: the number of people who need 80 inbound and are competent enough to manage their own web server consists of a vanishingly small number of people compared to the general Internet using populace. And, as I said before, I do think the block should be lifted IF the user is willing to testify that they're one of the competent people.

I work on the anti-spam operations team in one of the largest ISPs in the world. I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[mi]

Let's face it: the number of people who need 80 inbound and are competent enough to manage their own web server consists of a vanishingly small number of people compared to the general Internet using populace.

If this is the reason, then no incoming port should be allowed, because it takes nothing for spammers to specify an alternative port in the spamvertized URLs: http://cheapv1agra.org:81/...

And, as I said before, I do think the block should be lifted IF the user is willing to testify that they're one of the competent people.

That may be fine, as long as the testifying can be done 24x7 via an automated web-site and take effect immediately...

Re:Upload bandwidth?

[Erwos]

I addressed your point about alternative ports, if you had bothered to read what I wrote:

"since any halfway decent spam fighting software views emails that contains URLs with non-standard ports as "high likelihood spam"."

How about

[Anonymous Coward]

Some ultra-fast frist psoting instead?

Re:How about

[Pojut]

Or...perhaps some ultra-slow failing?

Re:How about

[sm62704]

IMO any time anyone fails at the "first post" and mistypes to boot should get modded "funny". Unless they troll it liks so many do.

-mcgrew (latest journal)

160 Mbps?! ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I already don't get anywhere near the 4 Mbps I'm buying from Comcast. As sexy as 160 Mbps sounds, what are the chances you'll actually end up getting anywhere near it?

I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this be just like Verizon and their FIOS. Yeah it exists, but if not for the masses than who cares...

Try

[indros]

Well, with having downloaded 750GB from comcast on cable one month last year, I am certainly willing to help them find out if it's a viable goal.

Re:Try

[markswims2]

that's a whole lot of pr0n.

seriously, how are you supposed to use all of that bandwidth if all your "illegal" torrents are capped.

Ultra-Fast Internet?

[kevin.fowler]

How about Comcast comes out with "cable infrastructure in my thickly settled neighborhood that doesn't cripple my television and internet bandwidth". I'm in for 2.

Now it makes sense

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

When I heard about it this morning, it suddenly made sense why Comcast would want to kill off bittorrent: competition! Well, that, and they also wouldn't be able to provide the bandwidth claimed in the contract with their customers.

Slick!

[Pahroza]

Speeds as listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Speed_Table are rather impressive. Max usable down and up speeds are 152/108 Mbit/s, respectively.

Hopefully they'll roll this out with an affordable pricing plan; they already announced that they'll be raising prices in February.

Re:Slick!

[ivan256]

It's important to point out that previous versions of DOCSIS also allowed much higher speeds than what is sold to individual customers by Comcast. Since cable is a shared medium, they are forced to sell a fraction of the line's capable speed to each customer in order to spread load. The most they can responsibly sell to an individual customer using this technology is likely in the 30MBps range.

To put that another way, the next generation of cable internet is going to be 70% slower than what is already available on the market using FTTP.

Re:Slick!

[garcia]

All this shows is that it doesn't make one bit of a difference if it's DOCSIS 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 because Comcast is still going to throttle you via a config file and you will probably never see 150mbit connections on their network unless you're getting on-demand movies.

If we were currently seeing 38mbit/(9|27)mbit connections now, I might be inclined to say, "yeah, they're going to give us 150+" but because they're operating at about 6mbit/less than 1mbit for the majority of connections (yes, they go a higher for short bursts) this is nothing more than fluff for CES.

Re:Slick!

[orionop]

I don't understand this...its not in 'Batman Begins' per minute!

Re:Slick!

[JeTmAn81]

Ironically enough, the sales of the core Batman comic book have been used as a base metric for comic book sales for a while now.

Re:Slick!

[Anonymous Coward]

I really dislike Comcast, right now in particular their incessant and self-serving 'digital voice' commercials. And their pricing, equipment and lack of competition. But to be fair I have to say that I regularly get sustained ~770KBs incoming from my usenet host for pretty good stretches of time(hour+). I've never had it suddenly stop being that fast while I was dl'ing. Just sayin.

Re:Slick!

[DCTooTall]

Actually, Video On Demand doesn't even use the DOCSIS /cable-modem systems. It's done via your traditional Cable Video system (DAVIC and/or OCAP). Basically, when you request a VOD stream, you send the request to the system from your cable-box where they create the session, and create a one-on-one video stream on a edge-QAM on your node. They System then tells you which frequency/channel to tune to for your movie selection. The whole ability to control the video w/ your remote is done by sending the commands back to the VOD server telling it what you want to do with the stream.

For all intents and purposes, other than sharing the coax system, your Internet and video services are completely seperate on the cable network.

Re:Slick!

[ivan256]

Remember that they have to divide the docsis speed up amongst all the customers on your segment. If they sold you 38Mbit, you could starve out your neighbors. As it is, the line is probably way oversold at 7Mbit. With 150Mbit available to them they *might* be able to cover what they already sold you.

Re:Slick!

[nwf]

Basically, when you request a VOD stream, you send the request to the system from your cable-box where they create the session, and create a one-on-one video stream on a edge-QAM on your node.

And if you have a QAM tuner, you can (at least I was able before I dumped Comcast) tune on other people's PPV shows. You can seem them pause at the parts with naked women and rewind. So basically, they are indeed just unallocated channels just like everything else. VoD doesn't really stream, it broadcasts. They may be able to limit it by node or larger aggregation of houses, but nothing better than that.

Re:Slick!

[DCTooTall]

heh.. kinda. basically it's sorta a "hidden" channel. There are some QAM's set up for the node that just handle the VOD. The VOD servers (located in the Headend) then send the digitized video information thru the fiber to the QAM, which then modulates the stream onto the RF network. Because the VOD equiptment is pretty much it's own self-contained system, and other factors, you can't encrypt the signal the same way you can with a "normal" channel feed. Basically... it's in the clear. People with a settop box or whatnot won't ever see the channel because it's not on the channel map and the box doesn't know how to tune to it. With a QAM tuner however you can sometimes catch someone else's VOD stream being broadcast and watch it. But to do that, you would need to catch it while the broadcast is active (it's not a constant broadcast and the channel is only in use while they are watching the VOD stream)... and you would have to be on the same node as the person who ordered the VOD program. (Nodes size can vary depending on market and the way it's built.) "standard" operation says that JUST the person who ordered the VOD program would have access to it, however the fact that QAM tuners are out there now, combined with technical limitations in the system (VOD is handled by a seperate application on the settop, so you can't encrypt it thru the standard methods without causing problems.... as well as the fact the content is encrypted on the VOD servers.)... mean that it is now possible to "stumble" across an active VOD broadcast..... it's just not something that happens very often since you basically have to be scanning the channels at EXACTLY the right moment for your TV to catch the signal.

Re:Slick!

[hawks5999]

I'm no apologist for Comcast but for the last 6 months I've been able to speedtest at 22+ mb down and 2+ mb up. I think it may be coincidental to the fact that all the Verizon FIOS signs started going up in my neighborhood. Oh, they also set me up on 12 months of their "triple-play" 33/33/33 pricing for voice/data/tv. Last week we dropped tv to limited cable ($7/month) and they kept the 33/33 for the other two services. I won't say they are perfect but Comcast has proven to be a better deal than any other package from any other vendor.

Re:Slick!

[ben there...]

I'm no apologist for Comcast but for the last 6 months I've been able to speedtest at 22+ mb down and 2+ mb up. Speedtest is worthless for Comcast because of Powerboost. You need to download/upload for at least 1 minute each to get a reliable average after the much-inflated 10 second or so boost at the beginning.

Usenet, powerful uncapped web servers, and extremely well-seeded torrents are good for testing download. FTP or almost any torrent with peers is good for testing upload. You'll likely see that your real speed that you get in the second minute and every subsequent minute, provided you don't reset the connection or artificially cap the download speed long enough for Powerboost to kick in again, is capped at what you paid for in download speed (probably 6 Mbps) and 384 Kbps upload.

The way powerboost works is if your average D/L speed for the past 30 seconds or so is less than your rated speed, it will more than double the capped speed until that 30 second average is achieved, then lower the cap to exactly what you paid for after your 30-second average meets that cap. It's pretty precise. You're not getting anything beyond what any other Comcast customer gets, no matter what Speedtest leads you to believe.

Re:Slick!

[Kjella]

While true, the bullshit factor stays at least somewhat constant. So if they get faster speeds in the pipe, you'll probably get a tiny fraction now like you got a tiny fraction before. Same share of a bigger pie is after all bigger.

Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1!

[Danathar]

Having your modem capable of these speeds is good technically, but I have the "premier" comcast service now and it does not come even close to maxing out DOCSIS 1.x.

having a DOCSIS 3.x modem would be like having a firehose into your house but only having measly garden hose pressure amount of water going through it.

Re:Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1!

[HouseArrest420]

Not entirely, especially when you keep in mind that if the "securities" used in DOCSIS 3.0 are more tight that DOCSIS 1. DOCSIS isn't about speed at all...its about effeciency (which in this case is the cause of the speed).

I would put money to the fact that if your internet stops working and you call comcast and say you have a docsis 1.x modem you're going to hear the term EOL, and be told to either upgrade or forget your internet. Now this of course doesn't mean that your 1.x will absolutely NOT work in 3.x sysytems....most certainly not, so don't be fooled into getting a new modem because of it. But it's will be like having your modem look for the "info" thru one of many wholes that it could possibly travel thru....and if it can't find that info...well geuss who's going to get a nice limited/no connectivity msg from windows?

Re:Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but if you pinch the end of the garden hose, it squirts out at a faster rate.

which is cool.

Re:Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1!

[ThatsNotFunny]

But at those speeds, you'll get plenty of advertisements for ways to increase the size of your, um, hose.

Re:Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1!

[macdaddy]

It doesn't matter if you are maxing our your DOCSIS v1 connection. We cable companies have to increase speeds on our upstream and downstream interfaces on our CMTSs to serve the ever-growing number of users. You local HFC node ends up on a pair of shared upstream and downstream CMTS interfaces back in the headend. We have to increase the channel width and choose higher QAM modulation profiles to stay ahead of the bandwidth curve. At some point breaking up the neighborhoods into more nodes becomes unreasonable (CMTS interfaces aren't cheap). At some point we have to force the v2.0 upgrade and then the v3.0 upgrade. Not only that but large cable providers, Comcast being the most obvious, must migrate to v3.0 to let them use IPv6 to manage their CMs and STBs. They have nearly 100 million CMs and STBs combined. That far exceeds the available RFC1918 addresses. At this point it really isn't about you. It's about the network. Eventually your bandwidth needs will require v3.0 but in the interim the NSP will utilize the features.

Good news and bad news

[sm62704]

The good news is that Comcast just bought out Insight, the cable company here in Springfield.

The bad news is that slashdot stories about Comcast are all full of horror stories with Comcast the monstrous villian. Yikes!

-mcgrew

Re:Good news and bad news

[demopolis]

Get Ready for price hikes. When Comcast took over for Time Warner in the Twin Cities, They wasted no time in doubling DVR fees and raising every other price point they had. It basically drove me to satellite to keep from getting raped.

Re:Good news and bad news

[mh1997]

I've had both Comcast and Insight (because comcast bought insight)...if they would offer ultrafast customer service I would have been thrilled with the normal connection speeds.

When I reported outages, it would take days for them to respond. When I called to cancel my service, the customer service guy reviewed my history and asked why it took so long for me to cancel.

Re:Good news and bad news

[sm62704]

I'll probably go back to dialup...

Completely offftopic but it appears I type too fast, as slashdot said "you have 1 new messages" so I clicked. I saw your comment and typed "I'll probably go back to dialup...", hit "enter", and slashdot says "slow down cowboy! It's been fifteen seconds since you hit reply!

I swear, some of the bots slashdot cooks up are fucking brain dead. I should NEVER EVER get a "slowdown cowboy" when responding from the "messages" page! Who coded this kludge anyway? From a useability standpoint this is incredibly shitty design. Someone please fix this! kthxbye

Re:Good news and bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the top brass at Insight is a bunch of corporate shills to begin with. It was only a matter of time for the Insight buyout to happen. I'll never understand why Insight is HQ'd downtown NYC when they only serve parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Why not setup shop in Indianapolis or Cincinnati or Louisville, etc where your coverage and customers are at? To me that says something.

I had Insight for 8 years before moving to a new city. I doubt you'll see any difference in service from the Comcast buyout, other than a new logo, some price changes and a crappier interface for your digital cable.

Re:Good news and bad news

[LiveOne]

Since switching from the long-dead Adelphia last spring we've seen numerous improvements in the local channel lineup, additional HD channels, and vastly improved DVR software, but it has all come with a price. Last week I got my THIRD rate increase notification in 16 months which now has me looking at the alternatives.

Re:Good news and bad news

[jcenters]

Dammit all to hell. I just got Insight broadband a few months ago, and have been loving it. $40 a month for 10mb without any (noticeable) "shaping." Well, that was fun while it lasted.

Re:Good news and bad news

[damacus]

I lived in Buffalo Grove where I used Comcast for 1.5 years in '04 and '05. I paid $60/month for their premium service + modem rental, which was 6000/768 and cost $10 more than their 4000/384. This was back when Insight in Springfield was still 4000/256 (or was it 128 up still) and they only offered a faster service for something like $30 more. So, I had no problems with their prices.. which didn't change at all while I had them.

The only ports they filtered were netbios/samba ones, which IIRC Insight does also. They never complained or filtered my SSH, SMTP+submission, port 80 WWW, DNS, CVS, nor dovecot SSL IMAP services. I could max my connection with linux distro torrents.

I moved back to Springfield in Oct. '05 just a month or three before they rolled out the 10/1 service, which has been great, and has seemed as free as the Comcast connection I had up north. Hopefully things haven't changed drastically since then... but we can only wait and see. Mostly what I'm concerned about is my insightbb.com email address.. I've had that account since they went to insightbb.com from @Home (still active on my parents' account) and I can't imagine how many things point to that email address currently...

Four minutes!?@#

[racecarj]

But i want it now!

It's all about the cash.

[elsJake]

I doubt it's so much of a technological problem as it's economical. Sure they'll be able to do it , but that doesn't mean it's going to come at the same price.

More Empty Promises

[quanticle]

The Internet industry has been promising us higher speeds for nigh on a decade now. However the rollout of this new technology has always been slow to nonexistent. What guarantee do we have that Comcast will roll out DOCSIS 3.0 over any kind of reasonable timespan? Also, given that this is Comcast, what guarantees do we have as far as network neutrality goes? I know that one of major arguments used by proponents of traffic discrimination is the reality of limited bandwidth. Now that bandwidth will be becoming plentiful again, will proponents of traffic discrimination drop those arguments?

Re:More Empty Promises

[LabRat]

However the rollout of this new technology has always been slow to nonexistent. What guarantee do we have that Comcast will roll out DOCSIS 3.0 over any kind of reasonable timespan? While I can't point to a *guarantee* in the traditional sense...I *can* point to a major motivation on Comcast's part to make sure they get this out the door quickly: FiOS.

Re:More Empty Promises

[quanticle]

Given the pace at which Verizon is rolling out FiOS, that's not much of a motivation.

Re:More Empty Promises

[LabRat]

Depends on where you live I suppose ;) I'm sure Comcast will focus their rollout in those markets that are currently being served by FiOS internet or are on the verge of being served. That's several million households so far...pretty decent chunk of market in its own right.

Re:More Empty Promises

[Neil Hodges]

Speaking of that, I searched for my area and got this:

Great News! Verizon High Speed Internet is available. Verizon FiOS Internet service is not available for your home. However we wanted to let you know that you qualify for Verizon High Speed Internet. Enjoy the benefits of a high-speed connection, plus get all the great features Verizon Online offers.

What do they mean exactly? Is it here or not?

Good News/Bad News....

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine the media cartels will want this 'locked down' to hamper the already rampant media infringement ('piracy').... :P

But otherwise great news for the people and businesses who could use the faster/extra bandwidth. :)

that's some interesting math right there...

[MarcoAtWork]

4 minutes would download about 4.5 gigs, which is basically DVD quality... of course you can upconvert this to whichever HD resolution you want, but it's still going to look like crap compared to a 'proper' 30-40 gigs encode. OTOH having something that could d/load a blue-ray/hd-dvd level encode in less than an hour would be pretty good, but in any case the odds of getting that kind of transfer speed connected to a real site are pretty low IMHO.

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[riff420]

4.5 GB isn't necessarily limited to DVD quality. Encoded with x264, 1080p = ~50min @ ~5GB. 720p = ~120min @ MAYBE 6-8GB. Both could contain 5.1 AC3, and would be virtually indistinguishable from the source content, which is generally HDDVD/Bluray.

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[cnettel]

Well, while not as good as proper HD disc, VC-1 or MPEG-4 or anything at 4.5 GB will give far greater quality than DVD MPEG-2.

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[codeboost]

A 720p BluRay x264-compressed rip is around 4.5GB and a 1080p rip is around 8GB. The quality is very good, probably very close to the original and not worth downloading the 30-40 gigs.

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[Anonymous Coward]

or they could be using another format. . .

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[Kjella]

With modern codecs, those that have been testing have found that you want around 0.2bits/pixel, if you have more space you'd rather have higher resolution. 0.2 * (1280x720x24) * (2*60*60) / (1024*1024*1024*8) = 3.7GiB plus sound to fit a 2 hour movie on DVD5. If you have a DVD9, you'd rather go for 1080p than increase bitrate on 720p. Or so I've been told...

On that note, both HDDVD and Blu-Ray seem to be a bit overkill for resolution. If they really wanted maximum quality they'd do 2160p, that works out to an optimum around 0.2*3840*2160*24*60*60*2/8/1024/1024/1024 = 33GiB. Normal 1080p displays would be better off doing a 2:1 scaledown from that, though I suppose that'd be a more expensive solution.

Re:that's some interesting math right there...

[Abeydoun]

In support of the parent post, here's a side-by-side comparison I found of DVD-MPEG2 vs. H.264 (MPEG AVC aka MPEG-4 part 10) using the same bit rate. As you can imagine a 4.5GB H.264 encoded file can be pretty close to 'true' HD.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I had no idea there was that much Brazillian tranny midget porn produced in a month.

Re:Wow

[jamstar7]

He snarfed up all the Indonesian plant porn as well.

Must be nice to have big hard drives...

And you get this for...

[BUL2294]

...the low, low price of $1000/month. But if you also sign up basic cable, home phone, and HBO/Starz, the package will cost $1050/month (for the first 3 months)--plus taxes and regulatory fees. It's Comcastic!

Comcast - We own you.

Re:And you get this for...

[Anonymous Coward]

And two months later it is $2500/month. The year later.. $10000/month. I really hate Comcast, but I cannot have satellite where I'm living (and no, I'm not ready to move just yet.) Why they are allowed to do this is beyond me.

Re:And you get this for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, that slogan is already taken by Conglomo.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/rocko/smallpics/s_conglom1.jpg

++ for those who know the reference.

Re:And you get this for...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the low, low price of $1000/month. But if you also sign up basic cable, home phone, and HBO/Starz, the package will cost $1050/month (for the first 3 months)--plus taxes and regulatory fees. It's Comcastic!

Comcast - We owe you.
- There. Fixed it for ya.

Re:And you get this for...

[R2.0]

"the package will cost $1050/month (for the first 3 months)--plus taxes and regulatory fees. It's Comcastic!"

Is that before or after Hammer Time?

Re:And you get this for...

[Anonymous Coward]

However, you will have full access to our "On Demand HD Library" for free *

* Provided you pay $12.95/month for the required HD cable box that you cannot purchase nor bring your own hardware with.

Re:And you get this for...

[Grygus]

"the package will cost $1050/month (for the first 3 months)--plus taxes and regulatory fees. It's Comcastic!"

Is that before or after Hammer Time? Sequence of events:

You get the bill --> Makes you say, 'Oh my Lord!' --> STOP --> Hammer Time.

Faster internet, faster disconnection

[Jailbrekr]

So at that speed, how long do you think it'll take be be cut off for 'excessive use'? I'd give it 5 minutes, tops.

Re:Faster internet, faster disconnection

[Deadplant]

Rogers cable internet service in Ontario:
'Extreme' $52.95/mth 8Mbps down, 0.8Mbps up 100GB/month limit
'Extreme Plus' $99.50/mth 18Mbps down, 1Mbps up 90GB/month limit ?!?!?!?

So I can pay double and you'll let me saturate my connection for 38 minutes per day??
cable companies are crazy.

Dedicated server hosting at many datacentres costs $120/month for 1,500GB on a 100Mbps full duplex link.

We should build municipal fiber networks (lay them as you lay the water and sewerlines)
Then we can have awesome competition for Internet services on those lines.

Re:Faster internet, faster disconnection

[__aaqvdr516]

Tat sounds like a dream to me. I'm currently paying $80/mo for a 1.5M/s (max) DL and 256 UL. I am now able to get wireless broadband but Wildblue won't let me cancel unless I pay for the remaining 9 months of my contract at the full $80/mo pricetag.. I'm also limited to 17 G/mo. Wildblue satellite service blows goats.

Re:Faster internet, faster disconnection

[Deadplant]

Hard times dude.
I guess I am spoiled by living in a 'major' city.

1/4 Batmans per minute?

[X_Bones]

what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?

Re:1/4 Batmans per minute?

[glwtta]

what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?

About 1.1 LoCs/fortnight
 
(hey, turned out to be a very convenient unit).

Re:1/4 Batmans per minute?

[u-235-sentinel]

what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?

Actually Concast talks in terms of Email's, photos or mp3's per month.

And if you download more than 13 million emails or 256,000 photos or 30,000 mp3's per month, you are a bad person and will be spanked for 12 months by their Ministry of Lov^H^H^H^H^H^H Abuse Department.

Re:1/4 Batmans per minute?

[Graymalkin]

Assuming the print collection of the Library of Congress is 10TB it's about 0.000002LoC/s. Oddly, Google's converter doesn't seem to want to accept LoC as a data measurement. I think Comcast is finally catching up to a station wagon full of tapes.

Re:1/4 Batmans per minute?

[Crag]

And if your 10TB figure is accurate, I believe that the final figure comes to about 2.4 LoC/fortnight.

That certainly puts it in perspective, I think.

Re:160 Mbps?! ha!

[quanticle]

Really? You don't get 4Mbit/sec? Are you in a heavily settled area or something? I know that I get 5Mbit/sec. on a consistent basis, and my throughput peaks around 7Mbit/sec. Of course, I'm paying for 8Mbit/sec, so what do I know?

100 Mbps fibre available here already

[Ixlr8]

I happen to live in a first-to-roll-out neighborhood for fibre to each home/appartment. Available in my street in 2 months, I get symmetric 20/20 internet bandwidth for some 30 euro/month. Speeds up to 100/100 Mbps are also available (. In addition the fibre carries your voip, radio and tv signals. So I'm guessing the 100/100 is just a convenient maximum speed for internet given that most people either have 10 or 100 stuff in their home.

Wonder what this 160 is supposed to be priced at and how the technology scales in the future.

Re:100 Mbps fibre available here already

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you live and is it hard to immigrate? I pay about $120USD (around $60 euros) for 60 channels (about 20 of them are home shopping or religious crap) and an "8/1" connection that is very unstable (I think it craps out about once or twice per hour for at least 20 seconds at a time). My bill has gone up a few times per year since Comcast bought out the previous provider, my connection has gotten worse, and the total number of cable channels goes down once or twice a year (I used to get around 70 channels, and less were religious channels).

I resent that. I demand an apology.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Paraguayan!

ultra-fast!? is this a joke?

[netdur]

2.5Gb/s Internet For French Homes

Re:ultra-fast!? is this a joke?

[homer_ca]

Ah, that's nothing. This 75 year old retired lady in Sweden has a 40Gbps connection. However it is experimental, and her son is Peter Löthberg, apparently one of the pioneers of the Internet in Sweden. Still, lots of people in Sweden and S Korea can get 100Mbps broadband.

Re:ultra-fast!? is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm moving to Sweden. 40gbps is way too much porn!
Do they search laptops' contents at Swedish borders? http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/08/1641209

But what's the limit?

[STrinity]

What good does sooper dooper ultra fast connections do if they cap how much data you can transfer?

Re:But what's the limit?

[jamstar7]

It looks good in the ads, of course. This is the United States, it's all about spin here.

but they probably dont fix their crappy TV service

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a comcast customer for years now, at 3 different residences in 3 different cities. At all 3 I have not ever been able to get descent digital cable. Half the channels dont come in at all or are so full of visual artifacts and audio hiccups that they are un-watchable. The On-demand service works about 1/3 of the time, and when it does it experiences the same crap signal and is prone to cutting out in the middle of the movie..

These assholes should fix their fuggin' TV signals before they start even looking into anything else...

I would switch to a different provider if there was such a thing (No I'm not going to be contractually bound to DirectTV for 3 years just to watch TV, so they arent an option).

You COULD download that fast...

[snarfies]

...IF they'll sell it to you. They won't sell it to me. I live in Philadelphia - you know, Comcast HQ? I can't buy FIOS, despite my burning desire to do so, so I can get Comcast cable internet or DSL at half the speed (but around the same price). My gf, however, lives about half an hour away in Norristown, PA, and she just got a computer (whoah). She wanted to know her options, so I looked them up for her.

She CAN get FIOS, but much to my shock I found that in her area she can get something called "Comcast Blast." 16Mbps service, as opposed to my 6 service. Like FIOS, I'd buy it, if they'd only sell it to me.

They won't sell it to me. Why bother? I can't buy FIOS or any faster alternative, so I'm stuck with whatever crumbs they'll toss me. Oh well, at least it beats Wireless Philadelphia (tried that for a few weeks - don't even waste your time).

Promises, like Xbox promises?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these promises similar to the announcement of video for the Xbox Live service which can't even manage to start games nor Zune music?

New Term For Empty Promises On The Net

[Chabil Ha']

Vapornet. This holds especially true on the States side where an oligopoly controls the communications infrastructure. They promise a ton to keep people's hopes alive for a thriving 'Net, but we don't ever see it. The WiMax promise is still unfulfilled. The 'fiber in every pot' (am I confusing something here? ;) promises are gone. This is the newest Telecom Tale that definitely deserves to be labeled 'Vapornet'.

Sorry.....

[Capt James McCarthy]

You can't speed up the server or the network you are downloading from. They can claim it can do Gig speeds but that doesn't help with anything outside of Comcast networks.

Or how about that person who gets Comcast 160Mb down only to have it run into a 10/100 Ethernet Card.

Re:Sorry.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The storage media is becoming the bottleneck. It's already the slowest thing on my home 1gbps LAN.

You're also assuming single server for net speed, and completely ignoring doing several things at once.

I bet this service can be maxed out with a decently seeded torrent alone. It's easy to hit the limit on my 20/20mbps right now, you only need a handful of people with my level of service to hit the 160mbps, and that's just the US. Europe has 100/100mbps, Korea and Japan are starting on 1gbps. FiOS probably has a lot more headroom in store should cable companies start to give competition. With bandwidth comes application.

I can perform decent video conferencing with family in Europe now. In a few years the whole family could probably do the same with friends and family simultaneously.

Re:Sorry.....

[SeekerDarksteel]

You can't speed up the server or the network you are downloading from. They can claim it can do Gig speeds but that doesn't help with anything outside of Comcast networks.

Err...what kind of servers are you downloading from that use a home user connection? When you download something most of the lines the information passes through have far greater capacity than the user until you reach close to the home user as it's the "last mile" connection that most greatly limits bandwidth.

Or how about that person who gets Comcast 160Mb down only to have it run into a 10/100 Ethernet Card.

They spend $10-$20 to buy a gigabit ethernet adapter.

Re:Sorry.....

[British]

They spend $10-$20 to buy a gigabit ethernet adapter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the PS3 already have this? If so, good thinking on Sony's part thinking ahead.

Promises promises

[Kelbear]

I'll believe it when they actually offer it, there are plenty of ways for them to tie down that speed into an undesirable product. Excessive pricing, throttling, bundling, lock-in, hidden caps...

How fast is the upload, and for that matter, how many download sources are there that can actually hit that speed for numerous users? Even in a torrent it's tough to find enough seeders to equal those speeds. If it can be done, how many suscribers can hit that speed before they crowd each other out?

I think the biggest boost to my practical download speed would be an increase to other people's upload speeds. That sort of breakthrough would be far more exciting.

Re:Promises promises

[aliquis]

Yeah, I want to see upload speed aswell, because currently all this bullshit connections makes the Internet ULTRA SLOW instead, craptastic, the inventor of ADSL should be shoot! ;) (and its users banned from the Internet! :D)

Give people full duplex over fibre plz k thnx.

Hate all the goddamn leechers ;/

They can't deal with what they already provide?

[stickyc]

I'm confused - Comcast has admitted they can't handle the speeds they're already providing to customers, what's the point in providing a faster end-user connection if the back-end can't support it?

Re:They can't deal with what they already provide?

[jbeaupre]

Because they can charge more for delivering the same thing.

Re:They can't deal with what they already provide?

[BvF7734]

Comcast can allow this as they have ridded themselves of all of the abusers that they can track. With this dramatic drop in usage, they can free themselves to provide this service to mom and pop Joe Sixpack as they won't care to begin with. "These numbers is bigger than Verizon Maw."

Re:They can't deal with what they already provide?

[QuantumRiff]

Because then they can advertise:

Comcast, now up to 160Meg connections*
Then, way down the page, in size 2 font, after the stuff about APR to confuse readers..
*These speeds are the maximum, results not typical. Go to comcast.com to read more (and good luck finding anything more, we tried our best to bury it..)

Re:They can't deal with what they already provide?

[jtgd]

It's simple. You'll only get those speeds when downloading the Blu-ray you buy from Comcast.

Upload speed will still be 128k though

[pyite69]

If this is full duplex, then it will be a great deal. Otherwise it is just sad.

Re:Upload speed will still be 128k though

[Anonymous Coward]

This is +3 Insightful? Yes, it's probably still going to be async, but cable modem upload speeds are much better than 128k. I am currently on Comcast's Performance Plus tier and I get an actual of 1Mbps upload speeds, according to the various Java-based speed test utilities I have tried.

Re:Upload speed will still be 128k though

[smallfries]

Full Duplex doesn't mean what you think it does. The term that you are looking for is symmetric.

Re:Upload speed will still be 128k though

[Anonymous Coward]

'Full Duplex' - I don't think those words mean what you think they mean...

Re:Upload speed will still be 128k though

[pavera]

Yeah... That is a great lie too. Ever tried actually uploading a large file? Comcast has a 1mbps "burst" for the first 45 seconds to 1 minute (enough to fool all the speed test utilities). It then throttles back to 256kbps, so if you are actually moving a large file, the first 4-5MB go pretty fast, then the brakes get turned on, and your 20MB file takes 2 hours to upload.

Screw Comcast

[Sir_Real]

They could give this service away for free and I still wouldn't touch it. These idiots have proven that their customers. They think their customers are criminals and so enforce laws that don't exist on behalf of the coprorate interests to whom they truly owe their allegiance. They have used every opportunity to bleed areas they monopolize dry. Their terms of service are draconian and impenetrable. They have fought tooth and nail against the establishment of any kind of competition (wonder why you can't get muni free wifi? ask the state senator enjoying a free houseboat payment on behalf of a comcast kickback).

I would rather not have internet at all than be involved with this company in any way.

well not quite

[taniwha]

you're sharing the downstream with your neighbors - upstream is contention - people get assigned slots - one guy doesn't get all of them and you collide/retransmit with your neighbors

SPAM on the rise

[alextheseal]

In other news, SPAM reaches unprecedentedly high volumes.

No thanks.

[pla]

The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year.

Great, so my cable company will force me to buy another new modem, while I'll still only get 2-3Mbps realistic speeds.

How about we stop screwing around... Just give me my FTTP already, preferably not tied to either phone or cable (so I can ditch both).

Re:No thanks.

[Knara]

You buy your cable modem? Why?

Re:No thanks.

[pla]

You buy your cable modem? Why?

Because although it may seem like they force another upgrade on us every year, I'd say it actually comes out to about two to three years per modem.

Which, at $2/month, means it would cost me more to rent it than to buy my own. And in any case, I'd far rather give my money to NewEgg than to Time Warner... Not to mention, if I buy my own I can get a unit decent enough to keep sync, vs the bottom-of-the-barrel crap they loan to renters.


It more pisses me off that I have basically the same throughput now as I did with my very first pre-DOCSIS cablemodem almost a decade ago now, despite two orders of magnitude improvement between then and now.

Re:No thanks.

[OldeTimeGeek]

Because, in my case at least, buying a modem ended up being significantly cheaper than renting one. Rental is about five dollars a month (before taxes, service charges, etc.) and I got a Motorola Surfboard from eBay for $30.

Re:No thanks.

[falconwolf]

Because, in my case at least, buying a modem ended up being significantly cheaper than renting one. Rental is about five dollars a month (before taxes, service charges, etc.) and I got a Motorola Surfboard from eBay for $30.

I've got my cable bill right in front of me and it lists the price of the modem as 0.00. I was paying about $2/month for it but now not only does it not cost me but my access is actually cheaper. Normally I prefer to own instead of renting but paying $0.00 to rent sounds good to me. And this is the second modem I've had. The first one had to be replaced and a tech brought the replacement, a faster one, the next day with no additional charge.

Falcon

Re:No thanks.

[OldeTimeGeek]

When I had my service brought up two years ago, there was a $50 installation charge and a $5 monthly charge for rental. That may have changed since then, but as I've never seen a rental charge, I wouldn't know.

Re:No thanks.

[falconwolf]

When I had my service brought up two years ago, there was a $50 installation charge and a $5 monthly charge for rental. That may have changed since then, but as I've never seen a rental charge, I wouldn't know.

I too had to pay for installation. Oh, I was wrong when I said I paid $2 for the modem rental, as you did I paid $5. When I switched to cable a few years ago I checked into buying a modem and they were about $100. At $5 a month it would take 20 months to pay for it. The modem the tech brought over when I got cable only lasted about a year before it had to be replaced. If I had bought it and the warranty was out when it died I would of had to buy another. So while I prefer to own and not rent I think in this case it cost me less renting.

Falcon

Enough to combat FTTH?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the more interesting question is whether DOCSIS 3.0 will be enough to stave of Fiber to the Home initiatives underway in the United States. On one hand, Fiber is clearly the superior infrastructure and offers much greater speeds. On the other, only Verizon appears willing to make the sacrifices required to install it. Eventually, I think the MSO's will need to wake up and get on with the infrastructure upgrades, but with their competition being so complacent, why bother?

in response to 'comcastsucks'

[avandesande]

Yes, I agree but QWEST is worse!!!!!

160 mbits????

[bizitch]

At that speed - how are they gonna keep up snooping on my traffic??? and messing with my torrents?

oh that's right, they don't do that ...

Net Connection Lite

[internic]

Yeah, but will this ultra-fast connection come with port blocking, traffic shaping, unspecified caps on data transferred, and TOS that make you agree not to run a server of any kind?

Re:Net Connection Lite

[jamstar7]

Of course it will. Anything other than using the Web to read your mail and shop at eBay/Amazon/etc and updating your Windows is likely to be a violation of the ToS and thus eligible for an instant cancellation of your contract along with an instant summons to small claims court to let them 'reclaim' the balance of your contract AND the disconnect fee for 'breaking' the contract.

Its advertising that counts, not the product.

[Anonymous Coward]

In USA it is all about advertising and less about the actual product.

Also, ppl in USA are not aware of an world where things are often better than in the States itself.

Re:Its advertising that counts, not the product.

[C0rinthian]

Believe me, many of us are aware. Damn the telecom industry. Damn them to hell.

Woohoo!

[saikou]

At that speed you will reach your download/upload limit on your unlimited connection in just a few hours :D

Re:Woohoo!

[u-235-sentinel]

At that speed you will reach your download/upload limit on your unlimited connection in just a few hours :D

I believe it. So rather than hitting your limit in a month, you hit it (whatever it is) in just a few days.

That's because it's ConCastic!!

US ISPs suck

[information_storage]

Too bad every granny in Japan and Sweden will still have higher uprates that I will have down rates - death to asymmetric stingyness!

What about customer service?

[Spy der Mann]

Um, have you forgot about Hammer Granny? How about the Sleepy Tech guy, who ended up falling asleep because they put him on hold for over 2 hours? (And of course, he was the one fired, while the problem remains).

No matter how fast they claim to be now, if their customer service remains a bureaucratic hell, no way.

Batman?

[glitch_xl]

I've already GOT batman - what else you got?

Re:Batman?

[cashman73]

Well, they're new Fancast site has quite a large collection of television shows available for free (not just to Comcast customers, either). They seem to have a decent collection of current shows, like Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, and Bionic Woman. But they also have some older shows, too, like Airwolf, BSG 1978, and even all the old episodes of Firefly,... ;-) The problem is, their player sucks, and only allows you to watch everything within your browser, and not full screen,... Damn, Comcast!

But it's still Comcast

[Avatar8]

Given the company's history, I don't trust a single word the article says.

-"Up to" 160 mbps likely means "We'll sell you 20Mb for $50/mth to barely squeeze out our competition, but real speed will cost ya $$$$."
-Is it still a shared network? So if my neighbors are all downloading Batman Begins, is my internet download going to slow to 1mbps? I bet it will.
-Will the service be reliable, as in always on, 24x7x365, you know, like the phone companies and my FiOS connection are? I completely and totally doubt it.
-Will the charge per month keep increasing every six months? I think it will.
-Will you still charge customers for house calls even when the fault lies in your network and your equipment? I'm sure you will.
-Will you replace your unskilled, rude and generally ignorant customer service with talented, considerate and intelligent people? Only if Comcast decides to pay a decent wage, so I guess not.
-Will the VoD carry the latest movies as soon as they're legally available? If the CEO is using Batman Begins (2005) as an example, probably not.
-Will Comcast ever apologize or make amends for all the anguish, pain, suffering and overbilling they have caused their customers since Comcast came into existence? I'm not holding my breath.

My only wish is that Comcast executives, where ever they go will receive the same kind of service they themselves deliver.

Re:But it's still Comcast

[Cheeze]

Where to start

1. 20Mb for $50 is better than the $60/month i pay now for 10Mb
2. Shared? The whole internet is shared. Want dedicated bandwidth, get a dedicated link to EVERY SERVER ON THE INTERNET!
3. Mine is reliable. you might just have a bad link or bad cabling in your house.
4. the price will probably increase if you sign up for one of their "$20 off for 3 months" deals.
5. Comcast doesn't do that.
6. very doubtful, but that's customer service at ANY company.
7. Maybe Maybe not, which ever is more profitable
8. Why would they? It doesn't make them money.

you sound like a bitter ex-employee.

Re:But it's still Comcast

[Avatar8]

1. Yes, but that's what they'll offer to new customers to compete with Verizon regardless of what current customers are paying.
2. Not really. When you hit a connection to a domain you're most likely hitting a network load balancing switch and taking a slice of one of multiple servers. I simply prefer having the dedicated connection TO the internet like DSL and FiOS as opposed to being on a "hub" (not even a switch) with my neighbors.
3. Had it for over 3 years and had a problem at least every month, sometimes off for 3-5 days at a time. My neighbors experienced the same downtimes, so we know it was upstream.
4. I mean the base price, not a special startup offer. When I had their TV service and later their internet service, they increased their fees by 6-10% every six months. I've been with Verizon for two years now and I've only seen one 4% increase.
5. Oh heck yes they do. If you call in a problem, go through the time and hassle of working through everything with the multiple levels of support, reboot your computer about eight times while doing so and they finally agree to send out a technician, if he can prove that it's not their network or equipment, you get the $75/hr bill. It's amazing how well-behaved the Comcast network is when there's a technician in your house, and apparently the modem having a faulty power connection is my problem.
6. No, not at all. I have never dealt with the ineptitude that Comcast puts on the phone with ANY other company, not even my credit card banks, Microsoft or a pizza delivery shop.
7. Sure it is. As soon as the movie stuido makes the movie available for on demand, many "gotta have it now" customers pay the price for VOD. Once it's out of pay per view, then the provider attracts customers and builds customer loyalty by having a large library available. I really enjoy and get a great deal of use from my Starz on demand through Verizon.
8. Given.

No. I sure as heck would never work for them and I pity any poor soul that does. If any former Comcast employees posted here, I think we'd hear more horrible stories of the truth behind the lines as opposed to the customer experience. I'm one of the growing millions of former Comcast customers.

You, on the other hand, sound like someone who has no TV/internet option other than Comcast, so you make the best of what you have. Good luck to you.

Re:But it's still Comcast

[wintermute000]

If its using legacy coax cable, it must remain a bus topology i.e. everyone shares the same bandwidth.
Unless the protocol includes some new way of muxing each individual channel

Re:But it's still Comcast

[Zak3056]

Not really. When you hit a connection to a domain you're most likely hitting a network load balancing switch and taking a slice of one of multiple servers. I simply prefer having the dedicated connection TO the internet like DSL and FiOS as opposed to being on a "hub" (not even a switch) with my neighbors.

WTF?

With DSL, the only dedicated pipe you have is to the central office. Whatever upstream bandwidth that is available to the DSLAM, headend, or whatever your provider calls your first hop is going to have FAR LESS capacity than your last mile connection.

Re:But it's still Comcast

[falconwolf]

-Will the service be reliable, as in always on, 24x7x365, you know, like the phone companies and my FiOS connection are?

In the 4 years I've been with, first Time Warner but now Comcast, I've only had one problem. It was when the cable modem I had died. The next day a tech came by and replaced it, with a faster modem.

Will the charge per month keep increasing every six months?

My service is cheaper than it was when I signed up. And though I rent the cable modem the cost is $0.00.

Will you still charge customers for house calls even when the fault lies in your network and your equipment?

When the tech came by I was not charged either for the visit nor the new modem.

Will you replace your unskilled, rude and generally ignorant customer service with talented, considerate and intelligent people?

The tech seems pretty knowledgeable and offered to optimize the connection including the computer's network settings.

I know Comcast has a pretty bad rep, and has done some nasty things but I think it really depends on where you are as to whether they are good or bad.

Falcon

Re:But it's still Comcast

[Cheeze]

Just a note, i don't have Comcast.

I used to until TimeWarner came to town and took over Comcast's services.

160 megabits?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

160 megabits ... throttled down to 2 megabits. Your cable dollars at work.

They all suck

[jessiej]

They all suck but competition is good. This will hopefully help to lower prices for the slower speeds and encourage other companies to seek out similar advances.

Wouldn't it be great to see a speed war the likes of the AMD/Intel processor competition? Unlikely, but it would be great!

Yeah, but, is it ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"unlimited"?

Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[WillAffleckUW]

The US commercial cable networks are much much slower - and even this Comcast 160 GB/sec is much slower than you get get if you work on medical imaging or biochemical structure data networks - in the USA.

Re:Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[jcnnghm]

At what cost? Is that available residentially? How many students are connecting? Your comparisons are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. If you want to compare it to something, it should be something like FiOS not business lines that are at a minimum an order of magnitude more expensive.

Re:Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[WillAffleckUW]

Most of the residential dorms at universities can access some gigapop Internet speeds, but it's only certain facilities that can access the higher speeds used for medical imaging, remote surgery, and high-speed genetics database work.

Unlike, say, South Korea. Or anywhere else.

Re:Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[jcnnghm]

That's like saying that most offices have insufficient bandwidth because there are offices in data centers with 10 gigabit connections to the internet.

And quantify most, Internet 2, which I assume you are talking about since you referenced Gigapops, is led by 212 universities, while there are 2,618 accredited 4 year colleges and universities in the US, hardly most. And besides that, having a gigabit Ethernet connection in a dorm room, which most definitely don't, is not the same as having a gigabit of bandwidth. The connection is shared between all the dorms, and the university as a whole. On the public internet, anything over about 12mbps is only useful with a subset of hosts. I have a 30mbps connection here, and the only public network service that can saturate the link (at about 3,800 KB/s) is my usenet provider.

The point is, a dorm at a university isn't even an apt comparison to a apartment building, unless that building happens to sit on a data center campus.

Re:Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[WillAffleckUW]

Righhht.

So, just because you are used to 6-10mbps speeds and the rest of Europe and Asia uses 20mbps (even Canada has higher than us), it's OK to not point out that there are many MILLIONS of people in the US who can get much much faster speeds on Internet2.

Why?

It's like the cell phone that orders products I saw at CES last night - it has features that have existed in Japan for most of this century. So it's not "new". It's just "new to the US".

Re:Meanwhile most universities have faster speeds

[jcnnghm]

I have a 30mbps connection, and I live in the United States. I am 100% positive that it is not a common occurrence to receive network services at data rates above about 12mbps even with a 30mbps connection on the public internet. Internet 2 is irrelevant to this discussion anyway, because it is a closed private network, it's not the public internet. Additionally, MILLIONS of people aren't connecting to it from home, hardly anyone (except university students living in dorm rooms) is. Comparing I2 capacity to cable modem capacity is stupid, it tells you nothing about either. An apt comparison of cable modem bandwidth would be dsl bandwidth or some other residential broadband service or provider, which I2 is not.

Comparing to other countries is at least relevant, but the US is rapidly approaching and will be surpassing them in the not too distant future if residential bandwidth keeps growing as quickly as it has been.

Everyone loves cable

[heroine]

Cable TV standards R definitely the star of the show, along with the coverage of BOCA/True2way, this show is definitely a vindication of cable standards.

Of course you will...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you'll be able to actually get about half that speed. But it'll only last for 30 seconds, at which point you'll hit the invisible bandwidth cap and get booted via the "for any reason" type clause in their ToS.

Related?

[phobos13013]

Perhaps this announcement coincides with the announcement of their Project Infinity initiative... It would seem they need some kind of data network such as this to be able to shove this kind of content thru the tubes. Regardless, Comcast is still evil. They are an entertainment distributor, not an info distributor so do nothing but contribute to the dumbing of the masses. And like someone said earlier, this kind of content expansion will only come with increased costs and fees; considering all this, there is little win for consumers in these announcements.

it's called...

[CaptainNerdCave]

marketing. "what do you mean you promised something we can't deliver?"

Too bad

[kilodelta]

And of course they'll continue to flood fake disconnect messages for P2P software. And they'll keep playing games with VPN connections.

Re:160 Mbps?! ha!

[Corpuscavernosa]

All I know is that if I were to get a porportionate share of 160Mbps, say even half, I'd be one happy little internet user...

Re:but they probably dont fix their crappy TV serv

[Potent]

As for DirecTV or Dish Network, you can purchase used stuff off of Ebay, install it yourself and skip the contracts. This is a little more difficult to do with the HD stuff, and quite a bit more expensive, but just a thought. For standard def stuff you could own your own DirecTivo, DIY for less than $150.00 and no contracts. The non-dvr receivers are a dime a dozen.

I've seen it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've the chips and they are so not ready for prime time. Ant the stacks are still vapor ware

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll never see that bandwidth.... but there is an alternative.
http://tcniso.net/
http://surfboardhacker.net/

Based on their track record...

[band-aid-brand]

They'll give you the speed but as soon as you try to do anything with you'll start getting your connection RST'd.

Captcha: perishes , how convenient.

Viva Las DSL

[jameskojiro]

I used to be on Comwurst for Internet Access. The speed was wildly swinging and when I went to download a linux distro or any other huge file that required I download peer 2 peer it practically shut down my speed so much I couldn't even Surf the net, heck it was like I was Surfing using a 300 baud modem. I upgraded to DSL for a little less with the Platinum DSL package, the fastest speed and is comparable to comwurst supposed max speed. For the first few weeks DSL worked fine but my DSL kept disconnecting because there was static on my line. I checked and one of my outlets was wired with electrical tape and luck, I spent a few bucks and repalced the outlet with a modular one and re-crimped the wire, guess what, no static and no disconnects since then! It was an internal house wiring issue that was causing the problem and even when my DSL modem was disconnecting due to static it was better than Comwurst, especially because I would stay up late and the hot dog vendors in comwurst's data center were always bringing their network down for maintence from about 2am till 4am. Never have that issue with DSL. Even streaming video is more consistent.

I am glad i dumped my Digital Cable, it was good 8 years ago but now it is crappy.

The math seems incorrect.

[pwnies]

Just an observation but...
(4min)(60seconds/min)(160mb/second)/(8mb/MB) = 4800 MB, or approximately the size of a standard DVD.

Maybe it's just me, but a standard DVD isn't HighDef.

Re:The math seems incorrect.

[Aladrin]

Only if you insist on mpeg2. If you use some reasonable compression then you can easily get high-def in that size.

Ultra-fast? New technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

I definitely agree with other comments that this hardly qualifies as ultra-fast.

And as for DOCSIS3 rolling out this coming year and whatnot, Singapore has had 100mbit cable using DOCSIS3 for what I believe is around a year now! Only 2mbit up though, which is probably more or less in line with what to expect elsewhere.

UP TO?

[poetmatt]

I can just see the comcast offer now: You can get speeds up to 160MB/s! Average user speed capped at 6mb/s. Not even megabyte. Price increase? Definitely.

(in all reality, docsis 3 will help the need for higher bandwith but I highly doubt comcast's network will be able to handle 160MB/s from the average consumers even in the next 5-10 years - but boy will it cause one hell of a slashdot effect!)

Sewer Rat

[Anonymous Coward]

... might taste like Pumpkin Pie, but I'd never eat the filthy motherfucker to find out.

Comcast can take it's ultra-fast (extra RST packets for free) internet and shove it up their collective asses.

Only SOUTH Koreans

[davidwr]

Only SOUTH Koreans of all ages and certain others in high-density areas will see these speeds any time soon.

There's more to rolling out a financially successful service than a modem: You also need to be able to spread your back-end costs over your paying customers.

In most American cities and suburbs there aren't enough customers willing to pay the big bucks to support these speeds any time soon.

If I were the cable companies I'd cherry-pick neighborhoods that had a lot of potential customers and sell it as a metered service. One way to do this is to charge $x/month and set the initial cap high enough for 95% of your customers, then for the 5% of high-end users charge them a fee either directly proportional to bandwidth or with a decreasing cost/terabyte as usage goes up. In any case, keep your marginal cost-per-terabyte high enough to cover your costs: You don't want to lose money on any high-volume customer.

Re:Only SOUTH Koreans

[Anonymous Coward]

The cable companies already cherry-pick neighborhoods. When Comcast first rolled out cable modems they only did the richie-rich suburbs immediately around Philadelphia. it was a year or two before they finally decided people living within the boundaries of the city should get some service. And back then, it was dial-up or nothing, unless you had the bucks to fork over for a T1-- and if you did, you more than likely lived in the richie-rich suburbs, not in Philadelphia, so you could get a cable modem.

I was pissed about that, because the entire time they were relentlessly marketing the service in the city, even though city residents couldn't use it.

Re:Only SOUTH Koreans

[greeze]

spread your back-end costs over your paying customers. Gross.

Re:Only SOUTH Koreans

[dlb]

"You also need to be able to spread your back-end costs over your paying customers"

What a horrible visual...

Download a movie? Not with torrent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did we all forget Comcast blocks internet traffic? How do you plan to download anything eh?

Lowering service quality at an even faster rate!

[phoebus1553]

Great, now when their connection suddenly decides to make OpenVPN tunnels flicker at exactly 5:30 it will only take me 1 second for the tunnel to realize it's down instead of the usual 10. Or when they suddenly turn on the firewall in their PieceOfCrap modem killing all of our normal internet bound traffic, but somehow allowing ipsec tunnels to work, those tunnels will work really fast!

Sounds like a Comcraptic plan indeed!

Business Practices

[Count_Froggy]

If you believe that, then you will believe: - You have to buy their router package to support more than one computer, - No more switching customers from billing in arrears to billing in advance, - No more low balling prices only to raise them without notice, - No more bundling with undesired cable TV services, - No more sports scandals in Philadelphia. Sorry, these guys make Microsoft look like an honest, reliable service provider who would NEVER try an underhanded trick, even when they can can get away with it. As bad as they are, I'll stick to Verizon for DSL and DirectTV for video.

Bad summery by CNN

[gravis777]

After reading the article, the content of the article pretty much backs what I was thinking - that while Comcast may be using some of the bandwidth for internet, most of this looks as if it will be employed for High-Def content on demand. This is 160 meg a second on their network, not on the internet. At least, that is what I am making out of the story.

What he actually said...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Comcast expects to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second over cable.

Nobody has it yet.

The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year."

1 person will have it in 2008.

More downstream? Who cares?

[Nullav]

At this point, I couldn't care less about downstream. I haven't needed more downstream bandwidth since I got rid of the ISDN connection, on the other hand, I'm paying out the nose for Cox's 'business service' so I can enjoy little things like having port 80 open, not being throttled down when torrenting something, and having more than the 1Mb/s upstream offered in their 'premium' plan.
I don't need or even want a .25 Batmans per minute connection, I just want a nice connection that I'm allowed to use.

Re:More downstream? Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, this is why I have Speakeasy at my place. It's a little more expensive, but they don't block any ports (they even say in TOS that running servers is okay), and actually deliver the advertised speeds. It's also nice that the tech support know what words like "Linux" and "Slashdot" mean!

(No affiliation with them; just a satisfied customer. The only downside with them is that because they don't own the lines you're at the mercy of the local telco monopoly with respect to installation.)

2 minutes later...

[kellyb9]

... he was probably sent a copyright infringment letter from the MPAA.

Re:but they probably dont fix their crappy TV serv

[glindsey]

As for DirecTV or Dish Network, you can purchase used stuff off of Ebay, install it yourself and skip the contracts. This is a little more difficult to do with the HD stuff, and quite a bit more expensive, but just a thought. For standard def stuff you could own your own DirecTivo, DIY for less than $150.00 and no contracts. The non-dvr receivers are a dime a dozen. Where are you getting this from? Nothing on either DirecTV or Dish Network is unencrypted; you need a valid access card to watch anything, and you have to pay monthly for that access card. You can't just buy a valid access card off of eBay; the card will be invalidated by the receiver as soon as it grabs data off the satellite.

Unless you were talking about *ahem* quasi-legal methods of getting around the access card issue, in which case knock yourself out.

Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I know it ruins the joke to explain it, but you got +5, so apparently the moderators here missed it too.

The post you're replying to is a joke. It's funny. Take the stick out of your ass and laugh.

The concept being that people on Comcast don't need to use BitTorrent because Comcast needs the bandwidth of On Demand, and after all, in Comcast's mind, no one using Comcast should get to compete with Comcast's services. So now do you get it? Comcast blocks BitTorrent. But it doesn't matter, because Comcast offers On Demand, which is all people really need. Get it now, or do I have to bludgeon it even further?

Comcast doesn't believe that anyone needs to use anything but what Comcast offers. BitTorrent isn't Comcast, and therefore, you should be using what Comcast does offer instead.

Oh, and by the way, EVERYTHING you mentioned in your post can be gotten via plain-old HTTP. There's no need to use BitTorrent for any of it. So try and come up with a better example the next time you demonstrate that you have absolutely no sense of humor, 'k?

Replacing...?

[oahazmatt]

I assume this will be replacing Comcast's previous technology? The PCI tin can with a string coming out of the back?

Good luck with that, I used to work for them...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole east coast infrastructure seems like it's falling apart. I suppose it makes sense since they got all their wiring buried long before other parts of the country.

first things first

[unity100]

they should first abolish the sneaky filtering they are doing with torrents. you pay for the bandwidth you bought but you dont get to use it. ever heard a marketing strategy like that ?

at that speed

[Jarik C-Bol]

i seem to recall the idea that it stops being about how fast your internet is, and becomes about how slow your hard drive is. thats a lot of data to scribble down on magnets in 4 minutes,

A huge advance

[spywhere]

Now they'll be able to oversell my neighborhood's available bandwidth by 24,000% instead of only 2400%.

Comcast promising ulra-fast internet?

[SilverBlade2k]

And also ultra-fast throttling to match..

Comcast?

[obeythefist]

At that speed you could download a high-definition copy of 'Batman Begins' in four minutes.

Or, if you use Bittorrent, 4 weeks. Way to go Comcast!

Networks

[StarReaver]

Watch out wireless, and even 100Mbps ethernet! Here comes speeds faster than even you two can handle!

in Libraries of Congress (LOC) per second

[loonicks]

By my calculations, assuming 1 LOC = 10 TB (base-10), that's 2 uLOC/sec! Egads!

No you won't

[Allnighterking]

Submitter says a D/L of Batman Forever would take 4 minutes. Wrong. Comcast blocks peer to peer if you want the movie you'll have to get it at the library at 56.6.

yeah sure

[sentientbrendan]

>At that speed you could download a high-definition copy of 'Batman Begins' in four minutes
Just as long as you aren't downloading the torrent...

What's the point of a high bandwidth pipe if your provider is going to arbitrarily throttle your traffic to nil? My comcast link at my apartment is much faster than my verizon link at my parents house, but in practice because comcast fucks with the traffic, it's much slower for the only really bandwidth intensive operation I do, torrenting.

Re:but they probably dont fix their crappy TV serv

[Potent]

Duh. I never said to do anything illegal. You can hook up used equipment and subscribe to service through the satellite providers but you won't be subject to a contract because you own your own stuff. You will be a paying customer like anyone else - you just won't be on the hook for a 2 year lease if you decide after a few months that you do want the crap anymore.

If you are a subscriber, Directv will provide up to date access cards at $20.00 each including next day UPS service to deliver it to you.

I am an SBCA certified satellite installer. I do know what I'm talking about here.

Maybe they should work on reliability first

[NateTech]

With an outage a week since the installation of supposedly "Commercial grade" Comcast data service in Denver, and their technical staff not even opening tickets for it...

When someone tells me that Comcast is offering speed, I yawn and ask them to tell me when it will be back up, since it's down at least once a day.

Warning: Anyone thinking about purchasing Comcast in the south Denver suburbs for any serious data purpose... don't. No matter how fast they say it'll be.

When it's up, 12 Mb/s down, 2 Mb/s up is nice. But reliability is more important than those speeds. The downtime will drive you crazy if you're used to anything transported by a previous Bell entity. As bad as the Bell's may be, their crap generally stays up or they fix it.

Comcast shows no interest in fixing chronic problems at all. They're all about the 80/20 rule. If you happen to fall into the 20% that are up and down all the time, they could care less.

Re:Maybe they should work on reliability first

[BrianRoach]

Exactly.

Every location I've had comcast (3 States now) ... it's sucked. Constant downtime, horrific packet loss problems because they oversell their network, clueless service and support ... the list does on.

Every time I've been able to get DSL from a BellCo? Rarely a problem if ever.

- Roach

On demand selection, or lack thereof?

[tepples]

Who needs BT if the legit on-demand video launches and plays at HD resolution as soon as you request it? People who want to watch videos that the cable company has decided not to carry. How can any unknown producer pitch a film to the cable companies?

BitTorrent

[dmsuperman]

Yet we'll still only get 2kbps upload for our torrents.

20k is enough for anybody.

[lindseyp]

I have 100Mb/s optical FTTH, and believe me, even with Bit Torrent I never get anywhere NEAR that speed with real world usage except for 'test runs' from local sites. Everyone else throttles their servers so much the server is almost always the bottleneck.

Further to that, most of the time I spend waiting for a page to load is the many new requests rather than blocks of data. When is the protocol itself going to speed up?

Still.. if the market is heading that way it would be nice to see servers loosening up a little.

Re:20k is enough for anybody.

[totally bogus dude]

I think this is actually big problem with faster consumer speeds. When the Crysis demo was released, a lot of Internode users were complaining about the speeds they were getting from 'node's mirror of the download. Their file server has two gigabit network ports, which is pretty standard for any kind of semi-modern server. The reason the downloads were slow is simply because its uplink was saturated.

Now, this is in Australia, where most of Internode's gamer customers would probably be on their ADSL2+ plans which give you maximum speeds around 20-25 Mbit/sec. There's still a lot of servers out there that only have 100mbit uplinks to the internet, and not just in internet backwaters like Australia.

Mind you, for most web sites it's not that big an issue, because you don't have enough content to saturate 100mbit for even half a second. I think a lot of the modern-day delay is from javascripts being loaded from multiple sites, which have to run sequentially. Though it's true that HTTP isn't particularly well designed for modern sites, as well. It would be nice if a request to the homepage could return a single compressed blob of data which includes the HTML, CSS, scripts, and the important images referenced from the page all in one go.

May as well redesign SMTP while we're at it, too! ;)

Comcast

[falconwolf]

And if we do see that kind of speed for personal use, anyone actually using it to download a fair number of DVDs will find themselves dropped from Comcast.

Where Comcast doesn't have competition but I bet that they won't where they do have competition.

Falcon

Comcast in the Twin Cities

[falconwolf]

Get Ready for price hikes. When Comcast took over for Time Warner in the Twin Cities, They wasted no time in doubling DVR fees and raising every other price point they had.

Like you I live in the Twin Cities and my cable is, was, through Time Warner but is now Comcast. However my service cost less now. All I have now is basic cable and internet access though. I've been thinking about upgrading to digital, and maybe getting some source of premium cable service.

Falcon

running a server

[falconwolf]

Err...what kind of servers are you downloading from that use a home user connection?

I don't right now but a number of people run servers from their home. RSN I'd like to setup my Linux tower as a server so I can access as well as upload files while on the road with my laptop, but I don't know how to or what's the best way to do it.

Falcon

700Mhtz

[Almahtar]

Am I the only one that thinks the now-volatile 700 Mhtz spectrum has something to do with this new "charity"?

who can gets these speeds?

[falconwolf]

Only SOUTH Koreans of all ages and certain others in high-density areas will see these speeds any time soon.

No, there's a place in the US who will soon be able to get these speeds if they can't get them today. It's a little place in northeastern Utah called Broadband Utopia. Because of the competition Comcast was "Forced to offer $90 bundle in fiber-fed region".

Falcon

One thing I remember from the .com bust

[gr8scot]

bigger + faster != better

Roberts is expected to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second: It will allow him to download a high-definition copy of "Batman Begins" in four minutes. The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year.

Hell, if I hated myself that much, I'd just drive a 9" nail through my foot, and it would only take a couple seconds.

Hey, Brian, I've get a better idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you invest in customer service.
Comcast is incredibly responsive when they want to sell me something (most recently a "discount" that would have bundled phone service with tv and the Internet. On the other hand, try and get them to commit to escalating a service request...and actually having a call returned...

Pigs will fly first.

Oh great, destroy it for everyone else.

[professorguy]

Yes, let's make http get the entire site in one swoop. That way, the people in the cities will get a marginal improvement in speed. In the meantime, we dial-up customers will not be able to flash-block and ad-block and image-block and actually read some content. Instead our connections will be completely disabled.

Nice of you to think of yourself as the only internet user in the world. This is the kind of thinking that really makes the world a better place.

Re:Oh great, destroy it for everyone else.

[totally bogus dude]

Because there's no way such a thing could possibly be implemented as an optional extension to HTTP that the client has to specifically request, of course. And there's no possible way you could let the browser indicate to the server what kind of content it wants to receive in this manner.

I thought professors were meant to be smart!

Regardless, most dialup users browse the 'net the same way most broadband users do, so while such a scheme could potentially result in them having to wait long before the page appeared at all, the total download time could be significantly reduced.

I say "potentially" because if you place the HTML, CSS and JavaScript first then they can be decompressed as the stream is received, and the browser can do its best to render the page without the images while it waits for the rest of the stream to be received and decompressed. In other words, it'd work just like it does now, only with reduced overhead. Compressing the textual content can give you a huge boost in browsing speed, and sending it all at once will improve the compression ratio and further reduce the overhead (both in terms of unnecessary round-trips, and in the raw amount of data received).

So while I admire your enthusiasm in defending the rights of dialup users, I think you picked a pretty silly battle. The round-trip times for broadband connections are significantly lower than dialup, so it's likely a scheme such as this would be more beneficial to dialup users.

Still, you seem to be itching for a fight, so I'll say it straight and clear: dialup users are a pestilence inflicted upon the otherwise wonderful and peaceful internet, and they should be eradicated. Period. Once upon a time they might have been useful (although even that's doubtful), but it's been years since any of these vile technophobic heathen contributed anything of value to the internet, and we should cut them off once and for all. All they do is force our hard-working web designers to optimise the site for "speed" and "size", and to what end? They all use ad-block and STEAL MY CONTENT without giving me anything for it. Even worse, they're always telling me not to use .bmp files for my inline images and photos, but you know what? They look better, because THEY LOAD UPSIDE DOWN. I'm so sick of these selfish scum demanding I sacrifice cool upside-down-loading pictures just to save them a bit of extra time loading my sites. So quit your bitching and join the 21st century you Amish fool, or GTFO.

The previous paragraph may not reflect the views of myself, my employer, or anyone else on the planet. On the other hand, they might. Reader discretion is advised.

Re:but they probably dont fix their crappy TV serv

[glindsey]

My mistake; I was seeing "contract" but thinking "bill". I hadn't realized you could sign up month-by-month with used equipment, though -- that's good to know if I decide to go back to DirecTV in the future.