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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.
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.
maybe fast for other things but not for bittorrent
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.
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.
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.
-- the cake is a lie
...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.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
RTFA. The description of Cisco's DOCSIS 3.0 "modem", linked to from the summary, says:
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...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?
the coolest club on
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.
-- Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
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.
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?
I've already GOT batman - what else you got?
-"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.
Believe me, many of us are aware. Damn the telecom industry. Damn them to hell.
Wrong. I will keep buying it, because like the vast majority of Comcast subscribers, I have no other choice.
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.