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Cablevision To Offer 101 Mbps Down, No Caps

Posted by kdawson on from the like-a-drug dept.

nandemoari alerts us to news over at DSLReports that Cablevision will be offering subscribers 101-Mbps download service, a new US record. That's fast enough to download an HD movie in less than 10 minutes. The package, known as "Ultra," will launch on May 11 and will cost $99.95 a month. Upload speed is 15 Mbps and there are no monthly limits. Cablevision is also doubling the speed of its Wi-Fi service, which is available free to subscribers using hotspots across the Northeast. "...the company will be launching a new 'Ultra' tier on May 11. The new tier features speeds of 101Mbps downstream and 15Mbps upstream for $99.95 a month. That's an unprecedented amount of speed at an unprecedented price, suggesting that Cablevision just took the gloves off in their fight against Verizon FiOS. ... Cablevision spokesman Jim Maiella confirmed for me that the $99.95 price is unbundled, and the new tier does not come with any kind of a usage cap or overage fees."

10 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. The explicitly avoided topic... by Pahalial · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Traffic shaping! It's fine if they do or don't do it, but will companies PLEASE start being up-front about it? Put as much spin on the damn thing as you want, just at least mention it if you're doing it.

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    Stuff.
    1. Re:The explicitly avoided topic... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Comcast's approach (bogus RST injection) was even nastier in some ways, since it would outright kill a connection instead of slowing it down. If you were using a protocol that didn't resume partial uploads (like Lotus Notes) you were completely screwed.

      At least with CV's approach, you could still upload stuff, it just took forever because it was so slow.

      In both cases, the companies never acknowledged that they engaged in such practices, at least not until quite a while after the public outcry.

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      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  2. Two choices by pathological+liar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Either they're really going to regret promising that, or they're hiding some dirty little secret...

  3. Correction... by Foolicious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Upload speed is 15 Mbps and there are no posted and well-defined monthly limits for now.

    (As always...) there you go, fixed that for you.

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    Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
  4. Great for botnets by ericferris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The last Cablevision subscriber I saw was a friend who had a Windows machine plugged in directly into the small cable modem, with a world-routable IP address. The machine was idle and the modem was blinking constantly during the whole time I was there, without any one logged it. Needless to say, my friend complained his machine was "starting to get slow". Translation: the machine was pwnd.

    I shudder at the thought of having botnets take hold of vulneratble machines sitting on 100 Mbit/s pipes.

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    Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
  5. Re:Starting to pack my things... by bee-17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Before you do, ask how much bandwidth Cablevision provisions to serve each neighborhood. A 100 Mbps last-mile connection isn't worth didly-squat if the CMTS head-end only has a 155 Mbps uplink. Even a gig uplink is only enough for about 80 customers, given typical 8:1 oversubscription. Many ISP's don't mind 100:1 oversubscription or worse!

  6. Re:Canada by Chabil+Ha' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "UP TO" means that they're advertising that speed, but their TOS will say that they don't guarantee that you'll actually get that. I have found with the various ISPs I've had that download is usually 75-90% what they advertise and upload is 40-60%, which is pretty galling, considering I would much more prefer a faster upload than download.

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    We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
  7. Re:Funny how behind the US is by adwarf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Water isn't free. You pay for clean water via your taxes and/or water bill. Or you buy it bottled.

    Isn't it amazing how some people act like water falls free from the sky.

    I know that was said as a joke, but in many communities around the country a normal property owner may not have rights to the surface water on their land (including rainfall).

  8. Re:Cablevision "expresslink" ISP caching by MikeBabcock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They'd be smart to install intelligent caching boxes at local routing points to save themselves bandwidth. Proxy caches are a good thing for the Internet, and websites that don't work with them are both rare and broken.

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    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  9. Re:Starting to pack my things... by Workaphobia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To add to that, I live in southern Nassau county (between Suffolk and Queens, for you non-Long Islanders), and the downstream bandwidth I see hovers around 8 megabits on a "15" megabit plan, although I've seen it jump significantly higher on occasion. It's hard to tell when the limiting factor is the last mile or the remote server capping me.

    I don't torrent but I've heard a lot of complaints from a friend who's been hit by bandwidth caps in the past. They do wildcard DNS ad serving by default but you can opt out. I can't remember the last time service has gone down, although I don't live at home anymore (I'm at college in Suffolk).

    Verizon's hanging around the area, trying to spread FIOS as much as possible. Compared with the basic Optimum Online plan, my feeling is that FIOS is probably technically superior, but Cablevison does a better job of rewarding (or at least not pissing off) their customers than a company like Verizon.

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    Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.