Comcast Planning 2Gbps Service, Starting With Atlanta

joemite points out a PC Mag article which begins "There's been a lot of talk about Google's 1Gbps "gigabit" Internet service, but Comcast said today that it is planning a 2Gbps service, beginning in Atlanta," and writes: All of the ISPs seem to be "out-doing" each other in terms of offering faster and faster service, but why can't they compete on reasonable rates for "slower" speeds? My 5Mbit service from Comcast is currently costing me $50/month, about what it was 10 years ago. Seems that if they can push a 2 Gigs for a few hundred dollars, I could get at least get 50Mbit for what I'm paying now.

Comments

It's nonsense.

[Futurepower(R)]

The 2 Gb is just an electrical connection speed. The delivery of actual information is FAR slower. It's a dishonest way of drawing attention away from the real issues.

FIOS and GigaFiber

[FlyHelicopters]

I currently have FIOS from Verizon, I pay $105 a month for 150 megabit down and up.

AT&T this month is in the process of installing their new GigaFiber service.

They are offering 1 gigabit up and down for $120 a month, but with a data cap of 1 TB per month and $20 per additional TB.

We use a lot of data in our house, with a connection speed about 6 times faster, I imagine we'll use even more.

1 TB is a lot, but frankly isn't THAT much when you consider 4k streaming and 1 gigabit to share among 5 tech heavy users.

Verizon currently doesn't have a cap, at least not a published one. If they have a soft or hidden cap, I've never felt or seen it.

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Then the issue comes up... Do I NEED gigabit? Well, I once would have thought that 150 meg was nuts, and today I love it, so I'm sure I'll find a use for it. But honestly, I'm not sure it is worth the bother.

What I'm hoping is that Verizon will price match, or offer something close. Currently they want something crazy like $300 a month for 500 up/down, if they offered me that for $120, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Even 300/300 would be enough for $120, but time will tell.

GPON or home-run? HUGE difference

[Omega Hacker]

2Gbps over fiber is a speed I associate with GPON, which is a fiber loop that connects dozens of endpoints on a single fiber, just like the existing copper cable system. The 2Gbps figure is then derated for overhead, and finally split between all the users on that loop.

Google on the other hand is apparently doing home-run fiber from each house to a central location, where it can aggregate the bandwidth into ludicrously fast switches and hand it off to 100Gbps etc backhauls. That means that (with guessed but plausible numbers) instead of e.g. 50 houses sharing each 2Gbps for an average of 40Mbps with Comcast, you would have 1000 houses sharing 100Gbps for 100Mbps average with Google. Yeah, the "peak theoretical" is higher, but the actual effective available bandwidth is very different.

Then there's the fact that with a home-run fiber to each house, Google can easily upgrade their aggregation equipment and backhaul links in order to boost total shared bandwidth, without having to go out in trucks and mess with fibers again. Comcast OTOH would have to go around and split all their GPON loops in half and hope they can get those new sub-loops run back to their agg points. Heck, there's nothing stopping Google from upgrading the transceivers at each end of the fiber for a given house to make use of more advanced optical techniques, because the fiber isn't shared.