Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Bandwidth Crunch Looms for Cable Companies

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Aug 15, 2007 06:13 PM
from the the-tubes-are-almost-full dept.
The Internet IT
coax4life writes "While Verizon and AT&T lay fiber, cable companies are looking at a huge bandwidth crunch according to a new report. Increased demand for high-def programming on the TV side and faster download speeds on the ISP side of the business will leave cable companies in a rough spot — after spending over $100 billion in the last decade on infrastructure improvements. Jumping on the fiber bandwagon may help. 'Upgrading to a fiber infrastructure is a much more expensive proposition, and one more likely to occur in areas where the cable companies are facing more competition. It can happen, though — several years ago, Comcast's predecessor on the northwest side of Chicago laid fiber on top of its existing coaxial installation. The payoff is good for both cable companies and users, as it can result in more programming choices and faster Internet access.' Moving to switched digital video solutions will also help."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Ask Slashdot: How Much Does a New Internet Cost? 446 comments
wschalle writes "Given the recent flurry of articles concerning ISP over subscription, increasing bandwidth needs, and lack of infrastructure spending on the part of cable companies, I'm forced to wonder, what is the solution? How much would a properly upgraded internet backbone cost? How long would it take to make it happen? Will the cable companies step up before Verizon's FiOS becomes the face of broadband in America?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Bandwidth Crunch Looms for Cable Companies 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • This would not be a problem (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If these companies could buy "blood bandwidth" from the mines in Africa.

    • Re:This would not be a problem (Score:4, Funny)

      by TubeSteak (669689) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:55PM (#20243223) Journal

      If these companies could buy "blood bandwidth" from the mines in Africa.
      The companies did buy blood bandwidth, from the days of ARPANET until the late 90's, but after much public outcry they enacted the Bedminster Process Certification Scheme (BPCS) [wikipedia.org].

      The BPCS originated from a meeting of American telephone companies in Bedminster, New Jersey, USA (former home of pre-breakup AT&T) in May 2000. It was enacted in 2003 to assure consumers that by purchasing bandwidth they were not financing war and human rights abuses.

      Some say it does not go far enough. For instance, Amnesty International says "[We] welcome the Bedminster Process as an important step to dealing with the problem of conflict bandwidth. But until the bandwidth trade is subject to mandatory, impartial monitoring, there is still no effective guarantee that all conflict bandwidth will be identified and removed from the market."

  • obligatory Homer Simpson quote (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:15PM (#20242871)
    The Internet? Is that thing still around?
  • For real this time! Seriously! I mean it!
  • That we prevent companies from putting down new technology that competes with cable.

    That way everything stays the same.

    • Re:It's only fair (Score:4, Informative)

      by badasscat (563442) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .57tedacssab.> on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:03PM (#20243309) Homepage
      That we prevent companies from putting down new technology that competes with cable.

      That way everything stays the same.

      On the other hand, take a look at your Verizon bill lately? How about your cable bill?

      If you're like most people, they've gone up pretty dramatically in the last few years. Back in the 1990's, I used to pay $23 a month for phone service and $36 for cable. Now I pay a combined total for cable, phone and internet of $160 per month. That is way above inflation. Before I switched back from Verizon (which sucks for TV in my area), I was actually paying more like $180 per month total.

      Yeah, Verizon advertises "$95" a month for their triple play. But you will never pay that. "Sir Charge" is in full effect with them. At least with my cable company, what they quote me is what I pay.

      Cablevision in my area also laid down fiber years ago, so Verizon has no advantage. CV's going to switched digital in addition to that; supposedly they're going to have 100 HD channels by the end of the year.

      Verizon has always been one of the most hated companies in the Northeast, and it's really saying something when your company's hated more than Cablevision. I swore that I'd never go back to Verizon after they took more than 3 months to get a phone line installed in my last apartment (their excuse was "there are no more lines available" even though the previous tenant had one! They apparently took his line and made a 2 line apartment out of it somewhere, leaving me with nothing for 3 months until they got around to upgrading the box). I apparently forgot about that when I signed up for FiOS, but I remembered it pretty quick when I saw all the audio and video dropouts on the HD channels, then got my first bill. Now I'm out another $100 or so for the overlap in services (last bill from Verizon, first bill from CV).

      If this is what we get with competition, then we'd probably be better off without it. Competition in television providers has only resulted in increased rates and a lot of blatantly false advertising.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Yetihehe (971185)

        If this is what we get with competition, then we'd probably be better off without it.
        Two huge providers doesn't automatically mean competition. This competition thing is like force. If it's not working, you have to use more.

    • Re:It's only fair (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pilgrim23 (716938) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:24PM (#20243455)
      Some years back I lived in a small rural town that got all TV via cable; mountains blocked access to any broadcast TV. The local cable was horrid with terrible signal, lousy choices and over priced for the few channels we did get. One day the local rural telephone co-op decided to get into the cable TV bizz. They had a fiber line to the regional phone and a dish that could receive TV at the main office. After many trips to the court house for blind dates with the Cable company, they won the right to compete. SUDDENLY the other cable company offered 10 new channels, better signal quality and a lower price. I guess that was what they call synchronicity...couldn't be good old competition...

      • Is this in PA? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Gazzonyx (982402) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @10:22PM (#20245075)
        Are you talking about Kutztown, PA? The entire town is fiber with a 68 strand backbone, and 40-something strand branches. I'm on 10-mbit down, 1 (although they give me 2) mbit up, and the fiber also provides TV. $45 a month for internet, $60-something for internet+TV (with premium channels and a sports package of some type. I only got the internet package.) Afterwards, Pennsylvania effectively made towns doing this illegal. Comcast, Service Electric, Verizon, etc. were not happy campers when they were trying to sell 1 mbit/256 kbit internet packages for $60/month. Oh, yeah, and the tech support is top notch. Even the utilities are remote administered from the borough, water, gas, electric - they monitor it all in real time and bundle your services on a single bill that you can have them put on your credit card. You get a single statement in the mail with a breakdown of your utilites, and can write a single check (I just have them charge my card each month). Beautiful system.

          • More info on slimy attempts to legislate (Score:5, Informative)

            by Gazzonyx (982402) on Thursday August 16 2007, @04:52AM (#20246931)
            The real kicker is that the town put in fiber because the telco's couldn't bother. We're out in the corn fields and probably wouldn't be worth the trouble. It's rumored that when the telco found out, it sounded something like, "Oh, what's that... a fiber backbone you say? Payed for with bonds? Breaking even and starting a profit in 7 years? This must be illegal! If not, it should be!"


            They were really, really ticked! Here's a snippet from Wired News, it's from late '04 when this whole thing was going down: (FTA @ Public Fiber Tough to Swallow [wired.com]):

            ...

            Kutztown Borough manager James Vettraino said his town's fiber-access project is on schedule to break even after seven years. Vettraino said there are currently 600 customers using data, video and voice services in the community.

            "We wanted to have broadband throughout the community as an economic development tool for businesses, and we were not happy with the availability (at the time)," he said.

            Vettraino said the incumbent cable TV provider, Service Electric, voiced opposition to the project at several town hall meetings. He said the cable provider also dropped prices to be more competitive in Kutztown while not changing rates in areas where it continues to have a monopoly.

            Kutztown was the first community in Pennsylvania to offer fiber to the home for its residents, and a bill in the Pennsylvania House could make it the last. The aim of the Government Competition Against Private Enterprise Act (HB298) is to "protect economic opportunities for private enterprise against unfair competition by government agencies" in services "beyond their government function."

            The bill, which was drafted a few months after Kutztown began providing fiber to the home, is a direct result of the threat of competition to cable TV and telecommunications providers, according to Nicholas Giordano, a telecommunications strategist at consulting firm Affinity Group.

            Giordano, who previously worked for Pennsylvania's telecommunications department, said that data and video services providers have made it known to state legislators that they do not want to battle with municipalities for market share.

            "It shows how threatened they are by that activity (in Kutztown)," he said.

            Giordano said small municipalities might encounter difficulties in delivering fiber-based services because "they aren't familiar with managing these kinds of information systems." But he believes communities that are not receiving adequate broadband and cable service from the private sector should be able to fill the void themselves.

            "Bandwidth is a necessity for the public good like water or electricity," he said. "You are not going to get a creative society (which) will be the engine of job growth in places where they can't have access to information."

  • not THAT expensive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ILuvRamen (1026668) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:22PM (#20242931)
    fiber is not THAT expensive and it's getting cheaper cuz more people want to buy it and lay it places. Plus depending on several factors, can't it be like 100x faster than cable? So in other words, 100 more customers in the same area or 10x more customers with 10x the bandwidth each. I'd freak if they offered 50 megabit connections that are never busy even if every single neighbor got on it at once. So basic math suggests that unless it's 100x more expensive to put in a fiber network than more copper, they'll make a profit by putting it in cuz DUH the demand is there

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Grishnakh (216268)
      Actually, the fiber that the phone companies (like Verizon) are using has a capacity of 2.4 Gbps. It's really not very fast, and only has capacity for a handful of HD channels. These are selected by the user and connected on-demand by the company upstream.
    • You seriously have ZERO clue if you think laying anything in the ground, let alone fibre isn't "that" expensive.

      we priced fibre here at work for communications to one of our remote sites ("here" is a desert mind you) and it was $80,000AUD per km ($60,000USD).

      This stuff isn't layed by a few guys digging a ditch with some shovel and throwing in a bit of cable you know....

        • the use a machine that goes into the ground and bores a conduit from one point to the other. it drills through the ground and can be aimed and turned, so it can pass under roads and parking lots. i work for a cable company that is actively expanding its fiber network. fiber IS much, much more expensive to run than other cable, and requires more skill and much more expensive hardware on the ends of it, despite the fact that the price is falling. also consider the fact that you have to rebuild so much of you

  • Too Bad (Score:5, Informative)

    by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:22PM (#20242935) Homepage

    That's what I pay you $60-$70 a month for. Don't complain to me. In the time I have had my cable internet service (since the first day it was available where I live)... Comcrud has raised rates, capped downloads, slowed speeds, raised rates, had dropouts, raised rates, etc. I really don't care that you are "overwhelmed". Maybe you shouldn't have sold 10k people 5 Mb connections when you only have a total of 500 Mbps of bandwidth. Maybe you shouldn't have lied.

    Last week we got a letter in the mail that said that our streets would soon be torn up as AT&T would be replacing our terrible old copper with fiber to the home (our copper is bad, no DSL). We should be able to sign-up for their TV and internet service within about a year (so they say, I'd guess 1.5-2).

    Of course, Comcrud has also dropped the quality of our cable TV, added next to no new channels, raised rates, and more. I would guess we'll switch off that too to U-Verse.

    Comcrud is already in deep trouble in this area now that they will have actual competition. That alone will cause them big problems. But soon people won't be able to sign-up for their "ultra high speed" internet service so they can download music (which you have to pay for), download movies wicked fast (but you can't, and you probably have to pay for it), and surf at lightning speeds (if they aren't having a random outage)?

    Why don't they do like many businesses, and stop selling services they can't provide.

    Then again, I'm sure just about other /.er has the same sympathy I do for the lying US broadband industry.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by kc2keo (694222)
      Jeeze you pretty much said how I feel about Comcast (comcrud). We get horrible service. If it rains hard or have a minor thunder storm you can pretty much rely on the internet service going down. We subscribe to Digital cable service. It has not DVR or anything like that but the reception is far from acceptable. If you go to any channel above 70 the volume has to be turned up on the T.V. a lot. Otherwise you only hear mumbling. Some channels have constant distortion. The distorted channels are legal and we

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by CodeBuster (516420)
          They just installed a booster (which I could have done), overcharged us for it and the call, and threw their hands up.

          Which begs the question, for both you and the parent...why do you continue to pay them for such low quality service? I realize that they might be the only game in town, but they have little or no incentive to improve service if they know that you will give into their high rates and abuse simply because there is nobody else. They are basically saying, "we will continue to rip you off for

          • Re:Too Bad (Score:4, Informative)

            by Nimey (114278) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:59PM (#20243795) Homepage Journal
            It doesn't /beg/ the question, damn it. It /raises/ it.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question [wikipedia.org]

          • Re:Too Bad (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Sponge Bath (413667) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @08:03PM (#20243841)

            ...why do you continue to pay them for such low quality service?

            I was thinking the same thing while canceling my Time Warner cable
            recently because of consistently crappy service. I was all fired up
            to explain why I was canceling as I showed up in person to return the cable
            modem as required.

            They did not ask why I was canceling as I expected, so I started
            to explain. I was cut off mid sentence, they handed me a receipt and
            sent me on my merry way.

            They don't care. They don't care if you stay or go.
            They don't care if their service sucks. They don't care.

            But my new DSL works fine, so even though voting with my
            dollars has no effect on the cable company's thinking, I
            hope the raw economics of their decisions eventually will
            remove them from the market.

    • Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 (162816) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:25PM (#20243461) Homepage Journal

      That's what I pay you $60-$70 a month for.
      No, you pay $60+ for all the "bundled" content the content providers force them to buy in order to get the few channels people actually watch.

      Don't get me wrong: I think cable TV is a horrible ripoff. (Which is just one of several reasons I don't subscribe.) But the cable companies aren't the bad guys here. That's the media monopolies who've become obsessed with sequestering content and squeezing every penny they can out of it. And when you subscribe to cable, you're feeding that pathology, no matter how much you bitch and moan about it.

  • There are places they don't use fibre? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:24PM (#20242957)
    Ever since the whole bi-directional cable modem thing started, I've always hear it called the HFC network, hybrid fibre-coax. It's fibre up to a point, then goes to coax. I know that's the case here. The university I work for gets a cable feed, but it doesn't come in on coax. It comes in on fibre and is converted to coax on the premises (I've been to the cable termination room where it happens). They may need to build out their fibre networks further, but I think they've been doing that too. I know they've been segmenting the amount of users down further and further. A few years ago your segment was huge, you were in like a /22 subnet. Now it is a /26 and I don't see much traffic at all on mine.

    Also I think the discontinuation of analogue will free up a good bit of bandwidth. I mean you have to remember that analogue takes up somewhere in the realm of 500-600MHz on most networks (a channel is 6MHz). Dump that for digital and you've got a whole bunch more available. Our cable network is 1GHz max bandwidth (since those are the splitters they provide) of that the lower portion is all analogue. In the digital portion they get all the analogue channels digitally broadcast (for their DVRs) several HDTV channels, 50 or so pay per view channels, and at least a hundred other digital only channels. More or less, they can do everything they do now in about half their available bandwidth if they axe analogue. That gives a whole lot more bandwidth for new stuff.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Umuri (897961)
      Sure, they could do that.

      If they wanted to alienate a giant portion of their customer base.

      If they wanted to remove their ability to charge for digital converters.

      Currently you have MANY situations like my family's, in which we have close to 7 tv's in the house, with 9 outlets. 6 of those are analog, with only 1 digital. Of which you have to pay for the "privelege" of watching digital on that outlet via the set top box charges.

      Why would they cut off their nose to spite their face, when they can currently w
  • even then switched digital video may not help in areas with a lot of uses and people don't want to have to pay for a cable box on each tv that they have.
    And the cable co need to give you free cable cards.
    • Two way cable cards are designed to eliminate open digital boxes. By taking all the logic that a regualr box has and pulling it into a bi-directional cablecard, you effectivly make it impossible to add any value with a third party box. It won't matter that they can be made.

      The cable companies need to create an open-standards network service for all upstream communications, allow third parties to implement the protocol that requests on-demand content and SDV channels, and then distribute single direction cab

  • This really smells... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tgatliff (311583) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:29PM (#20243019)
    Why does this sound like a marketing document that is intended to prepare the groundwork for them starting to "meter" content? Meaning, I am sure that if Google just "pays for their fair share" that everything would be wonderful!

    Actually, considering that the net neutrality failed 6 months ago, I would say these companies are quite aggressive on their marketing...
  • A really, really, tiny violin. Between the cable and telco's the poor thing is taking a real beating.
  • ... because in my area, "cable" is fiber into and through the neighborhoods, and only 'cable' from a big box to your house.

  • Where is this guy from? 1995? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CrAlt (3208) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:52PM (#20243205) Homepage Journal
    MOST up to date cable systems already use fiber in a "HFC" setup. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fibre-coaxial [wikipedia.org]

    If they need more bandwidth they just split bigger nodes in to smaller nodes. HFC has no problem growing with the needs of more digital bandwidth.

    The only issue with this is when some cable co's try to cut cost by over crowding a node.

  • "improvements" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ant P. (974313) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:57PM (#20243239) Homepage

    will leave cable companies in a rough spot -- after spending over $100 billion in the last decade on infrastructure improvements.
    Maybe their infrastructure improvements should involve more infrastructure in the network for customers then, and less infrastructure for the CEOs in expensive suburbs of foreign countries.

  • Oh suck it up and DO BUSINESS! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @06:58PM (#20243253) Homepage
    Do business before someone else does!

    I think it's a well-established observation that the larger US companies do everything in their power to avoid changing their business model and practices... this includes immoral and illegal acts as history has shown time and time again.

    But someone will see opportunity and find a way to make it happen, and when they do, it will spell an even MORE difficult life for the ones that didn't move fast enough to own the infrastructure that customers demand... that is if the big-bad-existing-companies-with-pull-over-the-gove rnment don't find a way to prevent the little guys from making a success of something they are unwilling to do themselves.

    One thing that bothers me is how obvious this trend of avoiding "risky behavior" is simply the wrong thing to do in a world of constantly changing and evolving technologies? They can work to slow things down -- this has been shown. But they can't really stop things. But in the end, the more they fight change, the weaker the position they find themselves in when change becomes inevitable.

  • Comcast terminating user accounts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by u-235-sentinel (594077) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:12PM (#20243369) Homepage Journal
    Perhaps this is why hundreds of people's internet accounts are being terminated by Comcast. It happened to me in January this year. After researching I've learned of dozens more who are pissed they get one call then are terminated for 12 months. I've been blogging [blogspot.com] about it for several months and have turned my efforts to bringing projects such as Utopia [utopianet.net] fiber to the home. I figure competition will force companies to bring the best product and service possible to consumers. It's pretty obvious Comcast isn't able to handle the increasing demand of it's customers. Especially after hearing how the terminations seems to be increasing.

    I've been speaking with my City Council and the Mayor about joining Utopia. 14 cities have already joined and some are nearing completion this summer. With Utopia, if a company goes nuts (like Comcast did), you can simply give them the boot and select a more responsible provider.

  • Solution is very easy and evident (Score:4, Insightful)

    by unity100 (970058) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @07:42PM (#20243627) Homepage Journal
    Just make them invest back some percentage of the immense profits they have made by overselling the bandwidth on the lines that were constructed by public funding, something which they should ALREADY had done in the first place.

  • Amazing how dumb "experts" can be... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Thorizdin (456032) <thorizdin@@@lotd...org> on Wednesday August 15 2007, @08:10PM (#20243925) Homepage
    Amazingly there was only one intelligent thing said in the whole article. "Digital switching is key" is correct. Whats amazing is that some consulting has the balls to act like $great_prophet when proclaiming it. I mean, its not like Cablelabs hasn't been hard at work on the technologies to address the bandwidth issue. Both DOCSIS 3.0 (http://www.cablemodem.com/specifications/specific ations30.html [cablemodem.com]) and Modular CMTS (http://www.cablemodem.com/specifications/m-cmts.h tml [cablemodem.com] are designed to address this problem. M-CMTS basically works to divide cable plant into smaller sections by pushing the RF interfaces further out to the edge. This is done by placing fairly dumb/inexpensive edge QAM's out in the plant, these devices encapsulate DOCSIS frames into Gigabit Ethernet to carry them back to a packet processing engine. What this buys the operator is the ability to use fewer RF channels but gain more bandwidth at the cost of having some additional backhaul (to carry the GigE). Now some people might wonder if this consulting company is merely championing an idea that hasn't been developed, but sadly that isn't the case either. Many manufacturers are already producing EQAM's including big hitters like Cisco (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/cable/ps22 09/products_implementation_design_guide_chapter091 86a00807c73c7.html/ [cisco.com]) These same EQAM's also handle switching of digital video so cable companies save on both switched video and normal IP traffic. DOCSIS 3.0 allows for bonding DOCSIS channels to create far more bandwidth, which is likely to be used for business services as well as more rich IP services. Comcast in my area already offers multiple HD on demand channels, for example HBO and Showtime. (http://www.comcast.com/HBOondemand/ [comcast.com] and http://www.tvweek.com/news/2007/03/comcast_launche s_showtime_hdvo.php/ [tvweek.com])

    Quite honestly it sounds like the "consultant" needs to do some research.

  • Comcast (Score:4, Informative)

    by dunezone (899268) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @08:28PM (#20244119) Journal
    I used to love Comcast. For years I waited for high speed in my town. I only live about sixty miles outside of Chicago in a small town known as Batavia(featured recently on slashdot). In spring of 2003 they finally put the fiber in to run high speed now two things happened right about the same time. First At&t lines were purchased and Comcast put new lines in and also Batavia was considering a tri-city(Geneva, St. Charles, Batavia) fiber system that would provide us with cable, phone, internet with pure fiber to our homes.

    When Comcast got wind of that plan they initiated a massive surge to install their system before the town voted on our own. They also ran a slander campaign to make it sound like our system would cost us an arm and a leg to build and if it failed we would foot the bill.

    When it came to vote of course our town people voted down on the our municipal system. The funny thing is that if everyone who voted "yes" would of purchased the towns system it would of paid itself off in ten years. Unfortunately, Comcast did a great job at putting their system in at the last moment and slandering the tri-city system.

    Now, our quality of service is just horrible. Recently, quite a few people who live around my area(not just my neighborhood) have been complaining of sluggish and slow speeds on Comcast. Personally, it feels like during the day they are dropping packets on us or something. At first I thought it was my network but when my neighbors from around town started to complain I started getting a little suspicious. The cable line outside my house was cut and its been a month and they still haven't serviced it(I did). Some have said thats the root of my slow speeds but this was happening before that happened.

  • Crunch my ass. (Score:3)

    by crovira (10242) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @08:31PM (#20244155) Homepage
    We've been paying for Fibre to the home for YEARS and we've yet to see ONE INCH of it.

    All those fuckin' surcharges.

    Years, I tell you.

    Billions of dollars, I tell you.

    Fuck 'em where they breathe.

  • I guess this guy never heard of ethernet over HFC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the eric conspiracy (20178) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @09:04PM (#20244471)

    http://www.naradnetworks.com/hardware.html [naradnetworks.com]

    Good to at least 100 Mbps symmetrical over a modern cable system.

  • No sympathy for Cable (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dracos (107777) on Wednesday August 15 2007, @11:06PM (#20245303)

    I have ZERO sympathy for the cable racketeers. Rates increase at 6 times the rate of inflation. Digital cable looks worse than analog (I know an over-compressed mpeg stream when I see it). The customer service is crap. Their technicians are morons.

    Where I am, Comcast likes to screw up their DHCP servers about every 6 weeks, usually on a Sunday. Once, the customer service rep (imagine the George Carlin bit) insists on sending a truck out to check the lines. Tuesday when he showed up, I told him he was on a wild goose chase.

    The next time, it took them 68 hours to figure out how to get their DHCP servers to hand out real IP addresses, rather than 192.168.0.* addresses.

    I mean seriously, WTF?

    When I had Sprint DSL in Vegas I was 3000 feet from the CO (it was great), but had the unfortunate luck of being plugged into a DSLAM that had taken a massive power surge. That I can understand as a source of my woes, but not the fact that it took them well over a year to replace it.

  • Analog spectrum (Score:3, Informative)

    by brunes69 (86786) <slashdot.keirstead@org> on Thursday August 16 2007, @07:29AM (#20247687) Homepage
    I think these guys underestimate how much bandwidth the cable companies actually have to play with.

    Every two analog channels they can free up off of their wires is good for around 25 Mbps of bandwidth. In my area that is worth at least 1.5 Tbps (60 channels * 25 / 2), and that is just the analog channels I know about - it is probably more like the first 80 or 100 analog channels are currently reserved, or almost 3 Tbps.

    Once they are allowed to go fully digital (that is, once set top boxes are so cheap they can give them away to existing old-school customers), they will have no bandwidth issues.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lehk228 (705449)
      that is what switched cable is for. switched cable means that each customer gets N channels where N is the number of boxes you have, probably 1-3. with that they can give each channel 10 times the bandwidth, offer near infinite channels, AND have a metric assload of bandwidth freed up for other uses. the downside is that unless the hardware and signaling is very snappy you get annoying lag changing channels.
    • I couldn't agree more.

      The only way I'm going to be able to get commercial free Formula 1, Cricket and a few other un-american sporting events on cable here in the NW corner of the USA is if they make room by beaming all the regular TV crap from space.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kypper (446750)
      Maybe they just need to increase the bandwidth by speeding up the removal of analog [wikipedia.org]. That analog signal is a pig.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by swb (14022)
        Can DirecTV ever economically come up with "enough" bandwidth? The HD capacity is "just barely" enough to cover their "basic cable" HD needs plus their premium HD needs plus their local affiliates in SD, let alone their locals IN HD, future HD quality improvements (note the low price of so many 1080p displays these days), etc.

        It seems like they would need to put up a new bird every 18 months to get and stay ahead of it.
    • ... they are running a lot of fiber, but most of it is just to the neighborhoods where they will then run VDSL to each home from remote terminals. With the amount of money the behemoths have, you think they would just run fiber straight to every home and get it over with. Eventually they will have to do it anyways.

      It costs a LOT more money to run fiber to every house than it does to just run it to a new box beside the one where the neighborhood copper drops already join a fat cable toward the CO or a local
    • The USA is NOT dropping below third-world countries. We are LEADING the world. Answer me this: which country in the world has the best-paid CEOs? That's right, the USA!!! If we have to pay 10 times as much for internet access as other countries, that's what we must do to make sure our CEOs and corporate executives are the best paid in the world. Go USA!!! Yee-haw!!

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.