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Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jan 08, 2008 01:48 PM
from the whole-lotta-hd-video dept.
from the whole-lotta-hd-video dept.
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.
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That's Incredible. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Parent
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?).
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yay for market lock-ins
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:That's Incredible. (Score:4, Funny)
you yuppie little shit.
And this is better because...?
Parent
bittorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:bittorrent (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 blu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bittorrent (Score:4, Interesting)
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).
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.
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.
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Upload bandwidth? (Score:2)
Re:Upload bandwidth? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. The description [xchangemag.com] 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...
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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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? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. I will keep buying it, because like the vast majority of Comcast subscribers, I have no other choice.
Parent
Ultra-Fast Internet? (Score:2)
Now it makes sense (Score:2)
Slick! (Score:4, Informative)
Hopefully they'll roll this out with an affordable pricing plan; they already announced that they'll be raising prices in February.
Re:Slick! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Good news and bad news (Score:2)
The bad news is that slashdot stories about Comcast are all full of horror stories with Comcast the monstrous villian. Yikes!
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
More Empty Promises (Score:2)
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 b
that's some interesting math right there... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:that's some interesting math right there... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And you get this for... (Score:5, Funny)
Comcast - We own you.
Faster internet, faster disconnection (Score:5, Funny)
1/4 Batmans per minute? (Score:5, Funny)
100 Mbps fibre available here already (Score:3, Interesting)
Wonder what this 160 is supposed to be priced at and how the technology scales in the future.
Promises promises (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
They can't deal with what they already provide? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They can't deal with what they already provide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Upload speed will still be 128k though (Score:3, Insightful)
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Net Connection Lite (Score:3, Interesting)
What about customer service? (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter how fast they claim to be now, if their customer service remains a bureaucratic hell, no way.
Batman? (Score:3, Funny)
But it's still Comcast (Score:5, Interesting)
-"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.
Bad summery by CNN (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they should work on reliability first (Score:3, Informative)
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: (Score:2)
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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?
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Re:Its advertising that counts, not the product. (Score:5, Insightful)
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