Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet 314
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.
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.
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
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.
New Term For Empty Promises On The Net (Score:2, Interesting)
They can't deal with what they already provide? (Score:5, Interesting)
Net Connection Lite (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:That's Incredible. (Score:2, Interesting)
They have caps which vary from region to region. I've spoken with people who download 600 Gigs a month with no issues. Then there are those who have downloaded under 100 Gigs and were terminated for using it too much (despite the fact that they signed up with "unlimited use for a flat monthly fee").
Sucks I know but it's what Concast does. Sad huh.