Cisco's New Router — Trouble For Hollywood 335
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the giving-pirates-a-bigger-pipe dept.
from the giving-pirates-a-bigger-pipe dept.
Shakrai writes "Time Magazine has published an article about the impact of Cisco's new CRS-3 router on the business practices of the MAFIAA. This new router was previously mentioned here on Slashdot and is expected to alleviate internet bottlenecks that currently impede steaming video-on-demand services. Some of the highlights from the article: 'The ability to download albums and films in a matter of seconds is a harbinger of deep trouble for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which would prefer to turn the clock back, way back. ... The hard fact is that the latest developments at Cisco, Google and elsewhere may do more than kill the DVD and CD and further upset entertainment-business models that have changed little since the Mesozoic Era. With superfast streaming and downloading, indie filmmakers will soon be able to effectively distribute feature films online and promote them using social media such as Facebook and Twitter. ... Meanwhile, both the MPAA and the RIAA continue to fight emerging technologies like peer-to-peer file sharing with costly court battles rather than figuring out how to appeal to the next generation of movie enthusiasts and still make a buck."
They are not worried (Score:1, Informative)
This won't increase speed to your or my house. It wont remove bandwidth caps. All this will do is relieve congestion at the main gates.
The wrong model. (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)
The new router is just the previous model with plug-in cards that can switch 3x as much data. It's even possible to upgrade existing CRS routers without a shutdown, changing out the cards one at a time. It's a nice upgrade if you have a need for a router that big, but not that revolutionary. The revolution happened years ago, when routers got big enough that video streaming on a large scale was possible.
Re:Nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
Its not like this is anything new... MPAA and RIAA are QQing because they are just like the newspaper industry: Behind the times and refusing to change.
Editor's note: "QQ" is internet slang for "cry". The little lines are supposed to be tears, while the O's are eyes.
Not really (Score:5, Informative)
Coaxial cable has loads of bandwidth (in the analogue spectrum sense). On a typical modern HFC network you are talking probably 1GHz of bandwidth to the home. Now DOCSIS 2 doesn't make real good use of that as you can use only 1 6MHz channel which gives you about 38mbits total effective throughput shared among all users on the segment. However segments are getting smaller as the fibre part of the network is built out, and there is the possibility of having different kinds of users on different channels.
All that isn't a big deal though, as DOCSIS 3 is up and operational. It can bond an arbitrary number of channels together to increase bandwidth. Currently, DOCSIS modems out there can do 4 or 8 channels giving you 152-304mbps.
Also, there's going to be a lot of that cable space available rather soon. Currently you find that most of the spectrum is taken up by analogue TV. 6MHz per channel, often as much as 100 channels. 600MHz of the spectrum can go to that. In the remaining 400MHz comes all the HDTV and so on plus usually a digital version of said analogue channels these days. So, get rid of that, you've got 600MHz of space for data.
That gives you in the realm of 3.8gbps per segment.
Last mile is capable of much more than we see right now, and can be scaled up even further. The reason you don't tend to see it is the bandwidth higher up. If a cable company suddenly switched everyone over to 300mbps DOCSIS 3 service they'd get slammed. Customers wouldn't get anywhere near their supposed service because there just isn't the bandwidth for it high up stream.
If you want more speed to the house, there's got to be more speed higher up. That's just how it goes with any network. Also the more a router can handle the less the bandwidth costs. If 10gbps takes up a whole line card on a router and the router can only handle a few of those cards, it is going to be pretty expensive. If 10gbps can be packed in by the hundreds of ports, it costs a hell of a lot less.
The less bandwidth costs your ISP, the less they have to charge you for using it.
Re:Slanted Wording (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read the Time article linked in the article summary? The language you complain about in the summary came directly from the Time article, or is a paraphrase of it. And that's just the beginning.
Your problem is not with /. editors, it's with Time Magazine.
Re:sweet (Score:4, Informative)
Good news! I'm also with Shaw (on their 15down/1up/100GB plan) and I can tell you it's not a real cap. I've hit 500GB on more than one occasion and never heard anything from them.
Re:"MAFIAA" Sure, You Want to be Taken Seriously.. (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree and disagree with parts of your post, I don't see a line of it that is a troll.
Someone mod him back up.
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I think the prices are too high. You can easily drop the price of a *good* new car in under 10 years. That's insane.
I watch and listen to indie stuff, I play the service changing game (now on directv and back at $34 a month again. I cut my service repeatedly at Dish to get it down to 60 and they kept raising the price back to over $70 for less and less product).
I watch shows on the free sites (hulu, network, etc.)
There is a price point where it is more convenient to let them hold the content and serve it to me- but it's somewhere about $40 a month and they want triple that (or more).
And they've completely hijacked the copyright rules. Anything over 28 years, I don't respect. However- I keep my head on straight that it's potentially illegal so I don't act like an idiot. And there are legal ways to get a lot of copyrighted content free.
There is an increasingly large glut of entertainment now tho. I skip things all the time. I'm years behind on some shows. Which will make them cheaper when I finally watch them.
Re:"MAFIAA" Sure, You Want to be Taken Seriously.. (Score:1, Informative)
Hulu no only serves up 5 episodes of Firefly at a time, the whole show is only 12 episodes, limiting which I can watch at any given moment is just stupid. I doubt this is the desire of Hulu, and is most likely the desire of the 'rights holder' so I wont complain to hulu, but if I want to watch something legitimately and they are letting me, then what am I supposed to do?
Full disclosure: I have not pirated any of the Firefly episodes, nor have I pirated anything since college.
Re:sweet (Score:5, Informative)
I have one from Cox cable in the US. I pay only $69/mo....I have a static IP, I can run servers, I have no caps, I get in the ballpark of 10 meg down, and about 7 meg up, I have a low level SLA (which they do respond to quickly)...and I hear that you can even tap into one of these lines to get free analog tv and even scan for unencrypted HD channels, but that's only an unproven rumor I've heard.
But seriously...from what I hear of what most people pay for caps and crappy service, a couple more dollars a month and you can get truly unlimited internet connectivity. And, if you actually have a business, you can write it all off on your taxes which is a big plus!!
Re:sweet (Score:4, Informative)
Because: http://business.comcast.com/internet/plans.aspx [comcast.com]
As a resident in a Comcast-only area, my option is to pay more for the same speed ($60 for internet only vs $53). It's $100/mo for 22/5. Not all of us get the same pricing options.