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Networking IT

Comcast Kicks Tires On 100-Gig Optical Links 61

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the that's-a-lot-of-torrents dept.
Balistyx writes to mention that Comcast has announced the first test of 100-gigabit-per-second optical networking equipment designed to carry data over a production fiber network. The trial equipment will connect Philadelphia and McLean, VA. "In November, Verizon said it completed the first field test of 100-Gbps optical transmission on a live 312-mile network route between Tampa, Fla., and Miami. The telco's test used a live video feed from the FiOS TV network, and optical equipment from Alcatel-Lucent. Comcast's test is different, according to Schanz, for several reasons: It's running live traffic, and the 100-Gbps wavelengths in the Comcast trial are running over the same physical fiber as its existing 40-Gbps wavelengths, which are handled by Cisco Systems gear."
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Comcast Kicks Tires On 100-Gig Optical Links More

Comcast Kicks Tires On 100-Gig Optical Links

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  • Keypoints.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by EssJay ( 134044 ) on Saturday March 15, 2008 @04:52AM (#22758556)
    Some interesting keypoints:
    • "The 100-Gbps trial connects Comcast facilities in Philadelphia and to McLean, Va., running over the operator's metro and long-haul fiber links. Comcast is using preproduction versions of Nortel Networks' 100-Gbps interface cards, running in the vendor's Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 system"
    • "It's running live traffic, and the 100-Gbps wavelengths in the Comcast trial are running over the same physical fiber as its existing 40-Gbps wavelengths, which are handled by Cisco Systems gear"
    • "It's not on some dedicated facility ... It's on [the] production fiber, next to other lambdas."
    • "Comcast believes it's the first test of 100-Gbps wavelengths with reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) photonic components."

  • What good is it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan541 ( 1032000 ) on Saturday March 15, 2008 @04:57AM (#22758566) Homepage
    But what good is this 100 gigs if you can only pay for it but not use it?

    ~Dan

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Erpo ( 237853 )
      You beat me to it! I was going to write something like:

      "Now, subscribers can begin paying overage fees and experiencing reduced speeds just six seconds after the beginning of the each new billing cycle."
      • I figure it at just over 25 seconds (without any protocol overhead) to approach their cap. I don't think my HD can lay down 300GiBs that fast though. I would however like to try.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 )
        My thoughts (including him beating me to it) exactly.

        I recently left Comcast for Verizon FiOS. I even went to the local office and told them I had been a customer of theirs for over 20 years, as the local company was bought out several times, and they may want to take note on why a 20 year customer would leave. I gave them 10 reasons, but cited as top: 1) Bandwidth limits they refused to state, leaving me wondering if I was close or not and leading me to restrict a lot of my browsing, 2) Upload speeds slo

    • But what good is this 100 gigs if you can only pay for it but not use it?

      ~Dan
      If your ISP then uses traffic shaping to manage you downloading via this big fat fast pipe?

    • Re:What good is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sahonen ( 680948 ) on Saturday March 15, 2008 @06:27AM (#22758764) Homepage Journal
      Hit the nail on the head. I have Comcast's fastest plan in this area and I can only sustain an FTP upload at 50 KB/sec. At 3am. To my own private server. It's ridiculous and unacceptable. If I had ANY alternative I would switch immediately. If having all this extra bandwidth means they can relax their insane throttling I'm all for it as long as they don't try to charge me extra for the privilege. I know for a fact that there's more than enough bandwidth in the pipe. They're just not giving any of it to me.
      • Every day I look up on the telephone pole at verizon's FIOS hookup, yearning for when it goes active. The guy who was working on it said it wouldn't go live until late april.

        The only problem is that I hate verizon as much as I hate comcast.
        • Out of curiosity, how does /. feel about Earthlink? I understand that they don't throttle bittorrent.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

            Out of curiosity, how does /. feel about Earthlink? I understand that they don't throttle bittorrent.
            Anyone who doesn't censor the Internet is ok in my book.

            ~Dan

      • I don't like comcast, they brag a lot, but don't show results. I use Qwest, and can get a few things going at 50 kb/sec, if not higher. I do pay for a dedicated 7mbs, but shrug.
      • I have the exact same dilemma, down to every detail 100%. Sounds like a hard limit to me. Any others confirm the 50kb upload cap on their Comcast account?
    • Oh, they'll use it, but they'll prioritize HD PPV television over Internet. They've been chomping at the bit to get even with FIOS and U-Verse.

  • Ha! (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    I won't believe it until Comcast runs a 100 Gb/s link to my apartment for me to try out. For free. After that, I'll be happy to recommend them to Slashdot users and anyone else they want me to promote to. Hey, everyone has their price! :) (Now to see if the Comcast execs will take my bait...)
  • Awesome! Now they can slow down my P2P traffic even faster!!

  • Comcast has announced the first test...to carry data over a production fiber network. The trial equipment will connect Philadelphia and McLean, VA.
    Oh, let me quickly move my back......connection lost

    Seriously, why are they testing trial equipment on a produciton network?
    • I suspect they meant equipment trials, not trial (beta, prototype) equipment.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Fatal67 ( 244371 )
        I'm pretty sure it is trial gear, as in beta. One of the articles I read said the product wouldn't be commercially available until late this year.

  • The Cost? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DKlineburg ( 1074921 )
    A couple of questions:

    Cable
    What is the end cost to the users? I understand that Comcast has a modulated speed. One big pipe, a lot of users on the same pipe. Farther from the hub? fewer users, smaller pipe.
    Will you be able to pay for more of that pipe and get better speeds?
    Can you pay them not to downsize your P2P?
    With the new Hulu site out there, will they mistakenly see legal traffic as illegal and stop it from working?

    DSL
    For DSL, what speeds could you buy? (They mentioned Verizon testing)How mu
  • Otherwise, are they getting tired of optical thingies? It makes no sense. It must be a misspelling.
  • Wait - they used a competitor's TV signal to test the speed of their lines? They must realize they're in bad shape, bandwidth-wise.
  • I live in Philadelphia. No FIOS, no Comcast Blast. Just standard DSL or standard cable speeds, those are our options. I'm 100% certain Comcast won't sell anything faster until we have FIOS here, and I'm 100% certain we will never have FIOS here because Comcast is based out of Philadelphia. Thanks for nothing, Comcast.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Scaba ( 183684 )

      I dunno. They're tearing the shit out of this (east) end of South St and running something electrical to each building on the street. I need to ask one of the workers exactly what they're doing, but I'm hoping it's FIOS. They also cut down all the trees so the roots wouldn't fuck with whatever they're laying down.

  • You deploy these http://cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/index.html [cisco.com]

    Which btw during development was not referred to as the CRS, but the BFR (Big F-ing Router; ala Doom's BFG).

    • The Crash-1 only does 40 Gbps (OC768) as far as I can tell. This is Nortel gear; not sure what they're feeding it with, since at speeds like that you'd rather do switching, not routing.

      There's been somewhat of a race in the industry between the people who think the next step after 10 Gbps should be 40 Gbps or 100 Gbps - 10 was a really convenient speed, because the Telecom/SONET part of the world does multiples of ~155 Gbps * 2**N, so OC192 is basically the same speed as 10GE and they can reuse many of the

  • You mean the company that on day one of my service ( they bought my local provider out, wasn't my choice ) bricked my modem and told me to call back in a week if i was still having troubles? ( as did several others that i know personally that had the same problem. Some on cable, others on DSL.. ) And gotta love that 'welcome letter' i got. "welcome to comcast, your rates are now increasing by 20 a month"

    The same comast that hasn't stayed up for more then 3 days straight and i have to restart my modem?

    The
  • Japan's customers are being offered 1Tb connections for three-fiddy/month. Meanwhile, Comcast has announced that they are going to redirect 95% of their R&D and deployment budgets to paying for Washington lobbyists and contributions to national party coffers to get FCC oversight to be eliminated.
  • Going to take serious subprime bailouts to pay for these cable plans.

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