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Networking The Internet

Comcast Planning 2Gbps Service, Starting With Atlanta 208

Posted by timothy from the which-tradeoffs-do-you-prefer dept.
joemite points out a PC Mag article which begins "There's been a lot of talk about Google's 1Gbps "gigabit" Internet service, but Comcast said today that it is planning a 2Gbps service, beginning in Atlanta," and writes: All of the ISPs seem to be "out-doing" each other in terms of offering faster and faster service, but why can't they compete on reasonable rates for "slower" speeds? My 5Mbit service from Comcast is currently costing me $50/month, about what it was 10 years ago. Seems that if they can push a 2 Gigs for a few hundred dollars, I could get at least get 50Mbit for what I'm paying now.
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Comcast Planning 2Gbps Service, Starting With Atlanta More

Comcast Planning 2Gbps Service, Starting With Atlanta

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  • It's nonsense. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday April 02, 2015 @05:31PM (#49394329) Homepage
    The 2 Gb is just an electrical connection speed. The delivery of actual information is FAR slower. It's a dishonest way of drawing attention away from the real issues.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And I PLAN to sleep with UP TO 1000 supermodels tonight! [llapgoch.org.uk]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by joemite ( 653654 )
      You make a good point... carrier grade equipment capable of routing this amount of data sustained is quite expensive... and probably only deployed at the backbone.

  • Super fast downloads. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02, 2015 @05:38PM (#49394373)

    Sweet. Now you can hit the data cap in your "Unlimited" plan in 15 minutes instead of 30!

  • If you could run your own cable this would go away (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Thursday April 02, 2015 @05:38PM (#49394375)

    It isn't insane. We should have thousands of mom and pop ISPs. Run the cable in the city conduit/poll and pay whatever the fee is for leasing some space there.

    Yes, it would be messy if there were a LOT of cable running there, but then the fees would pay for a conduit and it would all go underground.

    We don't need these ISP monopolies. Open it up for competition. Then if the ISPs behave like assholes, you just go to a competitor offering you a better deal to get your business.

    In my area there are two ISPs like in most of America. One for DSL and one for Cable. No one is allowed to run cable but the phone company and the cable company.

    And that is why the speeds suck. If you could have someone else also allowed to run cable it would force the ISPs to compete or die.

    • Even in the setup you are describing, everyone is still connecting to a single city hub, which would count as a monopoly if it were private. Pretty much no matter what you do, you are going to run into the issue of eventually require use of some public property that we don't want in the hands of a for-profit company.

      Why not just expand the public portion of the public internet service to include the cables as well? Then you don't need a disorganized and inefficient mess cables going to the central hub.

      • Not really, small towns might have on hub but medium to large cities have many. And there is not only no reason for them to be centralized but they're not centralized. In a small town if there were one connection through the trunk then you'd have just one there. But that only applies in that one case.

        And even then the prices for back end bandwidth are far far cheaper. Current backbone network saturation is less than 30 percent. Lots of capacity. And the likes of L3 don't care who they connect to. They're ve

        • Sorry I misread your post, so my reply doesn't make any sense. I will amend my reply.

          In your example, the government still owns the conduit. Rather than simply providing conduit, why not provide the conduit and the wires in the conduit as a public service? The government is in a unique position to do this *efficiently and fairly.

          *I don't mean to imply that governments are always efficient and fair, but merely that they are capable of being efficient and fair in a way that for profit corporations can not

          • I don't mind them providing the conduit. I do mind them providing the cable. the cable you must appreciate will change. there will be innovation.

            it isn't like water or power or roads.

            Road technology hasn't change much in the last 100 years. If your car had to drive on a paved road build to 19th century standards, it wouldn't be a big deal. They had asphalt back then.

            Water is water is water. The fucking Romans could pipe water to your house and it would be about as good as what you get from the city. The big

            • I don't mind them providing the conduit. I do mind them providing the cable. the cable you must appreciate will change. there will be innovation.

              1. I think the conduit probably does need to change from time to time although I wouldn't call those changes the same kind of innovation traditionally associated with technology.

              2. The government doesn't have to be the one doing the innovating in order to provide the cables. They can just pay consultants to research which new technologies for cables should be used, and voters can decide if the government officials are doing a good job of hiring the right consultants. I am not saying this system is foolpro

              • 1. No the cable wouldn't need to change. The British are currently running fiber through Victorian sewer pipes. So... no. The conduit doesn't need to change. All it needs is enough space in it. That's it. So the only thing that could happen is that the could run out of room. But that is something you could upgrade the next time you do road maintenance.

                2. As to the government not needing to do the innovation, they would need to approve things.

                Look, the government providing my internet access is a non-starter

                • I meant the "conduit" would not need to change. Not the cable. The cable obviously needs to change with some frequency. But the conduit so long as it was large enough could remain the same for hundreds of years.

                • 1. As long as it always has enough space and never degrades it will never need to change (i.e. it will eventually need to be changed just like everything else).

                  As to the government not needing to do the innovation, they would need to approve things.

                  yeah that's what they do. It would be what they would be doing in your system too (approving individuals to rent space in the conduit)

                  Look, the government providing my internet access is a non-starter. You've seen all the privacy abuse stuff they've done already. If they actually own the cables it will be even worse. And that is just ONE reason amon

                  • 1. Again, the english are running cable in pipes that are over a hundred years old. So give me a break please.

                    Okay... last time.

                    CABLES DETERMINE BANDWIDTH.

                    Also for all you know they'll splice something into the cable... a wire tap of some description. I'm not keen on it.

                    As to you not invoking the notion that without the government running it there would be chaos. *facepalm* That is exactly your argument. Tell me right now why we can't have 20 companies running cable and do not anywhere infer that it will be

                    • Again, the english are running cable in pipes that are over a hundred years old. So give me a break please.

                      So you think 100 years == forever?

                      Okay... last time. CABLES DETERMINE BANDWIDTH.

                      I never said they didn't. I don't know why you think I did.

                      As to you not invoking the notion that without the government running it there would be chaos. *facepalm* That is exactly your argument.

                      No it is not. And it is obviously not, because my plan involves private ISPs.

                      As to the only difference being who owns them, wrong. Because if they own them and no one can compete with them, what is to stop the government cables from just staying old and shitty forever?

                      I did not make the argument that government always works, but you seem to be making the argument that government never works...except for conduit.

                      This is not a profitable discussion. You've got no reason for wanting the city to have control. You just DO want them to have control. Either cite the reason for wanting the city to be in control of it without referring chaos or order because you said that wasn't your argument... or what exactly are you fighting this so hard for? Why?

                      The reason I want the city to own the cables is (like I already said) efficiency. It is efficient to have government controlled infrastructure. There is a reason we don;t have private water pi

                    • wow... so you're saying that if the city has to do a rebuild on the conduit once every 100 years that is a deal breaker for you?

                      that's idiotic. I'm not saying you're an idiot. I'm saying you said something that was very stupid. Please don't do that.

                      As to admitting that cables determine bandwidth, then you are admitting that the government could control internet speed simply by being lazy about upgrading cables.

                      As to arguing that government never works, I did not say that. I just said I don't want to be held

                    • wow... so you're saying that if the city has to do a rebuild on the conduit once every 100 years that is a deal breaker for you?

                      You are even worse at reading comprehension than I am. At no point did I say or imply that. I think conduit needs to be replaced far more often than every 100 years, and even being changed every 100 years does not contradict my statement that it will eventually need to be changed.

                      As to arguing that government never works, I did not say that. I just said I don't want to be held hostage to their incompetence if and when they fuck up. Is that unreasonable? Or does everything have to be a too big to fail government clusterfuck?

                      I'm a libertarian...

                      Name anything the government does that the private sector does and we'll go through the cost figures. The government literally is always less efficient. Without exception.

                      This is something that an ideologue says.

                      Here is something the government does more efficiently than the private sector. Dealing with the problem of "tragedy of the commons". Markets solve a lot of problems

                    • No, I'm not bad at reading. I'm just not cooperating with your attempts to control my argument or strawman me.

                      The conduit will require maintenance. So what? Everything does. That is no excuse not to have it. the cost of maintaining it will be cheap. it is a fucking pipe. I don't want to hear you whining about what the conduit will cost to maintain again.

                      That portion of the discussion is done.

                      As to you being a libertarian, then why are you so in favor of putting the government in charge of everything? No lib

                    • No, I'm not bad at reading. I'm just not cooperating with your attempts to control my argument or strawman me.

                      As to you being a libertarian, then why are you so in favor of putting the government in charge of everything?

                      Evidence of your lack of ability to read.

                      As to your allegation that I must be an anarchist, no... I said the the government is needed for laws, police, and courts. That automatically means I'm not an anarchist.

                      I specifically pointed out that you were not an anarchist for that same reason.

                      More evidence of your lack of ability to read.

                      You're not a libertarian... that's obviously a lie. You're sitting there arguing a statist position.

                      My voting history: 2000: Harry Browne, 2004: Harry Browne, 2008: Ron Paul, 2012: Gary Johnson.

                      It's retards like you that are giving a bad name to libertarianism. You take a very reasonable ideology and turn it into something completely irrational and closed-minded.

                    • Correction: I voted for Michael Badnarik in 2004, and I even donated $200 to his campaign.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Everyone also has 4 cell providers and 2 satellite providers to choose from. Depending on what people need, they make sense in some cases.

      • Mostly a regulation issue. I mean, why do we only have 4 cell phone companies? Because those 4 bought all the spectrum and no one else can have it no matter whether those companies use it or not. So lets say you have a small town somewhere with no cell phone coverage at all... can you throw up your own tower? Be the cellphone provider of Bob's town? Nope. Can't do it. Federal law. Forbidden.

        Absent that, you'd have lots of cell phone providers. Thousands. And while some people are going to offer up myopic te

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dywolf ( 2673597 )

      you don't have to run separate cable for every company.

      in fact there is zero benefit to doing so, regardless of your belief that the cable is some sort of magical substance that must be replaced in order to enable better service and competition. (your belief is in fact the same belief that causes people to buy Monster cables)

      just mandate open access to the wire and you get your competition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by snadrus ( 930168 )

      I look at the FCC.
      If everyone's home wifi equipment was a mesh networking system that interfaced with 10s of neighbors, then every side of that neighborhood would be a connection. This would all connect to "Central" City-based hardlines for faster routes around the world (because this most-resembles the roadway system, which is paid-for similarly).

      The result:
      - Cheaper prices (just the cost of peering with other cities).
      - Faster Peering/Torrenting: Someone in-town has the file? Then it's just a network copy.

  • Title II? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cigamit ( 200871 ) on Thursday April 02, 2015 @05:39PM (#49394383) Homepage

    Didn't Comcast get the memo that Title II regulations meant that they were suppose to stop all investments in broadband?

    • Oh, they stopped all broadband investment; this is purely marketing investment at this point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Creepy ( 93888 )

      Well we all saw how Title II killed wireless phone service back in 1993. I mean, who uses a cell phone these days?

  • My spped hasn't changed but its price in real dollars, has steadly declined.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      TW keeps upping my speed for the same price (although they raised it $10 recently).

  • FIOS and GigaFiber (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FlyHelicopters ( 1540845 ) on Thursday April 02, 2015 @05:46PM (#49394429)

    I currently have FIOS from Verizon, I pay $105 a month for 150 megabit down and up.

    AT&T this month is in the process of installing their new GigaFiber service.

    They are offering 1 gigabit up and down for $120 a month, but with a data cap of 1 TB per month and $20 per additional TB.

    We use a lot of data in our house, with a connection speed about 6 times faster, I imagine we'll use even more.

    1 TB is a lot, but frankly isn't THAT much when you consider 4k streaming and 1 gigabit to share among 5 tech heavy users.

    Verizon currently doesn't have a cap, at least not a published one. If they have a soft or hidden cap, I've never felt or seen it.

    ---

    Then the issue comes up... Do I NEED gigabit? Well, I once would have thought that 150 meg was nuts, and today I love it, so I'm sure I'll find a use for it. But honestly, I'm not sure it is worth the bother.

    What I'm hoping is that Verizon will price match, or offer something close. Currently they want something crazy like $300 a month for 500 up/down, if they offered me that for $120, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

    Even 300/300 would be enough for $120, but time will tell.

    • Each order of magnitude of network speed increase matters less than the one before it as more stuff is trivial, and there's less stuff that is still problematic. There are things out there for which gig is a noticeable improvement over 100mbit, but not many. As time goes on and things grow it'll matter a little more, but still not a huge amount.

      Eventually we may find that something is "enough" for end users and further upgrades aren't needed, perhaps in the 10gibt range. That even when we are doing all kind

      • If you could get 1 Mbps for $10, 5 Mbps for $15, 20 Mbps for $20, 100 Mbps for $40 or 1,000 Mbps for $80, which would you pick?

        Personally, I'd go with the $20 for 20Mbps option. I like speed, but I also like money.

        • If you could get 1 Mbps for $10, 5 Mbps for $15, 20 Mbps for $20, 100 Mbps for $40 or 1,000 Mbps for $80, which would you pick?

          You didn't ask me, but I'd take the 100 meg for $40.

          I don't think right now I have enough use or need for 1 gig to justify twice the price.

          If AT&T had no cap and was 1 gigabit for $120, I'd jump all over that like white on rice. $105 for 150 meg vs. $120 for 1 gig? That is easy.

          But what if AT&T said 1 gig w/ no cap for $210? Naa, I'd pass.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by stdarg ( 456557 )

            As a matter of fact, AT&T is charging $120 for 1 gbps and apparently does not enforce their data cap on gigabit plans. And if Google is interested in your area, they drop the price to $70. That's what's happening here, anyway, and some other places I've read about online.

            The choice to sign up is tough though. Here's what's going on in my area.

            1. AT&T installed fiber in my neighborhood this Monday (I was really impressed.. they started Monday and were done by Tuesday afternoon, for about 150 houses).

            • All I could think when reading your post was...

              "Gosh, look what happens when we have real competition!"

              Sweet, isn't it? :)

        • But like I said, crazy geek. What would I recommend to people? Probably 20mbps for individuals, 100mbps for families or power users.

  • Seems that if they can push a 2 Gigs for a few hundred dollars, I could get at least get 50Mbit for what I'm paying now.

    The ISP's cost of delivering service includes network upgrades, network maintenance, customer service, and bandwidth costs (plus others such as marketing and G&A costs).

    The network upgrades are generally not "per customer" but "per area" so if you have the higher speed available, the ISP has already paid the costs of the network upgrades and you just are not yet buying that service but

  • So I'm going to need a fancy server motherboard with dual gigabit ports to use it? or perhaps even one with a 10G port?

  • 2Gbps eh?

    Coming soon: Google to start offering 3 razor blades...errr I mean 3Gbps internet service.
  • My 5Mbit service from Comcast is currently costing me $50/month, about what it was 10 years ago.

    Do the math. With 3% annual inflation and you are still paying $50 for service ten years later?

    You are actually paying about $36 compared to the $50 dollars you were paying in 2004 dollars. Not that I'm ever going give Comcast any props, but they are giving you the same service for less money.

    Just like going large for just a quarter more, the base cost for each customer is basically the same whether they

  • Last time I checked ISP's in the US aren't competing to out-do each other at all in most markets. A few places have fiber and catch internet headlines but most don't. The phone companies are sticking to slow 20mbps ADSL2+ tech while the cable companies put the fiber a little closer to you so that they can offer 100mbps service but the cable internet fees are ridiculous from top to bottom.

    I actually have worse speeds than I did 15 years ago because of my distance from the CO but at least my ISP (Sonic) is on

  • GPON or home-run? HUGE difference (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Omega Hacker ( 6676 ) <omegaNO@SPAMomegacs.net> on Thursday April 02, 2015 @06:58PM (#49394843)
    2Gbps over fiber is a speed I associate with GPON, which is a fiber loop that connects dozens of endpoints on a single fiber, just like the existing copper cable system. The 2Gbps figure is then derated for overhead, and finally split between all the users on that loop.

    Google on the other hand is apparently doing home-run fiber from each house to a central location, where it can aggregate the bandwidth into ludicrously fast switches and hand it off to 100Gbps etc backhauls. That means that (with guessed but plausible numbers) instead of e.g. 50 houses sharing each 2Gbps for an average of 40Mbps with Comcast, you would have 1000 houses sharing 100Gbps for 100Mbps average with Google. Yeah, the "peak theoretical" is higher, but the actual effective available bandwidth is very different.

    Then there's the fact that with a home-run fiber to each house, Google can easily upgrade their aggregation equipment and backhaul links in order to boost total shared bandwidth, without having to go out in trucks and mess with fibers again. Comcast OTOH would have to go around and split all their GPON loops in half and hope they can get those new sub-loops run back to their agg points. Heck, there's nothing stopping Google from upgrading the transceivers at each end of the fiber for a given house to make use of more advanced optical techniques, because the fiber isn't shared.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      What do you suppose Google actually uses for backhaul in its municipal fiber? OC-192, 10GBASE-ER? Depending on how many strands they light I would bet the backhaul capacity is probably way less 100G although I'm sure it's engineered so they can light more as usage would dictate.

      I'm sure all rollouts probably assume a ton of oversubscription because the greediest average household consumer is going to be what, 4x video streams with random downloads on top of it?

      • What do you suppose Google actually uses for backhaul in its municipal fiber? OC-192, 10GBASE-ER?

        And who do you suppose they buy it from? Cell tower backhaul and dark fiber is a fair revenue generator for major cable companies.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by swb ( 14022 )

          Buy it? If they get utility status within a city, I would assume they would string their own backhaul.

          I can't see Google tying themselves to Comcast for any purpose, plus there's probably some strategic long-term value to owning their own backhaul network in a city for future services like wireless or cellular.

  • What good is very fast last mile when their peering is crap AND their routers are dropping traffic?

  • This is Comcast trying to squelch Google. You are most likely to see them "roll out" Gb+ Internet in areas that Google Fiber is being rolled out, and the reason is *only* to make sure that Google can't make money at it and quit altogether.

    This is called "cutting off their air supply"; the assumption is that Google can't fund a literal roll out nationwide. Welcome to the the end-game for your most "free markets" - a monopoly.

  • All of the ISPs seem to be "out-doing" each other in terms of offering faster and faster service, but why can't they compete on reasonable rates for "slower" speeds? My 5Mbit service from Comcast is currently costing me $50/month, about what it was 10 years ago. Seems that if they can push a 2 Gigs for a few hundred dollars, I could get at least get 50Mbit for what I'm paying now.

    If the author wants more reasonable rates for slower speeds, why is he asking for more speed for what he's paying for, instead of

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