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Comcast Planning Gigabit Cable For Entire US In 2-3 Years 253

Posted by samzenpus from the greased-lightning dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Robert Howald, Comcast's VP of network architecture, said the company is hoping to upgrade its entire cable network within the next two years. The upgraded DOCSIS 3.1 network can support maximum speeds of 10 Gpbs. "Our intent is to scale it through our footprint through 2016," Howald said. "We want to get it across the footprint very quickly... We're shooting for two years."
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Comcast Planning Gigabit Cable For Entire US In 2-3 Years More

Comcast Planning Gigabit Cable For Entire US In 2-3 Years

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  • I would laugh but that's too much effort (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:22AM (#50386803) Homepage Journal

    ...to blow on comcast.

    I predict this will be just like when Pac Bell said they were going to deploy DSL to all customers by 2000. Anyone else remember that shit? I'm in what used to be Pac Bell territory, and I still can't get DSL.

    • Yeah, they were pumping like 25 million to place DSLAMS at every SLC, enabling everyone to connect and surf at the (then) astounding 1Mbps.

      Sadly they realized their infrastructure was not up to snuff to handle the increased traffic.

      Soo, they tried to wrangle permits and easements to get the new wiring or fiber laid. Sadly, the NIMBY's and politicals pretty much screwed things over for them so most of the money got sank into permits and (maybe) bribes just to get to 15% of the roll out goals.

      Soo, the projec

  • Entire US... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:22AM (#50386805)

    except for cities where they don't want to compete with Time Warner cable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I would be pleasantly surprised if they had all of the Google Fiber cities that they compete in fully upgraded to Gigabit by 2018, let alone the entire network.

  • Making promises for backdoor deals (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:25AM (#50386827)

    The odds of this happening in 2-3 years are 0%. They have no real competition, why would they?

    • The odds of this happening in 2-3 years are 0%. They have no real competition, why would they?

      They DO have competition... in some cities. They are pushing to make it a headline as an attempt to keep people from moving to the competition.

      Right now in my area Comcast has an ad campaign going. They take a sound bite of a competitor's ad offering 60Mbps with geographic restrictions, then say "With Comcast we don't have geographic restrictions, we guarantee 25Mbps everywhere in our network"... They make a big point of saying the speed is available to everyone on the network, never pointing out the spee

  • I smell bullshit! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:26AM (#50386835)

    Net neutrality was supposed to crush the entire industry! How can they possibly afford to upgrade their system when they are in such dire straits? Or was their claims to Congress just bullshit? They wouldn't lie would they? Corporations never lie! This entire story can't possibly be true. Who is fact checking this garbage? Editors? Hello?

  • As long as they are planning on having some OTHER company do it.

  • Here's to hoping they can do it. It would put some serious competition out there. Comcast is outpacing Charter right now. Charter in my area has yet to turn on multi channel upstream bonding. They have 8 channel downstream bonding, but not upstream. I have 60mbit down and a pathetic 4mbit upload. They offer 150mbit down / 7mbit upload, 7mbit is barley enough for TCP acknowledgement at 150mbit down. And the 150/7 service is a premium $100/mo+ over 60/4. On top of it, they charge $250 "Install fee". To insta

  • This is how it will go (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:41AM (#50386931) Homepage

    Assuming I believe them (which I do for places that have someone else offering gigabit but less so for other places), this is how it will go. If you are in a town with a competitor offering gigabit speeds, it will cost around $100 a month. If you are in a town without a competitor offering gigabit internet, they either will not offer gigabit speed (although they will probably add the infrastructure for when a competitor does) or they will charge $300 a month for it and it will have to be bundled with cable to get that price. Comcast has no real interest in offering better speeds and are being forced to because other companies are. That is the bottom line.

    • Re:This is how it will go (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:49AM (#50386971)

      Price is always my main issue with these super fast lines. Google Fiber [google.com] even has it's problems with pricing. You can either pay $70 a month for Gigabit speeds, or pay $300 to start plus $25 a year for 5 mbit speeds. Why not have an option in the middle somewhere. 1 Gbps is way more than I need, but 5 Mbps is on the cusp of being too slow for my tastes. Why not have a $30-$40 a month option for 100 Mbps? My guess is that nobody would really pay for gigabit if given another cheaper option with reasonable speeds. By making the only options $70 a month or slow internet, you can get a lot more money out of people.

      I get a lot of value out of my internet, but it seems that all the providers seem to gouge us by not offering pricing tiers that are beneficial to the end user, but offering the pricing tiers that will yield them the most money. Which is fine, I understand they are a businesses, and that's their duty, but I wish there was more competition, and less collusion among companies.

      • Compared to everyone else, $70 a month is an amazing price for Gigabit speeds. I am paying that much just for a 75Mbps download, 75Mbps upload connection. Google Fiber is literally over 13 times faster than my speed for the same price. Besides, you are forgetting why Google started Google Fiber: market disruption and to show everyone the power of Gigabit speeds. You can't do that if everyone only has 100Mbps internet.

        • You're right. Given the choice, I would rather spend $70 and get a gigabit connection than spend the same and get a 75 Mbps line for the same price. However, if the incumbent telco had an option for 30 mbit per second for $50 or less, then I would really hesitate to sign up for Google Fiber, because I'm not convinced it would make that much of a difference in my day to day life. Whereas the $240 saved for choosing the $50 option would make a more reasonable difference in my life. Currently I have intern

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fnj ( 64210 )

        In the real world in the US, $70/mo for 1 Gbps and $2.08/mo for 5 Mbps sounds like a super offering. I wish the heck I could get it. It costs around $50/mo for 25 Mbps from Comcast now. I believe 100 Mbps from Comcast costs north of $100/mo.

        Maybe you could bond several of the 5 Mbps. But it might be that they will not effer you more than one 5 Gb; it sounds like a subsidized offer for the poor to me.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Why not have an option in the middle somewhere. 1 Gbps is way more than I need, but 5 Mbps is on the cusp of being too slow for my tastes. Why not have a $30-$40 a month option for 100 Mbps?

        Probably because they're not going to install 100 Mbit ports or send out 100 Mbit cable modems, the fiber line and all the associated overhead with maintenance and repair, billing and support is the same and most people will just finish their downloads faster so their cost structure is almost flat, except for a few massive bandwidth hogs. I would strongly suggest that it's the other way around, those who offer many tiers use it to cripple capacity far beyond reason on the lowest levels to make the higher ti

        • That's my whole point. I think it would better. I'd much rather have the option of paying $40 for 30 Mbit than pay $70 for 1000 Mbit. Sure I'd be paying only a little less for a lot less speed, but I really don't see much advantage in having a faster connection past a certain point. I'd rather take the $30 a month ($360 a year), and spend it on something else I'd appreciate more.

          Also, I misread the pricing on the cheaper option. The $25 a month isn't every month. It's $300 at sign up, or $25 a month for th

      • Everything is relative. For three years until last week, Cable and AT&T refused to extend service to me. My only option was an average $100 a month ~3-5 Mbps from Verizon with a 10 GB monthly cap. And I was glad to have it.

  • Google fiber fears? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PPalmgren ( 1009823 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @08:53AM (#50386983)

    I live in Charlotte, and Google Fiber is on its way here as well as in nearby Raleigh. Lo and behold, I get a notice in the mail last month that TWC is increasing all our plans by 5x capacity, so I went from 20/1 to 100/5 at the same price.

    Well, that's great, but...you'll only increase capacity once there's a threat? And its so cheap to do that you'll not increase prices and finish the roll-out less than 6 months from Google's announcement? Really inspires tons of customer loyalty there, Time Warner. Jackasses.

    Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit? Maybe, just maybe, someone is learning that customers are switching not only because of your product but because you treat your customers like crap?

    I think I'm too idealistic. That would make way too much sense for the telcos to think of it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When google fiber came to my neighborhood i called TW to cancel.

      They promised 10X the speed at 1/2 the price.

      My response was "why didn't i already have that?? Go fuck yourself."

      Buncha Johnny-come-latelys.

      • where i live a local ISP ran fiber to the door for basically the entire small city where I live in the midwest. I got it as soon as it was available and ditched the crap-tastic cable internet I had.

        I got 6mb down 3mb up and it was something like $50 per month and I loved it. Never ever went down, never slowed, just pure light based bits all the time. That should tell you how terrible the cable service was. Their minimum was 1.5/1.5 or something like that so I was paying more for better service.

        After a few y

    • I live in Charlotte, and Google Fiber is on its way here as well as in nearby Raleigh. Lo and behold, I get a notice in the mail last month that TWC is increasing all our plans by 5x capacity, so I went from 20/1 to 100/5 at the same price.

      Well, that's great, but...you'll only increase capacity once there's a threat? And its so cheap to do that you'll not increase prices and finish the roll-out less than 6 months from Google's announcement? Really inspires tons of customer loyalty there, Time Warner. Jackasses.

      Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit? Maybe, just maybe, someone is learning that customers are switching not only because of your product but because you treat your customers like crap?

      I think I'm too idealistic. That would make way too much sense for the telcos to think of it.

      There is no threat of Google Fiber or any other fiber service. Comcast and ATT are the only games in town. Comcast has doubled my speed twice in the last year without increasing my cost. I think I am getting 100/20 now, but I can't remember exactly. While I have no doubt that this is due to Google Fiber threats in other markets, it appears that Comcast has decided to up its game a little bit. We will see if they really start offering gigabit service outside of Google Fiber markets. I'll be surprised.

      • While I have no doubt that this is due to Google Fiber threats in other markets, it appears that Comcast has decided to up its game a little bit.

        It's about time. Their customers have been saying "Up Yours" to Comcast for years.

    • Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit?

      VAPORWARE (n) - A product that does not yet exist, but is sure to blow any competing products out of the water. Promoted by market-dominating companies to forestall potential competitors.

      • Re:Google fiber fears? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by superdude72 ( 322167 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @09:41AM (#50387299)

        PS, It has long been my opinion that Google wants its customers to have gigabit fiber, but they would rather some other company provide it. The purpose of Google Fiber is to goad Comcast and TWC into doing it. Like any for-profit enterprise, Google doesn't want to be in the business of providing universal access to high quality Internet. That's providing a commodity, and Google wants high profit margins.

        On the bright-side, they're well aware of TWC's and Comcast's vaporware ploys and are unlikely to be deterred by that.

    • Century Link recently had a utility crew in my residential neighborhood in Minneapolis stringing fiber optic cable on the poles. I don't think we've gotten any SUBSCRIBE NOW! fliers in the mail from them, but I would wager that Comcast has lost a lot of TV subscribers and more and more people are just hanging onto a TV subscription (often lower-end, like me) just because they're the only high speed Internet game available.

      Once you get someone offering gigabit in your area for prices on par with Comcast, ev

      • Yep, I am now a happy CenturyLink fiber subscriber.

        It is DSL from the street to my apartment, but my modem shows 1000Mbps connection speed.

        speedtest.net only gives me ~600Mpbs down and ~900Mbps up but that beats the crap out of the other cable and VDSL options.

        As a matter of fact, the cable provider in my area (Minneapolis, MN) only offers a max of 20Mbps. VDSL offers up to 60Mbps. So, at least around here, DSL is the way to go until CenturyLink starts offering more fiber to the curb.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by swb ( 14022 )

          Do you actually live within the Minneapolis city limits?

          The utility crews were here early in the spring and I only knew it was fiber because they took a couple of days to do my immediate area and on a dog walk I saw the cable spool on the side of the road. I talked to the guys on the lift truck and they said it was Century Link.

          And I thought Comcast offered faster speeds in Minneapolis -- the Strib just had an article today in the paper about how they're doubling the speeds of all their consumer tiers, and

    • Well, that's great, but...you'll only increase capacity once there's a threat?

      This should not surprise you at all. If there is no competition prices will be monopoly prices [wikipedia.org]. Anyone who thinks they would charge less is being very naive.

      Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit?

      It's still just a defensive play really. I don't think Google really wants to be in the ISP business but faster internet is very valuable to them so if they can, ahem... encourage Comcast to bump their speeds by being a credible threat then Google wins without having to build a nationwide network. Companies that use a franchise model do something l

    • As someone who lives 30 minutes outside Charlotte and is subsisting on 3Mbps AT&T UVerse, let me express my good-natured envy and hatred of you.

  • How about losing the cap? Gigabit means I can get to the cap in a couple of hours now.

    • The cap will grow when more people start hitting it. It may seem like a revenue center, but it's a management tool. They'll set the bar somewhere in the top 1-5% of customers usage to keep those with voracious appetites down. They know there would be backlash if all of a sudden many of their customers started getting overage charges. Now that may change if more and more people get used to such a thing, but I expect those caps will rise with the overall usage patterns - again, just to make sure that everybod

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        I also wonder if speed increases aren't also due to more coax capacity being available for data due to stuff like switched digital video and fewer TV customers generally.

      • Comcast are real dicks about their cap in many locations. My boss got charged $10 for going over his 300GB cap. That is a stupidly low cap and a stupid high charge (only gets you 50GB more). On my Cox connection, which is a similar speed, I get a 2TB cap (and no overages charges if I exceed it).

        While data caps are needed to keep people playing nice, since all network resources are shared at some point, Comcast are real jerks about it and keep the caps very low, and charge a stupid amount for overages.

        If it

  • Your cable will will be $150 per month and "gigabit" is based on a corporate definition. All rights reserved, speeds may vary by up to 400%, we reserve the right to have random outages.

    A tech will be there between the hours of 8am tuesday and 9pm saturday.

  • Gigabit network with a 200GB cap (Score:3)

    by bigdady92 ( 635263 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @09:08AM (#50387091) Homepage
    is pointless. No wait, it's GENIUS!

    Customer: We want faster Internets!
    Comcast: Well we will give you the fastest Gigabits!
    Customer: MOAR NETFLIXZ! <downloads 4k movies>, XBOX LIVEZ! <plays games hosted at 1080p>, F-U LIVE TV! <steams HBO 1080p movies in 3 rooms>
    [end of the Month]
    Customer: $400 bill?!?!? WTF!!!!111!
    Comcast: Well now you see you had a 200GB limit on data and you went clear over it.
    Customer: But you said it was GIGABITS FAST!
    Comcast: Yes...yes it is...<Maniacal Cackling on a mountain of gold>

  • That means I can get to the 250GB Comcast monthly data limit in just 4 1/2 hours!

  • NOT the "Entire US" (Score:3)

    by sribe ( 304414 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @09:25AM (#50387185)

    Their entire network is not the same thing.

  • They are even taking installation appointment (Score:5, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @09:25AM (#50387189) Journal
    Just called them when it would be available. They said the cable man would show up sometime between May 2017 and Sep 2020. Asked me to stay at home. They said they could not narrow down the window more.
  • They recently said they would be deploying 2Gbit, and that has failed to materialize.

    .
    Comcast is trying to look like a leading-edge ISP with these press releases about vapor-speeds, speeds that never seem to materialize.

    .
    If you want to see the real Comcast, look at areas where Comcast has little or no competition. US$50 per month for speeds that are DSL-like (about 6mbit/sec).

  • how about reliability first? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by flappinbooger ( 574405 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2015 @09:44AM (#50387323) Homepage

    Why don't they focus on the reliability of their service first?

    Why not focus on customer support, as a whole, first? They have a well deserved reputation for being one of the worst companies to work with.

    Comcast is not any where near 100% reliable, I'd say more like 90%.

    They have (or had, for a long time) crap modems that were only part of the problem.

    People, businesses and government offices are putting all their eggs in this basket with internet, phone and TV, all coming in on one fat pipe.

    When it goes down, they are massively screwed.

    And it happens all too often, far more often than DSL. DSL might be slow and crappy but it is more reliable than cable.

    Don't get me wrong - Comcast know what they are doing when it comes to slinging massive amounts of data great distances at high speed. They really do, and their internet is amazingly fast.

    But why try to go faster when there are too many times it's going nowhere?

    This, not to mention their hidden data cap. If they offer this massive bandwidth do they leave the data cap where it is? HMMM???

    • And it happens all too often, far more often than DSL. DSL might be slow and crappy but it is more reliable than cable.

      Yup! Years ago, I switched from Time Wartner to DSL. DSL was significantly slower, but it was nearly always up. I think TW was working about 50% of the time.

  • ..to look for the skyrocketing cable/internet costs with Xfinity long before this actually rolls out to "pay for it"

  • Soon Comcast customers will blow through their data caps is 1/10th the time.

  • What would you do with a gigabit connection to a company that sells out pirates every chance they get? I mean what in the world do you do that is not piracy that is better on a gigabit connection than a 100mbit connection? And don't say "counterstrike ping" because that will not be any better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fnj ( 64210 )

      I mean what in the world do you do that is not piracy that is better on a gigabit connection than a 100mbit connection?

      For one example, downloading a linux distro ISO, especially while watching Amazon streaming. Do I have to explain this stuff?

    • Off the top of my head:

      -Steam games at 40-60gb a pop or full computer backup/restores faster than we can do now.
      -On demand games for future game consoles, no more even having to wait an hour to cache the game files on your consoles hard drive... just a giant set of RAM and the system loads game engines, worlds, textures, and media in real time after a short buffering session to get the basic framework loaded when the game first starts up.
      -4k streaming for multiple devices in the house
      -360 degree HD video st

  • Gigabit isn't everything... My locally owned ISP is considering the same thing with DOCSIS. The problem? It is only Gigabit DOWNLOAD, with still shitty upload. Why is this an issue? Remote storage backups and generally uploading large content (like videos) to the internet. Sure, the slower upload "works for most uses", but so does the slower downloads. The whole point of more bandwidth is to open up the availability to more types of applications. We already have the download bandwidth to stream 1080p conten

  • Not as cheap as google fiber. Comcast currently charges $150 for 150 mbs in my town. The sweet spot, most bits per dolar is 50 mbs.

  • We're delivering gigabit cable! And you get a 300GB data cap, plus it costs $500/month!

    SUCH A DEAL right?

  • While Gigabit speeds are nice I guess a few questions came to mind:

    1) Will we be forced to utilize their hardware to support these speeds or can I use my own ? ( You KNOW they will charge monthly for hardware rental )
    2) Is the service symmetrical or is it something ludicrous like 1000 down / 10 up ?
    3) I have absolutely zero need for Gigabit Ethernet outside the home. Can I get 100 / 100 for a decent price ? I would be thrilled with that.
    4) Can I get it by itself without having to bundle some silly ca

  • One installation in NYC and one in LA does not equal "covers the entire US".

    There is exactly no possibility of this happening. They couldn't even connect all major cities, let alone the entire country.

  • I live in a blessed neighborhood that has both FIOS and Comcast, so I can credibly threaten to switch. I almost went for Comcast recently; they offered me

    105 Mb down + basic cable + phone

    for the same price as Verizon's

    50 Mb down + basic cable + phone

    The deal-breaker was Comcast's up speed is 10 or 20 Mb, and Verizon's is 50 Mb. Not in this age of video calling and torrenting, thankyouverymuch.

    Comcast's infrastructure is still apparently fundamentally biased toward broadcast. Verizon at least understands

  • Why, that's got to be almost 10% of what my cable provider upgraded me to for free 6 months ago. I feel sorry for the people using Comcast's network that hasn't been upgraded yet. But really, why upgrade their equipment at all to 10 mbps? If you're replacing equipment, why not upgrade to something that costs a little bit more, but won't need to be replaced in 1/4 the time to stay competitive?

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