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The Internet Network

Comcast Working Toward 10Gbps To Your Home Using Cable (zdnet.com) 136

Posted by BeauHD from the sign-me-up dept.
Comcast has achieved a 10Gbps "technical milestone" that can deliver gigabit-plus download and upload speeds over existing cable wires, not fiber. ZDNet reports: Comcast has achieved a 10Gbps technical milestone by delivering 1.25Gbps upload and download speeds over a live production network using Network Function Virtualization (NFV) combined with the latest Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) hardware. This is being done with DOCSIS 4. With this cutting-edge cable internet technology, you can expect to see up to 10Gbps speeds downstream and up to 6Gbps upstream capacity over a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network. In its first real-world test, to a home in Jacksonville, Fla., technicians achieved its Gigabit plus speed using upon Comcast's Distributed Access Architecture (DAA). This is an edge-based computing model. This architecture has a suite of software-powered networking technologies, including digital fiber optics, "Remote PHY" digital nodes, and a cloud-based, virtualized cable modem termination system platform (vCMTS). The result? Comcast's team consistently measured speeds of 1.25Gbps upload and 1.2Gbps download over the connection.

According to a study by Dr. Raul Katz of Telecom Advisory Services, 10Gbps internet will generate at least $330 billion in total economic output and create more than 676,000 new jobs over the next seven years. It will do by enabling not just 8K video streams for everyone living in your home, but by enabling 5G access points, virtual reality applications, and telehealth. It's not just hardware that's making this possible. Comcast is a major open-source developer and user. As Comcast notes, "The trial was made possible not by a single technological innovation, but rather by a series of interrelated technologies that Comcast continues to test and deploy in its network, all powered by a DAA ecosystem. These include our increasingly virtualized, cloud-based network model." Comcast is working on the "10G" initiative along with NCTA, CableLabs, and SCTE, and other telecom and cable operators from around the world. In addition, Comcast and Charter Communications have worked closely to align on their approaches to 10Gbps and are driving technology standards and architectures to benefit everyone.
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Comcast Working Toward 10Gbps To Your Home Using Cable More

Comcast Working Toward 10Gbps To Your Home Using Cable

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  • Not very impressed (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @02:08AM (#60587432)

    Itâ(TM)s the least they could do with their monopoly. Well besides improving connectivity.

    • What they fail to mention, it's 10Gbps down and 2.5Mbps up! 3 million TV channels baby!

      • Re: Not very impressed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:56AM (#60587610)

        And NOTHING'S ON!

        • I worked for one of the large cable companies years ago. Went out with some others for breakfast with our president one day. At one point he said he has 800 channels through our service and DirectTV and there's still nothing to watch. Seems everyone is aware of the fact.

          • DirecTV. That service that gives you a hundred or so shopping channels. And repeats them across multiple named channels. Yes.

            If I had a shred of initiative directed towards this, I would inventory my DirecTV service, find the duplications, and call them out for their claim of 'xx channels'. Because three channels showing the same feed are not three channels. They are one.

      • 10Gbps down and 2.5Mbps

        Or subscribe to Verizon FIOS, and wonder why you can never never can hit that 100mbps upload speed. Speedtest.net shows 100/100 all day, but try actually getting that speed in the real world. Setup an FTP connection to another FIOS subscriber, and wonder why your upload is 3mbps when you're never even leaving the FIOS network.

        Comcast's upload/download is fucking lame, but at least it's a real number.

    • Yeah, they can't seem to figure a way to extend their cable a few hundred feet to my house.

  • It's nice that they can keep getting some use out of that coax until it's replaced by fiber.

    If you have the option of fiber, go with that.

    • If for no other reason than you won't have to deal with Comcast.

      • Im suprised nobody has mentioned the lack of high speed, low price copper networking for home users to be able to be able to use a connection like this. Sure 2 and 5 g copper ethernet are available on some high end kit, but its not ubiquitus on general pcs or low cost to retro fit to anything, and that'll hold back the adoption of 1gbps+ net

        • Im suprised nobody has mentioned the lack of high speed, low price copper networking for home users to be able to be able to use a connection like this.

          10 1Gbps all streaming flat-out is 10 Gbps. Fiber to the router at 10Gbps can support them all.

        • Gigabit switches can be had for $15.
          Here's one with 10Gbps ports for $179
          https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw... [amazon.com]

          Here's a 2.5 Gbps NIC for $30
          https://smile.amazon.com/Syba-... [amazon.com]

          Of course wifi 6 is nearly 10 Gbps on 5Ghz, or you can get 2.5Gbps with a $30 card.

          https://www.amazon.com/2974Mbp... [amazon.com]

        • Im suprised nobody has mentioned the lack of high speed, low price copper networking for home users to be able to be able to use a connection like this. Sure 2 and 5 g copper ethernet are available on some high end kit, but its not ubiquitus on general pcs or low cost to retro fit to anything, and that'll hold back the adoption of 1gbps+ net

          I completely agree. While you can find reasonably priced switches with a couple of 2-10G anything more than that does not currently exist. Looking for a 8, 16 or 24 port switch with all 2-10G ports? Good luck finding anything at a price in the same stratosphere as 1G switches. The best I've been able to do is a 7 port 10G switch for over $500.

          New laptops and desktops today rarely come with more than a 1G port same as a decade ago. You can find 2-10G NICs to stick in a PCI slot and USB 3 Ethernet dongl

          • Good luck finding anything at a price in the same stratosphere as 1G switches. The best I've been able to do is a 7 port 10G switch for over $500.

            There's this [newegg.com]. It's only 4 ports and an SFP+ port, but it's also just $350. And it's rackable. I have a 24 port gigabit switch in my rack right now. If I start using more VMs for work, I could see adding one of those to connect my NAS and my primary desktop. Of course, you can get that same 24 port 1 Gbps switch I use for $75 on sale, so they're definitely nowhere near the same realm of price. But 10 Gbps is at least available for less than four figures now.

            Laptops are a lost cause. I can't imagine wh

    • and with fiber must rent there shit gateway!

  • I just don't understand why they don't lay all new cable as fiber and as funds are made available slowly replace the coax with fiber.

    I find it amazing they can keep pushing more frequencies down the same cable. Anyways cable companies are loaded with debt. I found that out when Charter bought Timewarner cable. I don't understand how cable companies are continued to allow to operate with how much debt they have.

    • Because having them service that debt is better than having them default?

      • Actually, utilities love debt because they can charge via PUC a percentage above their operating costs for profit.
        if they borrow a million at 10% they have increased their costs by that 10%
        but they don't care, because they have increased their costs and therefore net profit (5% of the 10%)

    • I just don't understand why they don't lay all new cable as fiber and as funds are made available slowly replace the coax with fiber.

      Because tapping coax is just three F-connectors and a tee piece, which can be done by almost anyone, while tapping fiber involves careful cutting, jointing and probably a buffer amp into the mix, which has to be done by someone qualified (and therefore paid a lot more)?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by poptix ( 78287 )

        It's not so much about that, as the municipal contract they have that specifically indicates that they have free reign over everything coax in the city. Usually for the next 100 years.

      • New? Huh. No 'new' anything is being installed except for expansions, like new residential development, new commercial development/redevelopment, and that's not a big market. In California, new anything being built is getting rarer every day due to administrative restrictions - and laying fiber or cable is also restricted. Hey, it's a choice.

        In the Northeast, underground isn't practical. Moisture. Elsewhere, though why would your cable co lay fiber? They don't use that PHY. And so far, here in Arizona, I se

    • Re:Fiber (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @05:09AM (#60587670) Journal

      I just don't understand why they don't lay all new cable as fiber and as funds are made available ...

      Do you have any IDEA how EXPEN$IVE it is to DIG UP A CITY?

      (That's why they laid so much "dark fiber" back in the fiber roll-out days. Most of the cost of stringing fiber across country is digging the trenches, laying conduit, pulling the fiber through it, and filling them in. You can lay mulltiple conduits down that trench, some with just pull strings, and pull and splice bundles with hundreds of fibers down those you do fill, and not come anywhere NEAR twice the cost of pulling and splicing a single pair of fibers. Then you can light them up as you need them - with years later and better equipment - and not have to dig another trench for decades or centuries. It was hilarious watching the "analysts" lament the "waste" of all that dark fiber, with no clue about how it future-proofed the carriers and set them up for decades for a drop in the bucket morethan getting them into the first couple years' game.)

      You've got co-ax capable of 10G or more already in place? Electronics is cheap - and gets cheaper every year and more so if you use a lot of it - like a fancy modem at every cable intenet subscriber's house. Replacing the cable boxen and the repeaters is a similar drop of small change into the bucket compared to digging things up and stringing fibers.

      • Re:Fiber (Score:5, Interesting)

        by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @08:58AM (#60588100) Homepage
        I've said this before and it falls on deaf ears. A assisted living facility near me had something trenched in. I am guessing fiber to support even more cell antenna's on their roof. It is maybe 600' from the building to street. It took weeks to trench it. They started with a small ditchwitch and baby backhoe. These were replaced with a big ditchwitch and full size backhoe. After a few weeks with a 6-8 man crew, they got to the street. At the street you could see all the spray paint colors for the gas, water, sewer, cable, att lines already there. I figured they hooked into cable or att. A couple weeks later they start trenching under a 4 lane road a bit south of the building. That was a longer run, maybe 3/4 of a mile. That took months. Finally it seems to be all done. It must have cost a significant amount. I live in limestone country. Oh, and then yesterday as I am walking my dog in the area I see a pool of water near the street. Huh, it wasn't raining. I walk down a bit and see water bubbling up from the ground. Suspicious, right where they tunnelled under the road. I'm thinking they nicked a pipe and it finally let go. So yes, digging even in the burbs is not cheap.

        • ... yesterday as I am walking my dog in the area I see a pool of water near the street. Huh, it wasn't raining. I walk down a bit and see water bubbling up from the ground. Suspicious, right where they tunnelled under the road. I'm thinking they nicked a pipe and it finally let go.

          I hope you reported it.

          If you didn't, please do so. Immediately. Like before reading the next posting.

          That kind of leak can do an IMMENSE amount of damage in an AMAZINGLY short time. Like sinkholes that eat cars.

          If anyone sees

          • Of course I reported it. It was not a small leak. It was probably 10gal/min, enough to flood around 200' of ground next to the road. And I do wonder, if they nicked the pipe under the roadway when they trenched, can it be fixed without tearing up a major artery and causing huge traffic problems.

            • Of course I reported it.

              Great. Good for you. (Too many people - especially around here - DON'T. Then the crews don't get the little things fixed before they become great disasters.)

              It was not a small leak. It was probably 10gal/min, enough to flood around 200' of ground next to the road.

              The problem with underground water leaks is that they wash away the soil, first turning it into an expanding zone of quicksand and then into an expanding water-filled void within it. Structures are supported only by thei

              • As an update, went by again today, still going. Called again, reminded them that it was reported yesterday, it is a large leak and they should do something before the main road artery is washed away. I do report stuff like this, even though it is often pointless. I kid you not, I reported a retention pond drain clogged with debris and soil over 5 years ago. I reported it both to the local city, whose power poles are being eroded away because of it, and to TxDot, whose road is going to get destroyed by it. I

        • I've said this before and it falls on deaf ears. A assisted living facility near me had something trenched in. I am guessing fiber to support even more cell antenna's on their roof. It is maybe 600' from the building to street. It took weeks to trench it. They started with a small ditchwitch and baby backhoe. These were replaced with a big ditchwitch and full size backhoe. After a few weeks with a 6-8 man crew, they got to the street. At the street you could see all the spray paint colors for the gas, water, sewer, cable, att lines already there. I figured they hooked into cable or att. A couple weeks later they start trenching under a 4 lane road a bit south of the building. That was a longer run, maybe 3/4 of a mile. That took months. Finally it seems to be all done. It must have cost a significant amount. I live in limestone country.

          You can see where Elon Musk is coming from when he starts up something like The Boring Company. The Ditch Witch was a major advance compared to trenching with a backhoe, but it only works well in soil. Seems to me that Ditch Witch needs to upgrade a step to support soft rock boring at a reasonable speed. A lot of people live on limestone.

          It's not a trivial step up in technology, but physical construction has a bad habit of resting on its laurels for a very long time. They're all so incredibly risk avers

          • ... physical construction has a bad habit of resting on its laurels for a very long time. They're all so incredibly risk averse.

            That's because, if they screw up, things they built fail in a way that might fail in ways that kill people [wikipedia.org]

            (That example happened because a contractor did a minor hack to avoid having to spin some nuts up two floors of threaded rod. The hack doubled the force on the nut-and-washer supports of a box-beam supporting a concrete overhead walkway, which failed when the walkways were ful

            • Agree completely, the area being trenched/dug up has nat gas(boom), HVAC and 240V(zap), phone, sewer, cable, water. It is like grand central under most streets.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bored ( 40072 )

        The vast majority of most cities don't need to be dug up because they have power poles. That was the google fibre plan in Austin before they bailed. That is because a truck and a crew of 3 can literally put in fiber at nearly walking speed on existing lines. Its fast as heck, if your not paying attention they will wire your neighborhood and you won't even know.

    • probably because it's going to cost them something like $100 BILLION

    • You don't have a home mortgage do ya...

      Or a car loan. That one, where the asset depreciates massively, immediately, and you're 'under water' from day one until maybe day 2500.

      Debt, leverage, not a big deal. If the revenue keeps coming in, debts get paid. Or refinanced, same thing... Yes, think it through.

      Now, if your business model is failing, say because you're losing customers rapidly, your debt is a problem - eventually you can't pay it, if you get caught out before you've made that last payment. You go

      • Re:Fiber (Score:4, Informative)

        by layabout ( 1576461 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @10:39AM (#60588350)

        Oh, actually, if you look into your local cable company, I bet they provide a 'business' service, with dedicated IP address, higher advertised reliability, and higher, even symmetrical speeds.

        I have the Comcast lowest level business service (25/5). It is identical to residential service except that I don't have any data caps and I can run servers. I have customers with higher-speed services (100/10) and it still identical to residential service except no data caps and can run servers.

        I suspect most other ISPs nationwide have a similar residential versus commercial difference. I.e. zero technical, all policy.

        • "except for".

          And you mention two HUGE detractors for many residential users.

          Those are the big, biggest, most important features you can get for an upgraded service. And assigned IP address goes with them. Don't try to minimize those.

          • Comcast commercial does not come with an assigned IP. I get my addresses via dhcp just like residential users

            • That complicates servers, though it's not insurmountable

              • I agree it is not insurmountable. point being that there is no technical difference between residential and commercial Comcast services except policy and pricing.

  • Of course, it’s Comcast (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:24AM (#60587534)

    So I’m guessing the monthly charge for this gigabit device will be around $849.97?

  • Hype (Score:2)

    by ytene ( 4376651 )
    Laudable as this sounds if taken at face value, I suspect that for every future Comcast customer who will enjoy an actual 10Gb connection to their home, there will be 100 Comcast customers who are getting less than 50% of the advertised (and billed) connection speed.

    Whilst it's good to see telecommunications companies continue to push the boundaries of maximum bandwidth and maximum line speeds, it might be better if the developed technology able to deliver better connections through lower quality infrast

    • Customers will be lucky if they get 50% of the rated speed. Comcast's demo got 12% of the headline speed, unless they decided to omit mention of a killer feature, it is still shared by an entire neighborhood. The last time I had cable Internet, bufferbloat was so bad that ping times to the first hop router (inside the cable network) were five to seven seconds.

      • Re:Customers getting 50% rated speed? Hah! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @06:39AM (#60587808)
        And that's the point, right?

        It's no good having a "customer" so you can claim that you can deliver 10Gb/s bandwidth, if the "customer" happens to live 20 feet from your electronics frames. Anyone can claim speeds "up to" 10Gb, but guess what? 9600-baud is still in the range of "up to 10Gb"... so the claim is meaningless.

        If the FCC was worth the money paid for their salaries, they would enact rules that said that telcos offering broadband services had to offer a "price per speed" and give customers the technology to monitor available bandwidth [not just line speed] on at least an hourly basis. If the companies were limited so that they could only bill for what they could deliver, the loss in revenue would put the crappy ones out of business and keep the rest of them honest.

        If a grocery store advertised something like bacon in 2-lb or 4-lb packs, but then only provided packs with 1lb12oz of bacon in them, that store would be prosecuted under your state's "weights and measures" law. If you went to buy gas for your car and the pump gave you 120 fluid ounces of gas for every gallon you thought you'd bought (instead of 128), they would be liable under the same law. So how the heck can telco companies think they can get away with advertising one speed and delivering something else? Why should they be allowed "special dispensation" to break the law?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          We have this in the UK. ISPs have to advertise the average speed their customers get, and when you inquire they have to offer a personalized speed estimate. The estimate is initially based on your distance from the nearest exchange and congestion in your area. If your line has been used for broadband before then measurements from it are used to estimate available speed.

          It seems a bit pessimistic, I get more than it thought I would, although it's still shit compared to developed countries.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by ytene ( 4376651 )
            Indeed.

            One other important thing to do, often right after an engineer visit, is to fire up your router and screen grab the line speed [not the throughput, but the actual rate negotiated from your router to the carrier's infrastructure. I have screen shots, for example, of an old home line running at 80Mb (for an 80/20 service). Then, when the line magically degrades with time until you get to 60Mb/s, you can put a fault call in and the moment your telco tries to fob you off with the claim that "Sorry, bu

        • Yup. When I last had DSL service, my modem was, exactly, 54 feet from the pedestal, estimated cable run 75 feet. The nearest switch was about 3/4 of a mile away. I got reliable 6/1, back in 2006.

          Today I'm done with DSL, I moved where the closest SLIC is about 1.5 miles away. The pedestals are NOT processing signal here. My neighbors all claim speeds around 1.5-2MB down, and I got the same. Bleagh. Current cable service, mid-tier, gives me around 150/45, though I have to play with my cloud server to test and

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by alexo ( 9335 )

          So how the heck can telco companies think they can get away with advertising one speed and delivering something else? Why should they be allowed "special dispensation" to break the law?

          Because bribes, er, campaign contributions.

        • If the FCC was worth the money paid for their salaries, they would enact rules...

          giving cable companies cover for increasing their profits without having to do anything. These rules justify the FCC salaries to the cable company executives.

    • No joke. I haven't been on Comcast for a long time but I just did a speed test on Suddenlink and I'm getting 105Mbps out of 400Mbps alleged. Probably gonna drop service down to the 100Mbps tier as a result. They claim to sell Gigabit, and this is the modem that is supposed to do it, but clearly that's not available here.

      • Run those tests at different times. You might get 400 at 2am.

        That's an insult, but at least you'll know how they are doing you.

  • I've been thinking about this for awhile. (Score:3)

    by Seclusion ( 411646 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:46AM (#60587592)

    As someone who's Internet service is with a local cable ISP, I'm concerned my future choices for Internet will only be celular companies like AT&T and Verizon.
    If wired ISP's don't drastically increase speeds and remove caps, cellular companies will drive them out of business. 10Gbps is a good start and can't get here fast enough IMO.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I've noticed that a lot of them just do enough to stay moderately competitive and no more.

      My local one, Virgin Media, is a great example. Now seeing a bit of competition from 1G/1G fibre so they have launched a 1.01G product... But the upload speed is a pathetic 0.05Gbps. They know most people will just look at the headline download speed and the product page on their website doesn't even mention the upload speed.

      Back when I used to use them they advertised "unlimited" service but would send you regular ema

  • Who cares (Score:4, Informative)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @04:09AM (#60587620)

    I have 1Gbps (symmetrical, fiber). That is way faster than needed for anything. I seriously do not see any application for having speeds to the home that are comparable to what large enterprises use for their internal backbones or cloud uplinks.

    • Re:Who cares (Score:4, Interesting)

      by poptix ( 78287 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @05:10AM (#60587672) Homepage

      I have redundant gigabit fiber here in Minneapolis.

      CenturyLink (GPON, PPPoe, ick) through the back yard (aerial).

      US Internet (ethernet!) through the front yard (buried).

      I pay $65/mo for one, work pays $65/mo for the other.

      US Internet also offers 10 gigabit for something like $300/mo over the same piece of fiber, since it's pure fiber and not GPON.

      Living in the future is pretty cool.

      • cool story, bro.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bored ( 40072 )

        This is really the problem with the internet/capitalistic/monopoly model in the US.

        Google fibre threatened to come into Austin and within a couple months TimeWarner spent something like 2% of their quarterly profit and swapped all the old garbage DOCSIS 2 modems for DOCSIS 3, and bumped everyone from ~5-10MBit to 100-400Mbit for "free".

        Google fibre wired up like %5 of the neighborhoods, and following right behind their trucks was ATT pulling fiber. ATT actually pulled fibre into my neighborhood, slapped "bu

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have 1Gbps (symmetrical, fiber). That is way faster than needed for anything. I seriously do not see any application for having speeds to the home that are comparable to what large enterprises use for their internal backbones or cloud uplinks.

      Yeah, and I'm sure that you are still doing fine with 640k too.

      Innovation is not driven by people who lack vision.

      • Alright, share your vision with us.

        Having vision is basically my job, and I can't think of any usage that will not either de-facto be equivalent to running a business' servers from home or having not yet developed technology generally available.
        Or being idiotically wasteful ... like storing single bit values in 512-bit words, one word per bit ... or downloading 8K uncompressed video and deleting it straight away each time you are done watching it. (Yeah, I am looking at you, Content Mafia!)

        Sure, if it was a

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cepler ( 21753 )

      You don't see any application for having speeds to the home that are comparable to what large enterprises use?

      Ever try to restore a 2TB cloud backup after your drive died? There are plenty of use cases where the high bandwidth is useful in the home.

      • We are not counting mentally disabled people who do ridiculous things like "'cloud' backups".
        You need to be at least *this* sane: *points at line two heads above Silicon Valley*

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        And you think you get 10Gbps to your online storage just because your last mile has it? Quite unlikely, I would say.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Isaac-Lew ( 623 )
      High-definition video.
      Video games.
      Teleworking.
      Cloud storage.

      • All done with 25MB/s right now with no slow-downs.

        Seriously, HD works, starting at 2Mb/s. 10, tops.
        And don't expect to be taken serously when saying things like "cloud storage". What is this? iLuddie Congress? <McDonalds voice>Do you want a series of tubes with that?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        None of which remotely needs 1Gbps last-mile speed, except maybe cloud storage. For that, you also need to get the speed on the other side and that is rather unlikely unless you pay a lot.

    • I have 1Gbps (symmetrical, fiber). That is way faster than needed for anything. I seriously do not see any application for having speeds to the home that are comparable to what large enterprises use for their internal backbones or cloud uplinks.

      Application or no, I'd rather see advances in getting the under-served decent bandwidth before I want to see the ceiling recede further into the sky. I've got 1Gbps symmetric too, but there are huge geographic regions where DSL or 4G are the only options. One is 6Mbps max, and the other is monthly-metered, which sucks.

      What I'm saying is... work more on feeding the hungry, and less on providing the satiated additional courses for their meals.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I fully agree to that. Going for 10Gbps when there are people that cannot get 100Mbps unmetered is just insane.

    • I have 1Gbps (symmetrical, fiber). That is way faster than needed for anything. I seriously do not see any application for having speeds to the home that are comparable to what large enterprises use for their internal backbones or cloud uplinks.

      Yes, this is the right insight. How does a super fast connection change my experience? If the ISP link is not the bottleneck now, then making it faster doesn't change anything. Some people who need to download and upload large files frequently might benefit. However, for the vast majority of users, there will be no noticeable change.

      What I want more from the ISP are reliability, higher/unlimited data caps, and affordability.

  • Where they sell you a 10Gbps plan but barely deliver 1.25Gbps actual upload/download speeds?
  • Doesn't really matter if you're getting 10Gbps if your cap is still 9600Gb a month. All you've done is speed up how quickly you hit it.

    • Better to do all of your uploading and downloading fast than to arbitrarily spread it out over a month.

      If I need to upload 1TB of data to my server, I would rather do that in a few minutes and be done even if it uses up my cap than to slowly upload it over weeks.

  • It achieved delivering 10 by delivering 1.25 of that same unit? (I had to double-check that one of them wasn's saying "B"!)

    Seriously, who wrote this? I feel gaslighted!

  • There was a time, before Verizon fiber, that I was stuck with Comcast as my only broadband and cable TV provider. My recollection, years and years of customer service Hell. There is no deal, no service, no price that would EVER tempt me to buy Comcast again!

    They have only gotten worse. Here's their offer now, "sign up with us and we'll force you to share your Internet and wifi network with rando, unknown people by turning your wireless network into a free wifi access hot spot!" Great deal. The people who ru

    • I'm a Comcast customer now and no one is forcing me to share any WiFi. I'm using all my own equipment.

  • I feel the need, the need for speed... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @08:19AM (#60588006)

    ...but UPLINK speed. The shitty 1.25 m/bps I get makes cloud backups too painful. I have enough of a download pipe (~400 mbps); more speed there isn't going to get me anything.

  • According to a study by Dr. Raul Katz of Telecom Advisory Services, 10Gbps internet will generate at least $330 billion in total economic output and create more than 676,000 new jobs over the next seven years.

    I didn't read TFA but I am willin to bet this "study" was sponsored by Comcast.

    • Remember years back when Comcast was saying people don't need or won't have a use for faster internet? Before all this streaming video...and when cloud backups were a joke... I think maybe it was before the rebranding of "internet" with the safe sounding "cloud.'

  • crap company (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @09:21AM (#60588150)

    I would go without Internet before I paid Comcast for anything. Comcast may very well be worst company on the planet.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • No sir, that would be AT&T.

        Agreed. At this point in time if I only the choice of Comcast or AT&T, I'd go with Comcast.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      You could live without Internet? I'd love to see that. I can't! I'd go to satellite, dial-up, move, etc.

      • I'm old enough to have lived in a world without Internet, without cell phones. I can imagine a life without them that doesn't suck. But yeah, I might look for other options or create my own options for internet however Comcast isn't on the list.

  • Momma Comcast needs a new Gucci handbag.

  • FTTP deployment is rapidly accelerating in the US. Every dollar spent on DOCSIS upgrades is a dollar wasted. By the time they fully deploy DOCSIS 4 and bludgeon enough people to upgrade their CEs for it to matter millions of existing subs will be at considerable risk from local governments as well as large, medium and small operators actively seizing the initiative to deploy fiber.

    Given Internet access is a commodity, erosion of cable TV and general reputational issues with Comcast there is nothing substa

  • On weekday afternoons in Sillicon Valley when there are 4 zoom calls per family? Promised theoretical bandwidth is irrelevant if there is not enough backbone capacity.

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