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Networking Media Television The Internet

Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet 314

Posted by kdawson from the whole-lotta-hd-video dept.
Espectr0 writes "Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts gave The Associated Press a preview of his speech for the Consumer Electronics show, and said that Comcast expects to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second over cable. At that speed you could download a high-definition copy of 'Batman Begins' in four minutes. The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year." Here's a note about Cisco's announcement of their DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem.
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Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet More

Comcast Promising Ultra-Fast Internet

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  • That's Incredible. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cromar ( 1103585 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:50PM (#21957586)
    Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.

    • Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gbulmash ( 688770 ) <semi_famous@ya h o o .com> on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:58PM (#21957754) Homepage Journal
      Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.

      Yeah. Comcast is bitching and moaning about bandwidth usage at current speeds and doing all sorts of dirty stuff to "shape" usage. If they increase speeds by 15-20x, their wailing and gnashing of teeth will know no end (or upper decibel level).

      On the consumer side, they'll probably roll out speeds and pricing only comparable to FIOS and not get anywhere near the higher end speeds at all, or they'll offer 50-100 megabit speeds on business accounts for $200-300 a month.

      Still, Verizon just made FIOS available in my neighborhood. I was waiting to see if they'd roll out FIOS TV too and get the package (dump Comcast altogether). Now I may wait to see if Comcast rolls out the new speedy stuff around here to compete with FIOS in the near future. Could be worth the wait.

      - Greg
      • Somewhat related.

        I just moved, and decided that it would be easier to deal with transferring current comcrap than to initiate service with somebody else. I told them to move my existing service, so if they gave me something else, I'll argue and not pay....

        But my bandwidth has been peaking at about 20Mbps, and averaging around 15-17 inbound, and 2-5Mbps outbound. This is up from about 8Mbps/300kbps at the previous residence. Nifty fast.

        I'm not sure if it's because I'm now in a more rural area and not havi
        • I live in the New York Metro area, next to Newark NJ, and not only do I not have problems with Comcast but I get nearly 3 times the advertised bandwidth. They advertise 8, but I get closer to 18 - 22. 0 throtlling of Bittorrent traffic too. I think I may have a unique case though considering all of the anti-Comcast talk around here.

      • Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 ) * on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:50PM (#21958714) Journal

        was waiting to see if they'd roll out FIOS TV too and get the package (dump Comcast altogether)

        Why wait? Dump 'em now. I dropped my cable package down to "lifeline" service (local tv stations only) and wouldn't even have had that if I could have gotten decent reception with rabbit ears.

        I actually like TV but it's just not worth the fucking money. In my area it now costs $55/mo for basic cable. $660/year. More if you want digital cable, DVR, or any of that. And it goes up every year. I can recall before Time Warner came in and bought up the local cable companies -- basic cable cost about $25/mo for 60 channels. Now it's $55/mo for 68 channels. I guess those five home shopping networks, BBC America and Spike TV really cost them $30 more....

        It's just not fucking worth it. Having the networks will get you most new shows. Cable only shows can be downloaded, oftentimes quite legally (The Daily Show). There's also DVD rentals of older shows (Netflix anyone?).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nullav ( 1053766 )

        On the consumer side, they'll probably roll out speeds and pricing only comparable to FIOS and not get anywhere near the higher end speeds at all, or they'll offer 50-100 megabit speeds on business accounts for $200-300 a month.

        Then again, maybe we'll see a much-needed price war. (Half of me is expecting more colluding and price gouging, while the other is thinking about how Verizon started rolling out fiber and 15Mb symmetric connections, instead of just matching everyone else's offers.)

    • And if we do see that kind of speed for personal use, anyone actually using it to download a fair number of DVDs will find themselves dropped from Comcast.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CMF Risk ( 833574 )
      All the bling in the world will do you no good when they only roll it out to already bandwidth-saturated markets(with FIOS and more), while they leave everyone else out in the cold.

      Yay for market lock-ins

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hal2814 ( 725639 )
      "Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling."

      So I'm going to have to give my service provider a bunch of gold teeth, spinner rims, and chrome things that aren't usually made of chrome just to get some decent bandwidth?

    • Re:That's Incredible. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:37PM (#21958452) Homepage
      FIOS OTN is my basement is running at 680Mb/s. I'm paying $40 to get 20Mb/s of that. They have 2.4Gb/s OTNs but there's no need to deploy them yet. Coax cable plants are legacy.
    • Nah you will see those speeds.... on your billing statement, and the advertisments.

      Of course they will always have a little * next to them with small print on the bottom of the offer that says "* Not a guarantee. Actual speeds vary according to how well we are screwing you."

  • bittorrent (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sankekur ( 998708 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:50PM (#21957592) Homepage
    maybe fast for other things but not for bittorrent
    • Tell your bittorrent client to force encryption.

      I will assume you are using it to download things like movie trailers and free software.
  • I think that's the question on all our minds.

    • Re:Upload bandwidth? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:57PM (#21957744) Homepage Journal

      RTFA. The description [xchangemag.com] of Cisco's DOCSIS 3.0 "modem", linked to from the summary, says:

      Cisco Systems Inc. is demonstrating a DOCSIS 3.0 modem that would let operators support downlink speeds of 160mbps and uplinks of 120mbps [emphasis mine -mi].

      Whether Cable companies will allow you to use all this is another story — probably not, because that's the simplest way for them to combat file-sharing without affecting downloads from "legitimate" servers... And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc.

      But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns...

      • Here is how I bet they will do it:
        1. When you buy the movie download option, the movies will be delivered at full blazing speed to you.
        2. When you do p2p or other download protocols (ftp, nntp, etc), they limit the available bandwidth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          Possible — it is their network, after all... The only thing you can complain about is false advertising.

          The right way to address this problem (should it really appear) is to stop creating artificial mono- and duopolies and allow multiple companies to compete in all markets.

          For years and decades the government was violating the freedom of the Market in order to avoid things like multiple cables running along each other to each house, etc. I'm afraid, the loss of competition outweighed the gains fro

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by timeOday ( 582209 )
        Is your Comcast port 80 blocked? I've been running a webserver on mine ever since I first signed up (2000 or 2001, it was @Home then), and it still works.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by stubear ( 130454 )
        "And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc."

        I've been running my web server (IIS7 with DNS2GO) on ports 80, using 5150 as a automatic fall back should 80 be blocked. So far all my traffic has been going through 80 for quite some time now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Znork ( 31774 )
        "But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns..."

        Heh, really tho. I dont think I've _ever_ bought an internet connection for speed. Every single time has been for price (and/or not-screwing-with-my-connection-policies). In the last five years I havent initiated a single change, yet I've had my speed upgraded three times.

        With cable companies and DSL providers upgrading consumers just because they can it's no wonder they're whining about having to pay for net
      • I know that Comcast does not, universally, block port 80. Just a side note.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by g1zmo ( 315166 )

        And I'm pretty sure, they'll continue blocking port 80, etc.

        I've run ssh, http/https, smtp, ftp, pop/pops, imap/imaps, et al. on all the standard ports for the last 9 years on my cable internet service and never had any ports blocked by the ISP. I've also never had Bittorrent traffic throttled. I can saturate both directions of my 10M/1M pipe with just a few popular swarms.

        The account has passed through the hands of several companies over the years, from AT&T@Home to ATTBI to Comcast and now Time Warner (there may have been another one in there somewhere),

      • Re:Upload bandwidth? (Score:5, Informative)

        by pitdingo ( 649676 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:58PM (#21958850)
        But you'll continue buying it, because the awesome download speed will trump all other concerns...

        Wrong. I will keep buying it, because like the vast majority of Comcast subscribers, I have no other choice.

      • I'm gonna chime in... I use comcast, and I have publicly accessible servers running on ports 80, 443, 22, 25, and 993. Comcast doesn't block your ports until you get complained about in my experience.
  • How about Comcast comes out with "cable infrastructure in my thickly settled neighborhood that doesn't cripple my television and internet bandwidth". I'm in for 2.
  • When I heard about it this morning, it suddenly made sense why Comcast would want to kill off bittorrent: competition! Well, that, and they also wouldn't be able to provide the bandwidth claimed in the contract with their customers.

  • Slick! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pahroza ( 24427 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:52PM (#21957658)
    Speeds as listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Speed_Table [wikipedia.org] are rather impressive. Max usable down and up speeds are 152/108 Mbit/s, respectively.

    Hopefully they'll roll this out with an affordable pricing plan; they already announced that they'll be raising prices in February.
    • you're sharing the downstream with your neighbors - upstream is contention - people get assigned slots - one guy doesn't get all of them and you collide/retransmit with your neighbors

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 )
      It's important to point out that previous versions of DOCSIS also allowed much higher speeds than what is sold to individual customers by Comcast. Since cable is a shared medium, they are forced to sell a fraction of the line's capable speed to each customer in order to spread load. The most they can responsibly sell to an individual customer using this technology is likely in the 30MBps range.

      To put that another way, the next generation of cable internet is going to be 70% slower than what is already avail

    • Re:Slick! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:19PM (#21958182)
      All this shows is that it doesn't make one bit of a difference if it's DOCSIS 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 because Comcast is still going to throttle you via a config file and you will probably never see 150mbit connections on their network unless you're getting on-demand movies.

      If we were currently seeing 38mbit/(9|27)mbit connections now, I might be inclined to say, "yeah, they're going to give us 150+" but because they're operating at about 6mbit/less than 1mbit for the majority of connections (yes, they go a higher for short bursts) this is nothing more than fluff for CES.
      • Actually, Video On Demand doesn't even use the DOCSIS /cable-modem systems. It's done via your traditional Cable Video system (DAVIC and/or OCAP). Basically, when you request a VOD stream, you send the request to the system from your cable-box where they create the session, and create a one-on-one video stream on a edge-QAM on your node. They System then tells you which frequency/channel to tune to for your movie selection. The whole ability to control the video w/ your remote is done by sendi

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )
        While true, the bullshit factor stays at least somewhat constant. So if they get faster speeds in the pipe, you'll probably get a tiny fraction now like you got a tiny fraction before. Same share of a bigger pie is after all bigger.

  • Who cares? They don't max out DOCSIS 1! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:52PM (#21957662) Journal
    Having your modem capable of these speeds is good technically, but I have the "premier" comcast service now and it does not come even close to maxing out DOCSIS 1.x.

    having a DOCSIS 3.x modem would be like having a firehose into your house but only having measly garden hose pressure amount of water going through it.
  • The good news is that Comcast just bought out Insight, the cable company here in Springfield.

    The bad news is that slashdot stories about Comcast are all full of horror stories with Comcast the monstrous villian. Yikes!

    -mcgrew [slashdot.org]

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mh1997 ( 1065630 )
      I've had both Comcast and Insight (because comcast bought insight)...if they would offer ultrafast customer service I would have been thrilled with the normal connection speeds.

      When I reported outages, it would take days for them to respond. When I called to cancel my service, the customer service guy reviewed my history and asked why it took so long for me to cancel.

  • The Internet industry has been promising us higher speeds for nigh on a decade now. However the rollout of this new technology has always been slow to nonexistent. What guarantee do we have that Comcast will roll out DOCSIS 3.0 over any kind of reasonable timespan? Also, given that this is Comcast, what guarantees do we have as far as network neutrality goes? I know that one of major arguments used by proponents of traffic discrimination is the reality of limited bandwidth. Now that bandwidth will be b

    • Vapornet. This holds especially true on the States side where an oligopoly controls the communications infrastructure. They promise a ton to keep people's hopes alive for a thriving 'Net, but we don't ever see it. The WiMax promise is still unfulfilled. The 'fiber in every pot' (am I confusing something here? ;) promises are gone. This is the newest Telecom Tale that definitely deserves to be labeled 'Vapornet'.

  • that's some interesting math right there... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MarcoAtWork ( 28889 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:54PM (#21957698)
    4 minutes would download about 4.5 gigs, which is basically DVD quality... of course you can upconvert this to whichever HD resolution you want, but it's still going to look like crap compared to a 'proper' 30-40 gigs encode. OTOH having something that could d/load a blue-ray/hd-dvd level encode in less than an hour would be pretty good, but in any case the odds of getting that kind of transfer speed connected to a real site are pretty low IMHO.

  • And you get this for... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BUL2294 ( 1081735 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:57PM (#21957742)
    ...the low, low price of $1000/month. But if you also sign up basic cable, home phone, and HBO/Starz, the package will cost $1050/month (for the first 3 months)--plus taxes and regulatory fees. It's Comcastic!

    Comcast - We own you.
  • So at that speed, how long do you think it'll take be be cut off for 'excessive use'? I'd give it 5 minutes, tops.
    • Rogers cable internet service in Ontario:
      'Extreme' $52.95/mth 8Mbps down, 0.8Mbps up 100GB/month limit
      'Extreme Plus' $99.50/mth 18Mbps down, 1Mbps up 90GB/month limit ?!?!?!?

      So I can pay double and you'll let me saturate my connection for 38 minutes per day??
      cable companies are crazy.

      Dedicated server hosting at many datacentres costs $120/month for 1,500GB on a 100Mbps full duplex link.

      We should build municipal fiber networks (lay them as you lay the water and sewerlines)
      Then we can have aw

  • 1/4 Batmans per minute? (Score:5, Funny)

    by X_Bones ( 93097 ) <danorz13&yahoo,com> on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @02:59PM (#21957766) Homepage Journal
    what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by glwtta ( 532858 )
      what's that in Libraries of Congress per second?

      About 1.1 LoCs/fortnight
       
      (hey, turned out to be a very convenient unit).

  • 100 Mbps fibre available here already (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ixlr8 ( 63315 ) <L,Mol&ewi,tudelft,nl> on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:00PM (#21957786) Homepage
    I happen to live in a first-to-roll-out neighborhood for fibre to each home/appartment. Available in my street in 2 months, I get symmetric 20/20 internet bandwidth for some 30 euro/month. Speeds up to 100/100 Mbps are also available (. In addition the fibre carries your voip, radio and tv signals. So I'm guessing the 100/100 is just a convenient maximum speed for internet given that most people either have 10 or 100 stuff in their home.

    Wonder what this 160 is supposed to be priced at and how the technology scales in the future.
  • What good does sooper dooper ultra fast connections do if they cap how much data you can transfer?
  • You can't speed up the server or the network you are downloading from. They can claim it can do Gig speeds but that doesn't help with anything outside of Comcast networks.

    Or how about that person who gets Comcast 160Mb down only to have it run into a 10/100 Ethernet Card.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The storage media is becoming the bottleneck. It's already the slowest thing on my home 1gbps LAN.

      You're also assuming single server for net speed, and completely ignoring doing several things at once.

      I bet this service can be maxed out with a decently seeded torrent alone. It's easy to hit the limit on my 20/20mbps right now, you only need a handful of people with my level of service to hit the 160mbps, and that's just the US. Europe has 100/100mbps, Korea and Japan are starting on 1gbps. FiOS probably has
    • You can't speed up the server or the network you are downloading from. They can claim it can do Gig speeds but that doesn't help with anything outside of Comcast networks.

      Err...what kind of servers are you downloading from that use a home user connection? When you download something most of the lines the information passes through have far greater capacity than the user until you reach close to the home user as it's the "last mile" connection that most greatly limits bandwidth.

      Or how about that person who

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by British ( 51765 )

        They spend $10-$20 to buy a gigabit ethernet adapter.

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the PS3 already have this? If so, good thinking on Sony's part thinking ahead.

  • Promises promises (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kelbear ( 870538 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:08PM (#21957944)
    I'll believe it when they actually offer it, there are plenty of ways for them to tie down that speed into an undesirable product. Excessive pricing, throttling, bundling, lock-in, hidden caps...

    How fast is the upload, and for that matter, how many download sources are there that can actually hit that speed for numerous users? Even in a torrent it's tough to find enough seeders to equal those speeds. If it can be done, how many suscribers can hit that speed before they crowd each other out?

    I think the biggest boost to my practical download speed would be an increase to other people's upload speeds. That sort of breakthrough would be far more exciting.

  • They can't deal with what they already provide? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stickyc ( 38756 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:08PM (#21957950) Homepage
    I'm confused - Comcast has admitted they can't handle the speeds they're already providing to customers, what's the point in providing a faster end-user connection if the back-end can't support it?

  • Upload speed will still be 128k though (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pyite69 ( 463042 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:10PM (#21957988)
    If this is full duplex, then it will be a great deal. Otherwise it is just sad.
  • They could give this service away for free and I still wouldn't touch it. These idiots have proven that their customers. They think their customers are criminals and so enforce laws that don't exist on behalf of the coprorate interests to whom they truly owe their allegiance. They have used every opportunity to bleed areas they monopolize dry. Their terms of service are draconian and impenetrable. They have fought tooth and nail against the establishment of any kind of competition (wonder why you can't
  • In other news, SPAM reaches unprecedentedly high volumes.
  • The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year.

    Great, so my cable company will force me to buy another new modem, while I'll still only get 2-3Mbps realistic speeds.

    How about we stop screwing around... Just give me my FTTP already, preferably not tied to either phone or cable (so I can ditch both).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Knara ( 9377 )

      You buy your cable modem? Why?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        You buy your cable modem? Why?

        Because although it may seem like they force another upgrade on us every year, I'd say it actually comes out to about two to three years per modem.

        Which, at $2/month, means it would cost me more to rent it than to buy my own. And in any case, I'd far rather give my money to NewEgg than to Time Warner... Not to mention, if I buy my own I can get a unit decent enough to keep sync, vs the bottom-of-the-barrel crap they loan to renters.


        It more pisses me off that I have bas
  • Yes, I agree but QWEST is worse!!!!!
  • At that speed - how are they gonna keep up snooping on my traffic??? and messing with my torrents?

    oh that's right, they don't do that ...

  • Net Connection Lite (Score:3, Interesting)

    by internic ( 453511 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:16PM (#21958114)
    Yeah, but will this ultra-fast connection come with port blocking, traffic shaping, unspecified caps on data transferred, and TOS that make you agree not to run a server of any kind?
  • At that speed you will reach your download/upload limit on your unlimited connection in just a few hours :D
  • Um, have you forgot about Hammer Granny [slashdot.org]? How about the Sleepy Tech guy [youtube.com], who ended up falling asleep because they put him on hold for over 2 hours? (And of course, he was the one fired, while the problem remains).

    No matter how fast they claim to be now, if their customer service remains a bureaucratic hell, no way.

  • Batman? (Score:3, Funny)

    by glitch_xl ( 933407 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:21PM (#21958210)
    I've already GOT batman - what else you got?

  • But it's still Comcast (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Avatar8 ( 748465 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @03:21PM (#21958216)
    Given the company's history, I don't trust a single word the article says.


    -"Up to" 160 mbps likely means "We'll sell you 20Mb for $50/mth to barely squeeze out our competition, but real speed will cost ya $$$$."
    -Is it still a shared network? So if my neighbors are all downloading Batman Begins, is my internet download going to slow to 1mbps? I bet it will.
    -Will the service be reliable, as in always on, 24x7x365, you know, like the phone companies and my FiOS connection are? I completely and totally doubt it.
    -Will the charge per month keep increasing every six months? I think it will.
    -Will you still charge customers for house calls even when the fault lies in your network and your equipment? I'm sure you will.
    -Will you replace your unskilled, rude and generally ignorant customer service with talented, considerate and intelligent people? Only if Comcast decides to pay a decent wage, so I guess not.
    -Will the VoD carry the latest movies as soon as they're legally available? If the CEO is using Batman Begins (2005) as an example, probably not.
    -Will Comcast ever apologize or make amends for all the anguish, pain, suffering and overbilling they have caused their customers since Comcast came into existence? I'm not holding my breath.


    My only wish is that Comcast executives, where ever they go will receive the same kind of service they themselves deliver.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheeze ( 12756 )
      Where to start

      1. 20Mb for $50 is better than the $60/month i pay now for 10Mb
      2. Shared? The whole internet is shared. Want dedicated bandwidth, get a dedicated link to EVERY SERVER ON THE INTERNET!
      3. Mine is reliable. you might just have a bad link or bad cabling in your house.
      4. the price will probably increase if you sign up for one of their "$20 off for 3 months" deals.
      5. Comcast doesn't do that.
      6. very doubtful, but that's customer service at ANY company.
      7. Maybe Maybe not, which ever is more profitable

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Avatar8 ( 748465 )
        1. Yes, but that's what they'll offer to new customers to compete with Verizon regardless of what current customers are paying.
        2. Not really. When you hit a connection to a domain you're most likely hitting a network load balancing switch and taking a slice of one of multiple servers. I simply prefer having the dedicated connection TO the internet like DSL and FiOS as opposed to being on a "hub" (not even a switch) with my neighbors.
        3. Had it for over 3 years and had a problem at least every month, someti
  • 160 megabits ... throttled down to 2 megabits. Your cable dollars at work.
  • Cable TV standards R definitely the star of the show, along with the coverage of BOCA/True2way, this show is definitely a vindication of cable standards.
  • Perhaps this announcement coincides with the announcement of their Project Infinity [reuters.com] initiative... It would seem they need some kind of data network such as this to be able to shove this kind of content thru the tubes. Regardless, Comcast is still evil. They are an entertainment distributor, not an info distributor so do nothing but contribute to the dumbing of the masses. And like someone said earlier, this kind of content expansion will only come with increased costs and fees; considering all this, the
  • And of course they'll continue to flood fake disconnect messages for P2P software. And they'll keep playing games with VPN connections.
  • Just an observation but...
    (4min)(60seconds/min)(160mb/second)/(8mb/MB) = 4800 MB, or approximately the size of a standard DVD.

    Maybe it's just me, but a standard DVD isn't HighDef.

  • Bad summery by CNN (Score:5, Informative)

    by gravis777 ( 123605 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @04:26PM (#21959408)
    After reading the article, the content of the article pretty much backs what I was thinking - that while Comcast may be using some of the bandwidth for internet, most of this looks as if it will be employed for High-Def content on demand. This is 160 meg a second on their network, not on the internet. At least, that is what I am making out of the story.

  • Comcast expects to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second over cable.

    Nobody has it yet.

    The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year."

    1 person will have it in 2008.

  • At this point, I couldn't care less about downstream. I haven't needed more downstream bandwidth since I got rid of the ISDN connection, on the other hand, I'm paying out the nose for Cox's 'business service' so I can enjoy little things like having port 80 open, not being throttled down when torrenting something, and having more than the 1Mb/s upstream offered in their 'premium' plan.
    I don't need or even want a .25 Batmans per minute connection, I just want a nice connection that I'm allowed to use.

  • Maybe they should work on reliability first (Score:3, Informative)

    by NateTech ( 50881 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @10:47PM (#21964324)
    With an outage a week since the installation of supposedly "Commercial grade" Comcast data service in Denver, and their technical staff not even opening tickets for it...

    When someone tells me that Comcast is offering speed, I yawn and ask them to tell me when it will be back up, since it's down at least once a day.

    Warning: Anyone thinking about purchasing Comcast in the south Denver suburbs for any serious data purpose... don't. No matter how fast they say it'll be.

    When it's up, 12 Mb/s down, 2 Mb/s up is nice. But reliability is more important than those speeds. The downtime will drive you crazy if you're used to anything transported by a previous Bell entity. As bad as the Bell's may be, their crap generally stays up or they fix it.

    Comcast shows no interest in fixing chronic problems at all. They're all about the 80/20 rule. If you happen to fall into the 20% that are up and down all the time, they could care less.

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