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Comcast CEO Shows Off Super Quick Modem

M

michaels

Banned
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070509/fast_cable_modem.html?.v=2
This is nice and all, but I have never heard anything good about their service, always down etc

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.

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The cost of modems that would support the technology, called "channel bonding," is "not that dissimilar to modems today," he told The Associated Press after a demonstration at The Cable Show. It could be available "within less than a couple years," he said.

The new cable technology is crucial because the industry is competing with a speedy new offering called FiOS, a TV and Internet service that Verizon Communications Inc. is selling over a new fiber-optic network. The top speed currently available through FiOS is 50 megabits per second, but the network is already capable of providing 100 Mbps and the fiber lines offer nearly unlimited potential.

The technology, called DOCSIS 3.0, was developed by the cable industry's research arm, Cable Television Laboratories. It bonds together four cable lines but is capable of allowing much more capacity. The laboratory said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification under the standard by the end of the year.

In the presentation, ARRIS Group Inc. chief executive Robert Stanzione downloaded a 30-second, 300-megabyte television commercial in a few seconds and watched it long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes.

Stanzione also downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary in under four minutes, when it would have taken a standard modem three hours and 12 minutes.

"If you look at what just happened, 55 million words, 100,000 articles, more than 22,000 pictures, maps and more than 400 video clips," Roberts said. "The same download on dial-up would have taken two weeks."

Other cable industry executives, including Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Philippe Dauman, cheered the demonstration during a panel afterward.

Brian Dietz, spokesman for the conference host, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said the demonstration was the key technological advance showcased at the conference.

"It's an exponential step forward and we're very excited," Roberts said. "What consumers actually do with all this speed is up to the imagination of the entrepreneurs of tomorrow."

The Cable Show, http://www.thecableshow.com

Cable Television Laboratories, http://www.cablelabs.com
Click to expand...
 
DOCSIS 3.0 isn't a terribly new advancement - there just aren't any major ISPs (ie Comcast) using it yet.

I'm a bit skeptical that what was demoed will be similar to what subsrcibers can expect, but I guess we'll see.
 
And look how long it takes to get a 1MBit rate from a company along with the cost. 🙁
 
Wait a second - it bonds 4 cable LINES (coax cables) or 4 cable CHANNELS? I think a cable channel has a bandwidth in the area of 6 MHz, so 4 channels would give you 24 MHz, and with QAM you could get 150 megabit/s. I think that makes more sense than 4 pieces of coax, but the article reads like they're using 4 pieces of coax... With 4 lines you should be able to get a lot more than 150 mb/s.
 
As long as they don't do packetshaping and raise the limit to around 1TB, this could be wonderful.
 
what about my uploads dang it. sadly, I'll probably see this before I see FIOS.. and I'll have to switch back to comcast if I want the high speed...
 
Me hugs FIOS. Don't have it yet, but the phone company trucks working like mad in my neighborhood are almost done.
 
This has been talked about for awhile now and I am surprised that Comcast is just now talking about it. However, looking at it from their end, they are in the business of making money and if they are making money with what they currently have then there is no reason to change.

As far as the channel bonding, it is the RF channels and does not require multiple coax inputs.
 
Originally posted by: nightowl
This has been talked about for awhile now and I am surprised that Comcast is just now talking about it. However, looking at it from their end, they are in the business of making money and if they are making money with what they currently have then there is no reason to change.

As far as the channel bonding, it is the RF channels and does not require multiple coax inputs.
Click to expand...

If verzion rolls out FIOS to enough areas, comcast will be forced to change (either with prices or technolgoy).
 
this is why comcast freaking sucks; they only started to move once they had real competition from verizon FIOS. with the shoddy nature of comcast service and the unlimited potential from FIOS (which i hope means that with better technology there is no cap to how fast of a connection you could have), i will certainly switch over to FIOS when it is available in my area.
 
Bah it would've taken me 9 minutes and 20 seconds to download that file, not 16 minutes :|!

But I don't know.. I'm HIGHLY DOUBTING their claim of a "couple seconds" for a 300mb file. First of all, 100Base-T can only transfer at about 12mb/s. At max speed, 300mb would take 25 seconds at 12mb/s. 150/8 gives you a 18.75mb/s theoretical (that's the important word) max. So, even at the theoretical max, it'd still take 16 seconds to download. Excuse my complaint over semantics, but that's hardly "a couple seconds." We've already discussed that 100Base-T cannot handle more than about 12mb/s anyway. Gig-E connections can only handle about 30mb/s because of HDD limitations.
 
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