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Cable giant Comcast unveils its FiOS-killer

Cable Internet technology is getting a boost in speed thanks to some new technology demonstrated this week by Comcast. According to Comcast's chief executive Brian Roberts, the company will introduce cable access speeds upwards of 150 megabits per second (Mbps) in the near future. Comcast demonstrated the technology this week, touting that its new cable technology will even best Verizon's Fiber Optics Service (FiOS) speed.

Comcast says its new cable system is based on a technology called DOCSIS 3.0, developed by Cable Television Laboratories. At a recent conference at The Cable Show, Roberts demonstrated the new technology to an audience that consisted of press as well as executives from companies such as Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Viacom Inc.

The new technology works by "bounding" channels together. Traditional cable modems transmit data over a single TV channel, but DOCSIS 3.0 transfers data over 4 channels. The technology is reminiscent of dial-up technology that bonded two telephone lines together into a single modem, giving users roughly twice the speed.

During the presentation, the new cable modem downloaded 300MB of data "within a few short seconds."

Comcast says that while the new modems are well developed, it will still take a few years before mainstream adoption. The problem now is to upgrade all current cable Internet infrastructures to support DOCSIS 3.0. Roberts told reporters that the new DOCSIS 3.0 modems will cost roughly the same as current modems cost today.

While Comcast receives cheers on its new cable technology, the company also launched 16Mbps cable services in certain areas where FiOS is available to compete. Verizon's FiOS service currently tops out at 50Mbps.

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Cable in Australia
By ali 09 on 5/10/2007 6:33:38 AM , Rating: 3
I heard somewhere that internet in the U.S is much faster than in Australia, but my searches didn't reveal much. I at the moment (in Brisbane) have 12Mbit Cable through Optus and there is 24Mbit ADSL2+ but speed never reaches 24Mbits whereas it reaches above 12 with cable. My question is: what is the average internet speed of the US (major cities)? It is interesting to compare.




RE: Cable in Australia
By Kuroyama on 5/10/2007 6:56:22 AM , Rating: 2
In most big cities the fastest ADSL is 3Mbit, and cable varies but is supposedly around 6Mbit. In a few places Verizon, one of the big phone companies, has introduced fiber-optic based internet + TV under the name FiOS, and that goes up to 30Mbit if you're willing to pay US$180 a month ($40 for 15Mbit is the next grade down).


RE: Cable in Australia
By andrinoaa on 5/10/2007 7:13:32 AM , Rating: 2
What are you complaining about? I have ADSL2 and my speed is only 412k down, 64k up! And I live in a very affluent part of Melbourne!!! Get used to living in the "dark ages" because it ain't going to change much in this country for as while.


RE: Cable in Australia
By Viditor on 5/10/2007 7:50:40 AM , Rating: 2
Broadband in Oz is certainly much better than in the US, but it pales in comparison to countries like Korea (where 100Mbps is widespread and is due to be the national minimum speed by 2010).
I myself have adsl2+ in Sydney (actual speed is 20Mbps for me), and while the DL speed is awesome, the pings are not as good as they were with standard ADSL (important for things like gaming).


RE: Cable in Australia
By SquidianLoveGod on 5/10/2007 8:34:33 AM , Rating: 2
Thats where you live, Sydney is a rather large town.
I live in Port Lincoln, South Australia, only 2 hours via the ocean from Adelaide, 8 hours from Adelaide via car.
Now ADSL is available, ADSL 2+ isnt, Cable is non-existent, Satalite is uber expensive considering download limits, Wireless... Allot of drop outs.
ADSL I used to max out at 1.5Mb And I can achieve about 170k on that. Telstra flicked the switch to 8Mb ADSL 1.
The thing that seperates Aussie and US ISP's is the Download limits! Do some comparing! Only last year Telstra being our largest tele-communications provider offered 10GB download limits, Where if you went over your limit you got dropped down to 64k. Or you choose the 20GB plan, where if you went over the download limit you would end up paying something like $150 bucks a GB, Not to mention ADSL 1.5Mb costed 120 bucks last year, or the year before, while the rest of the world enjoyed much faster speeds at lower prices, with larger download limits.
And Netspace being my favorite provider thanks to GameArena has finally moved to ADSL 2+, Now if only Something better than ADSL 1, would come along.
And I don't see why you worry about pings before, You either haven't Port Forwarded, Or you have a router/modem thats of very poor quality.

I'm an active member of whirlpool - the uber aussie Broadband website, And allot of people complain about pings etc. only to realize they haven't configured they're routers/modems properly.

Trust me, Before Optus laid that big phat pipe to the United states years ago, Pings were allot higher.


RE: Cable in Australia
By StevoLincolnite on 5/10/2007 8:40:51 AM , Rating: 2
Agreed, I remember having 2 phone lines and 2 dial-up 33.6k modems back in the day so I would have decent speeds viewing webpages, 2 I.P addresses and I configured Internet Explorer and Netscape to use an I.P each.
And back then lag wasn't much of an issue I could play StarCraft on my 33.6k modem happily with no lag, try doing that today and people will scream at you!
Not to mention back then we had free internet thanks to Global Freeway, pity they went bust.


RE: Cable in Australia
By Charlemain on 5/10/2007 8:43:19 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The thing that seperates Aussie and US ISP's is the Download limits! Do some comparing!

That is true (and it's easy for me to compare since I moved here from LA and still have a house there as well...).
But you're comparing apples and oranges...if you look at the midwest of the US (which is a fair comparison to Port Lincoln), you'll find that there's a great deal of people and households that don't even have ADSL or cable available.
I agree that the DL limits are quite high here in Oz, but they are infinitely better than just 2 years ago, and if Labour does come in and performs the upgrades they promised, we might (in another 5 years) even come close to where Korea is today! :)

I myself pay AUD$70 for 60 GB/month here at 20Mbps...I would happily pay that in the US as well (if I could get it!).


RE: Cable in Australia
By overzealot on 5/10/2007 1:32:52 PM , Rating: 2
Where about's in Port Lincoln are ya? It's on the Internode DSLAM list:
quote:
PORT LINCOLN PTLN SA Active

Link is right here:
http://cgi.internode.on.net/cgi-bin/dsl-coverage-t...


RE: Cable in Australia
By SquidianLoveGod on 5/10/2007 10:31:04 PM , Rating: 1
Port Lincoln doesn't have any suburbs, so I'm guessing... Port Lincoln? lol
And I am aware that Internode has an ADSL 2+ exchange, But I'm waiting on Netspace, or Optus to get one going, Or even Dodo - As they have some great plans on offer.
http://www.netspace.com.au/broadband/adsl2/coverag...
Port Lincoln isn't even on the list.

I'm actually rather lucky at the moment, My next door neighbor has a 1.5Mb ADSL connection, connected to her wireless router, In return of me using that connection, I repair all of her machines, and help her out when she needs it, perform upgrades etc.

So on 1 machine I can download a movie etc and get about 150-170k a second, and on my laptop I can be downloading a game at the same rate.

And I don't like Internode, TPG or iPrmus so don't go there :P To many hassles with those company's.
Even Dodo, who uses the commandico infrastructure, despite a good service, have very poor customer support, which thankfully I haven't had to deal with yet.


RE: Cable in Australia
By darkpaw on 5/10/2007 8:52:38 AM , Rating: 2
Always kinda annoys me when people compare our Internet speeds to someplace like Korea. Korea is pretty tiny so of course its easy to deploy the latest network technology. It takes much longer in the US (and I'm sure Australia too) just due to the size difference. Its mostly about the geography.

I'm sure that some of the stupid regulations in the US don't help either, competition between phone and cable companies is so restricted that there is little choice. The primary barrier is definately size though.


RE: Cable in Australia
By Rugar on 5/10/2007 12:50:33 PM , Rating: 2
I think this is the key. In the US, the ISPs are using your relatively high fees to pay for running service to rural areas so that they can add new customers and charge them to wire even more rural areas. I am sure it's much the same for the Aussies.


RE: Cable in Australia
By SquidianLoveGod on 5/10/2007 10:36:53 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly!
Here in Port Lincoln we have ADSL 1 (Internode has ADSL 2+)
Yet if you travel for an hour, upto Wharminda, there is no ADSL, ADSL 2+, Cable, Not even the new 3G Telstra Wireless.
Not to mention if you got Satalite, You would have to pay a huge installation fee, Put up with slow Upload Speeds, Very lack-lusture download limits, And is expensive on a per-month basis.


RE: Cable in Australia
By HVAC on 5/10/2007 2:39:50 PM , Rating: 2
Size is not the issue. Population density and legacy systems are the issue.


RE: Cable in Australia
By Viditor on 5/10/2007 2:53:59 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Korea is pretty tiny so of course its easy to deploy the latest network technology. It takes much longer in the US (and I'm sure Australia too) just due to the size difference. Its mostly about the geography

That's a fair point, but it's not the whole story...
The difference is mainly that many of the Asian countries (Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, etc...) realised early that internet access and usage is vital to them for economic and educational reasons. In those countries, the government heavily subsidizes the cost of the infrastructure for the internet (Korea has some large rural areas in the mountains outside of Seoul that have full access for example). In both Oz and the US, most all of the internet is funded by the market (while Telstra is majority owned by the government, it's being privatized and operates as a free market entity).
It is more understandable in Oz as we are the same geographical size as the US, but have a total population that is 1/3 less than that of just Southern California...there's far less money to fund the infrastructure in a market based internet here.
But my own opinion is that at some point, these 2 (very wealthy) countries must bite the bullet and sink some serious money into new infrastructure...if for no other reason than we will get left behind before we even realize there was a race! :)


RE: Cable in Australia
By flexy on 5/10/2007 9:06:01 AM , Rating: 2
yes, certainly internet infrastructure in the US is overrated, speedwise the majority of peeople have 3-4MB with available speeds (for most of normal consumers) up to 6MB. The higher speeds are the exception.

In Europe ADSL2 is now standard, that is 16MB/1MB DSL which is mainstream and now replacing the older DSL standard.

I think its good comcast at least getting it on with those speeds...since the lack of competition is what keeps the prices high and the speeds low.

If there are no competitors offering higher speeds then the companies dont see a reason to up caps and lower prices.

Ali: Btw. those are VERY good speeds and certainly WAY over the average wjat is available in the US..even in most of EU. 24M is slowly coming (mostly northern EU)....but then the speeds also depend on DSL line quality etc.


RE: Cable in Australia
By stryfe on 5/10/2007 7:19:25 PM , Rating: 2
I know you asked about the US but I thought you might be interested to hear about Canada as well.

Here in Winnipeg (the situation in other cities is similar) we have an ADSL provider and a Cable provider.

The cable packages go like this:
256kb/256kb $20/mth
5mb/512kb $40/mth
10mb/1mb $50/mth
25mb/1mb $100/mth (this one's only a few months old)

And ADSL:
256kb/256kb $20/mth
3mb/256kb $35/mth
7mb/512kb $45/mth

Happily the market has become saturated here in the last year or two. Now it's easy to play the two companies off one another as they're constantly trying to steal one another's customers. Currently I have the Cable company's 10mb/1mb package for only $30/mth :)


Where's my 37.5Mbps cable now?
By bunnyfubbles on 5/10/2007 7:00:24 AM , Rating: 3
If current cable operates over 1 channel, and this new one over 4, shouldn't we be getting 150/4 from our cable today?

And downstream bandwidth isn't as big of a concern to me as upstream, which is where FIOS really puts cable to shame.




By James Holden on 5/10/2007 7:01:33 AM , Rating: 1
Good point.


RE: Where's my 37.5Mbps cable now?
By theapparition on 5/10/2007 7:28:58 AM , Rating: 5
Another thing to consider is that cable is a shared connection. The trunk line runnning into the neighboorhood has to serve multiple homes. FIOS is not different in this either, but where the two services differ, is that FIOS is supposed to guarrantee 20Mbps to your home (20Mbps-$50/50Mbps-$150 in my area) by the trunk having the capacity to handle that bandwith to every home*. The cable line does not have the capability to handle everyone they serve at full bandwitdh. So, if all your "cable" neighboors are streaming video, you can be sure to see a big reduction in speed.

Your right, 150/4 does not equal today's speeds, but they are using different channels and pushing more data as well, compared to today's single channel.

*The FIOS fiber trunk itself can handle massive amounts of data, its the infrastructure connecting the cable that has limitations. It's much cheaper in the long run to upgrade the infrastructure than to replace cable.


RE: Where's my 37.5Mbps cable now?
By cbo on 5/10/2007 8:09:55 AM