Cable Holding Back Superfast Broadband?

PPS: I had Netflix at the end of last year... had to cancel my subscription. My ISP throttles HARD.. nothing like trying to watch an ep of 'Walking Dead', and the quality drops from the HD you paid for to pixelated 320x280 because they auto send based on the line conditions and your ISP just dropped the hammer on you because they consider 'streaming legal content' excessive in a market where most people don't even know what a fucking router is
 
Shitty internet connections are shitty internet connections regardless of how fast they get bits to my doorstep. I'd much rather they focus on upping the quality than offering higher speeds.
 
Dregan73 said:
Im a tech for Mediacom cable and I can tell you with 100 positivity Mediacom is only using 4 of 8 channels for downstream and 1 of 4 channels for upstream channel bonding on docis 3. the fastest speed they offer is 50mb and 105mb in some city's and that's without using full channel bonding, there just isn't any competitors here in my city for them to offer anything faster, DSL here is only 12mb that's the only to choices right now.
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The channels I was talking about was to say if someone theoretically decided to launch 3 gig service like the demo in the link I posted. Either way 1 channel of cable can show 2-4 cable channels with current widely used compression so there's only so much they can add without it starting to affect the ability to add service elsewhere.
 
GotNoRice said:
This thread is about "Superfast Broadband". Anyone who uses ~21GB or less per month probably doesn't have any issue with their current speeds either.
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But it answers the question of why they believe no one needs anything faster.Those people are the majority. Figure out a way to get them to use more and demand faster and they'll figure out a way to provide faster service.
 
LigTasm said:
Paying nearly $100/mo for 30/5 service because I didn't bundle it with $149.99 worth of cable, $12.99 of renting a DVR and $29.99 of phone service (don't forget the $39.99 "we'll get there when we get there" service contract), cuz then my internet would be about $40.
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Good thing i live in a capital city of small Central European country :), even if salary is much lower than yours (around $18000 after taxes), prices are much lower too - see bellow.

Package bundles here in Slovakia from UPC (Chello) :
50/5 Mbit, 25 TV channels, phone - 19.9€ ($26.55). Without phone 18.9€ ($25.21). Without TV 11.9€ ($15.87).
100/8 Mbit, 95 TV channels, phone - 27.9€ ($37.22). Without phone 26.9€ ($35.88). Without TV 16.9€ ($22.54).
150/10 Mbit, 95 TV channels, phone - 30.9€ ($41.22). Without phone 29.9€ ($39.89). Without TV 25.9€ ($34.55).
150/10 Mbit, 130 TV channels, phone - 49.9€ ($66.57). This is the "all in" package.
150/10 Mbit, 105 TV channels - 32.8€ ($43.76).
Unfortunately we have to pay a 2€ ($2.67) monthly payment for cable modem (or buy one for 70-90€ ($93.38-$120.06)), but it is still a very good price compared to you :).

Orange, the other big competitor has a package with 100/1 internet for 14.99€ ($20.00) with an option to increase it to 100/10 (19.98€/$26.65) or 100/100 (29.98€/$39.99).

But both of these options are limited to major cities, elsewhere we are still stuck with ADSL (around 3-5MBit for 17.99€/$24, or if you are lucky you can get 10MBit for 26.99€/$36) or even worse.
 
faugusztin said:
Lucky stuff.
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I wish my prices were like that, what makes it even worse is that less than 10 miles away the same service is $40 cheaper where there are other broadband options like Fios.

The only positive thing I have to say about TWC is that they have no cap as of yet.
 
How nice, companies telling us what we're not ready for. That must be why Cable hasn't gotten too much faster over the past 20 or so years, I mean it was 30Mbps 20 years ago, and bandwidth was plentiful! Then as they put more and more subscribers on that same line that 30Mbps dropped mucho rapidly, and we started to get drops in speed, but where they saw a problem they also saw a financial solution and started selling maximum bandwidth in tiered structures, and for much more expensive for the same shit. What's the average cable speeds today? Yeah I know some have 100Mbps+ but we're talking average not what the lucky few schmoes who's willing to plunk down a $150/month (or whatever it costs). At least DSL went up in speed never reverted, most still have shitty tiered system, but 1.5Mbps to 20Mbps ain't a bad leap.
 
GotNoRice said:
This thread is about "Superfast Broadband". Anyone who uses ~21GB or less per month probably doesn't have any issue with their current speeds either.
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Really? Because I felt the speed is what throttled most of my downloading preference, back in the 28.8k modem days I wouldn't even consider to download a movie (porn of course! :D) with 1.5Mbps sure I'll do it... but now, buy a game from steam... 8 GB and half a day later at that same rate? Chances are I'll pass.

Also having speed doesn't always equate to using lots of bandwidth. Sometimes I want that 1080p Youtube clip to buffer up in a second, rather than it downloading almost as fast as I'm watching.
 
Qinsp said:
You can stack T-1 up to a max of 6 mbps, hence the $1100 price. It was like $400 per 1.5 mb.
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This is what I have to do in one of our offices. Really need a much higher speed.

In our main office, Cox has fiber into the building.
I can upgrade to 100mb (both up & down) with just a call, and a higher bill.
AT&T now has fiber into the building too, so I'll have to play them against each other the next time the contract come up :)
 
I'm perfectly happy with 10/1 DSL. I'm on an OpenCDN connection, so I get Netflix Super HD service... and it's much, much better for streaming in general over cable (Comacast).
 
consumers are nowhere near ready for gigabit speeds
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haha.

Oh we're fucking ready. They just haven't rolled out the infrastructure yet. They don't even have switches to handle the gigabit x 1000000 load.

Everyone is ready for instant internet and porn downloads.
 
Maybe with gigabit I could get through a 480p Youtube video without it stopping 3000 times. ;)
 
Ruoh said:
I'm perfectly happy with 10/1 DSL. I'm on an OpenCDN connection, so I get Netflix Super HD service... and it's much, much better for streaming in general over cable (Comacast).
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I thought I was happy with Time Warner 10mbit, until they boosted it to 15mbit.
 
faugusztin said:
Package bundles here in Slovakia from UPC (Chello) :
50/5 Mbit, 25 TV channels, phone - 19.9€ ($26.55). Without phone 18.9€ ($25.21). .
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yeah see. Internet can be cheap and fast.

But American companies are greedy. The only way to get your money back is to buy and sell their stock.
 
dr.kevin said:
I thought I was happy with Time Warner 10mbit, until they boosted it to 15mbit.
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I've had 50Mb service with Comcast. It's fucking awful for streaming. There's something on their backend that causes both Netflix and Hulu to crap out and buffer constantly. It had nothing to do with my side of the connection.
 
Exaggerated example of cable internet provider Cox Communications:

incredibly slow internet: $47
a little bit less incredibly slow $47.50
Super dooper fast internet $48.00

What you have is way over priced, and way slower than they could offer you, but it looks great compared to the options, which aren't really options ...except for your grandma's email. You just recently moved her off AOL dialup, and no other providers ( dsl, uverse, etc ) are willing to offer anything much different than the cable co, because they all are in collusion to keep the status quo.

Am I wrong?
 
I'll probably get flamed for this but I kinda agree with this statement:

"There's only a small percentage of customers who come even close to making extensive use of a 100Mbps service today," he said.
With this in mind, he said he could imagine that few people would actually need 1Gbps of data capacity.
"With 1Gbps of data you could watch 400 HD movies simultaneously," he said. "Or you could stream 100 4K Ultra HD videos at the same time. There is nothing out there today that could manufacture that kind of bandwidth."
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Aside from the linux distro crowd, I don't see what would require a user to download roughly 400 GB an hour. It just doesn't make sense for a company to spend the money required to upgrade their infrastructure when only a tiny percentage of their users will actually pay for those speeds.
 
I'm screwed either way, the city I live in nobody wants to rip up the streets for higher speed internet or fiber. Verizon basically has a monopoly on DSL (Dumb Slow Lines, sure you can get it from another provider, but its all Verizons likes) and Cable internet from COX (really cocks). Unless the rich people who control this city want it, its not going to happen. Santa Barbara, once gloriously known as Silicon Beach is now a joke.
 
Xee said:
Aside from the linux distro crowd, I don't see what would require a user to download roughly 400 GB an hour. It just doesn't make sense for a company to spend the money required to upgrade their infrastructure when only a tiny percentage of their users will actually pay for those speeds.
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That's the thing, it's not about pure amount of data you get, it's about getting the data that you do want really quickly, or as quickly as the servers allow which more than likely will be where any bottleneck is. Hell I'm still rocking a 500GB hard drive, no way in hell I'm still rocking a 250GB drive, I just don't keep everything i download for the sake of keeping it, but if you count the free space on it, I'd fill it up in 5 minutes if I just download everything for the sake of downloading. However when I do download, bam, it'll be done in a hurry, and now I don't have to wait any longer.
 
JimmayLong said:
cox cable is decent in my area in az 100 for 150MB down.
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Yep. In AZ Cox recently bumped the highest tier from 50/10 to 150/20. Their second highest tier went from 22/6 to 50/10. Or thereabouts. I'm on the second highest tier. I started playing the MMO RIFT and had to download 9+ GB of game data. I was getting 6 MB/Sec on the download.....for the whole download and finally figured out that Cox upgraded me to the 50/10 plan. No additional cost. I'm happy with my cable INTERNET connection. Now the TV and Phone....that is a different story.
 
shit edit:
I thought I had a 500GB hd, checked and edited to a 250GB, but forgot to delete the original line :D
 
kindasmart said:
Yep. In AZ Cox recently bumped the highest tier from 50/10 to 150/20. Their second highest tier went from 22/6 to 50/10. Or thereabouts. I'm on the second highest tier. I started playing the MMO RIFT and had to download 9+ GB of game data. I was getting 6 MB/Sec on the download.....for the whole download and finally figured out that Cox upgraded me to the 50/10 plan. No additional cost. I'm happy with my cable INTERNET connection. Now the TV and Phone....that is a different story.
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50/10 here would cost me $75/month through Comcast, or $140/month for 24 months if I bundled it with some tv thing (not counting any other fees that probably are in there) as well. If I wanted 105Mbps that'd cost me $115/month through comcast, or $40 through Sonic.net who's trying to lay fiber ($40 for 100Mbps, $70 for 1Gbps) but getting rejected for permits to put up boxes (all the while Uverse boxes are popping up everywhere), yeah there's no big money bribes going on there.

I think Cable just wouldn't know how to price it, they'd probably come out with 1Gbps service for $500/month or something and think that's a good price for a non-business line.
 
OH yeah.. and meanwhile AT&T renamed their shitty DSL service as "Uverse" so starts sending out flyers to everyone saying "You can get super fast internet through Uverse" (check your address) "We can give you our Elite package of 6Mbps" yah. go fuck yourself.
 
DejaWiz said:
Consumers are nowhere near ready for gigabit speeds? Who the FUCK came up with that conclusion and whom was asked if they were ready for it or not? I have never once received a phone or email survey by my cable company's broadband ISP division asking if I was in the 15 years that cable broadband has been in my city.

YES, DICKHEADS, I AM READY FOR GIGABIT BROADBAND ISP SPEEDS.

That clear enough for you?
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I second that!
 
What pisses me off more than anything is how the bill can't stay at the same rate month after month. Ofcourse, it never goes down, always up a few cents here or there.

Cable FCC Regulatory Fee - $.09
Blah Fee - $0.33
Awesome Fee We Found - $0.55
Random Fee The Government Put On Us And We Put On You Instead - $0.43
 
I recently went from Docsis 2 10/1 connection to a Docsis 3 45/4 connection with the same ISP would still love faster but this will do for now.
 
So let me see if I can put together a TLDR summary of the thoughts in this thread.

An extremely small subset of users want speeds massive speed increases from their ISP while at the same time they want the rate they are charged reduced.

Oh and if the companies don't do it all instantly they are evil and greedy.

How's that? :D
 
Costs me $55 a month here in the UK for 120mbps down.

US still has lots of catching up to do, even in big cities. Only thing i'm going to miss about the UK when I leave in a year will be the fast and decently cheap internet.

People who think every company can just offer 1gbps to everyone are crazy, BTW. Most ISP's backbones are OC-192 / 10gbps. It ain't cheap buying all the equipment to drop in 10 gig-E into 10gbps SONET, and then further cramming multiple OC-192's into one fiber pair using DWDM's forming your backbone.
 
And honestly, the vast majority of people truly don't need 1gbps. Shit, even with 120mbps I don't see the point in having it any faster given the current average sizes of data. I can download 1GB in less then a minute. There is no value in me going any faster given that my highest-end downloads are 12GB and that takes less then 20 minutes.
 
Would I like gig? Yes. Do I need it? Nah. I want them to hurry up and upgrade to 100mb though. Not a fan of paying $100 for 50.
 
it's not that people aren't ready for GB cable, it that people aren't ready for GB cable at their prices.

I have been tempted to move to get google fiber.
 
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