Comcast CEO Demos “Channel Bonding” Modem

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The CEO of Comcast finally unveiled the company’s new channel bonding modem we told you about last month. You’ll remember that the new modem is supposed to be twenty five times faster than today’s standard cable modems, providing data download speeds of 150 megabits per second.

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.
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Less than a couple years.....now there is a promising time frame! (sarcasm)
 
The current modems can do up to 42Mbps max or something. Know anyone that has service like this? Highest I've seen is 15 or so. If comcast was maxing out there current tech I would be more interested in this. Right now it is just something that will take years to get.
 
Steve said:
The CEO of Comcast finally unveiled the company’s new channel bonding modem we told you about last month. You’ll remember that the new modem is supposed to be twenty five times faster than today’s standard cable modems, providing data download speeds of 150 megabits per second.
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I'd be happy if they just delivered on the promises they already make and would consistently keep my ping times down. At least once a week I have times where ping times jump from 80ms to between 500-6000ms. This can last all night. Rebooting the router and modem doesn't fix the problem. I wasn't sure what it was before, because even if I shut off all upstream activity, the pings times made gaming impossible, but last night it happened again, and if i uploaded as little as 80kbs, ping times jumped over 1000ms (normally I could upload 35kbs with no effect). My guess is that the don't allocate enough upstream bandwidth and thus everyone can be affected even if they aren't uploading....just another reason I'll switch to DSL when my special deal on Cable ends and/or I move.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
Less than a couple years.....now there is a promising time frame! (sarcasm)
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Tell me about it. With the way they go about upgrading, I suspect it would be a few years more than a couple.

swatbat said:
The current modems can do up to 42Mbps max or something. Know anyone that has service like this? Highest I've seen is 15 or so. If comcast was maxing out there current tech I would be more interested in this. Right now it is just something that will take years to get.
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Yeah, some business cable and some cable providers offered much faster speed than the regular 15 that most gets. I would also be more interested in a boost of our current speeds, especially on the upload.
 
nilepez said:
I'd be happy if they just delivered on the promises they already make and would consistently keep my ping times down. At least once a week I have times where ping times jump from 80ms to between 500-6000ms. This can last all night. Rebooting the router and modem doesn't fix the problem. I wasn't sure what it was before, because even if I shut off all upstream activity, the pings times made gaming impossible, but last night it happened again, and if i uploaded as little as 80kbs, ping times jumped over 1000ms (normally I could upload 35kbs with no effect). My guess is that the don't allocate enough upstream bandwidth and thus everyone can be affected even if they aren't uploading....just another reason I'll switch to DSL when my special deal on Cable ends and/or I move.
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My connection pings out every minute making any type of online play impossible. I can't wait till FIOS comes to my area.
 
Yeah and this will just become a super-premium tier that costs $120/mo or something, instead of just upgrading everybody. :p
 
This will take years before I see any speed increase heck I have had cable for 11+ years and my speed has only tripled and that was only in the last 10 months, and why tripled sounds like allot I started out with 768K.

I am patiently waiting for FIOS I am sure Verizon only installs FIOS in heavily populated areas at the moment and I don’t live in one of those locations..
 
Pre-DOCSIS 3.0 has been running in Singapore for the past year. It's a BYOM (Bring Your Own Modem) deal, and with the modem price running at ~$600US, it's not a cheap buy-in.

http://tinyurl.com/yp65cr

We are still trying to clear the pipe enough to bring full DOCSIS 2.0 to the masses here (about 15mb down / 3mb up), but the ugly truth is you have to kill off all the DOCSIS 1.x modems to bring the full stream up. That's a chunk of change the boss doesn't want to cough.
 
I really do.

For all of you that don't read sitest that deal with other info, this means alot more or really alot less than you see.

These modems can channel bond to harness the power of more than one channel that would be use for cable Internet service, good. However this does mean that the internet service will need more of cable's channels or bandwidth, bad.


Right now cable companies especially comcast are in the process of "reclaiming" channels, they are doing this by converting their old analog channels into digital broadcasts the goal is to get rid of analog all together. I see this as bad because I can see the digital compression, the digital service in my area is deplorable with frequent errors/freezes/encoding-decoding issues and most of all this will require subscribers to have rented boxes. They could also be squeezing the size of the digital stream too.

Cable companies are also having trails on switched broadcasts. At most times not all the channels in the services are being viewed. At the local redistribution office a device will switch off channels that aren't being used and they could be used for other services the only problem with that technology right now is that it takes time to switch to channels that aren't in use, however channel flipping with digital cable isn't instant either and we might be forced to use that too...


My biggest gripe is that over the years we've seen new technology - new ways to bill us for stuff, but the quality of it all has gone horribly low.
 
Am I the only one who is happy with comcast?

<a href="http://speedtest.dslreports.com"><img border=0 src="http://www.dslreports.com/im/29616242/5640.png"></a>
 
Matt126 said:
Am I the only one who is happy with comcast?

5640.png
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I think they need to upgrade the speed for all of their customers before flaunting things like this. I'm still on 7.0M / 384k :rolleyes:

I believe cable modems run on a different frequency band from the main TV signals so channel bonding should not take away from the cable bandwidth. Anyone have more knowledge of this?

As for digital cable, I've noticed that some of the analog channels have disappeared. For instance the analog HBO used to be on channel 15 and now channel 15 is simply gone.

Unfortunately digital cable does seem to use crappy compression. For any slow video it's not really noticeable. However if you watch action movies or anything else with a lot of fast motion, you can really see the pixelation / compression artifacts in the image.
 
In the area I live in, everyone I've talked to about internet access who tried Comcast ended up dropping it or plans to drop it for Verizon DSL, or FIOS when its available in this area.

I work for an engineering firm that happens to contract with Verizon for doing the layout work for their FIOS network over New England, and the funny thing is, our company's internet access is provided by, you guessed it, Comcast, and guess what? It stinks.

I've personally had DSL from the very first day it was offered here, and my next jump based on what I'm seeing is going to be to FIOS. I've had a couple bouts of trouble, but nothing lasting more than a couple days, and not more than maybe once a year if that.

Now, this new cable technology may prove to be the "thing" to have once its pushed out to market, but I'm iffy on it personally.

In the end, Verizon and Comcast going at each other and trying to one up the other only benefits us all, with better speed and hopefully better pricing.

Time will tell.
 
He was on some tech panel a coupld years ago threatening to do this. It was a no-brainer to me, use 10 channels instead of 1, modem circuits have gotten dirtcheap.

But then FIOS can do the equivalent only 25x 15Mbps :eek: :p
 
As far as waiting for comcast to upgrade the modems.. why? I bought a new motorola for a little over $50 and can consistently dl 10-12mb/s with a docsys 2. If you are renting the modem consider buying.
 
Sure the technology is there, but when will the actual bandwidth be available to the consumer? In Colorado Springs, when Adelphia was transitioning to Comcast, they screwed up and took everyone's BW caps off. I was getting 29.9MBps (MegaBits) five minute averages as measured through MRTG at night, and ~19MBps during the daytime. So I already knew the tech was there to give the end user more BW, but Comcast has work to do upgrading the nodes and the long-haul.
 
Sounds like an e-peen contest with Verizon/telecom companies to me. Stop stop-gapping your copper-tech by ganging lines together, and start laying new lines. Sure, it took like 40-50 years to get infrastructure to most of the nation, but that was indeed...years ago. Government is laissez faire about the telecom backbone, don't fuck it up.

Besides, aren't the media companies going to be screaming and crying now that I could leech their DRM/non-DRM'd content even faster now? :rolleyes:
 
isn't comcast notorious for kicking out customers for downloading too much? wouldn't this just make it so that you get banned faster? why have all that speed if you can't use it?
 
JiveMofo said:
isn't comcast notorious for kicking out customers for downloading too much? wouldn't this just make it so that you get banned faster? why have all that speed if you can't use it?
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Yep that is another way of looking at it :(
 
Every time I've had cable it's sucked. DSL has been wonderful, however. I'll stick to what I know works well.
 
here in st augustine fl we just got hijacked from time warner to comcrap, not only did they screw the inet up so bad my ping times went to over 200 the past two months, they also decided those of us with that nice SA dvr had to turn them in to get a crappy, hobbled, and basically worthless motorolla one.

so we switched to direct-tv for our viewing, which btw ROCKS as far as pic quality and the dvr while not being as good as the SA one, is vastly superior to that POS comcast tried to rape us for.

if comcast werent our ONLY option for inet other than dial-up (dsl unavailable although they would be SOOO happy to run t-1 or better at insane prices of course) we would drop cable in 30 seconds or less
 
25x faster than what?
It is maybe 5x faster than my cable connection. Do they mean 25x faster than their own speeds?
 
I think they need to start spending more money on getting current broadband to the rest of the nation. Stop spending money on developing new products and start spending money on getting current generation to everybody. However, I'm stuck on dial-up with 26.6 speeds at best so maybe I am biased. :(
 
Oh, I see it in your profile.
That sucks dude. Are you so rural that there simply aren't lines run for broadband yet?
 
[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]


with absolutely no wires at all. here in rural, northern ontario, it's either WiMax or 56k (if i'm lucky) dial-up.... hmmmmmmmm :p

that ping of 70 is very consistent and the transfer rates will definitely increase as this is revision 1.0.

and to think, i used to believe wireless connections got me fragged :cool:



not to take anything away from the wickedly wicked new comcast tech that'll be out in 12.63 years...


...compared to the widescale wireless broadband rollout which is taking place NOW across ALL rural areas of canada
 
UrielDagda said:
Matt126 said:
3780.png


Not too damn happy here. :mad:
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If I consistently got that, I'd be satisfied, but when my 500kbs (or is it 384) turns into 80kbs, there's a problem. It's not just comcast. Cox had issues too. And fracking Cox always forces you to have a stupid machine talk to you to trouble shoot your line. I'm sorry, but once I've turned off the modem once, it's time give me a person...preferably a Tier 2 Tech who actually has a clue.
Click to expand...
 
bigstusexy said:
I really do.

For all of you that don't read sitest that deal with other info, this means alot more or really alot less than you see.

These modems can channel bond to harness the power of more than one channel that would be use for cable Internet service, good. However this does mean that the internet service will need more of cable's channels or bandwidth, bad.


Right now cable companies especially comcast are in the process of "reclaiming" channels, they are doing this by converting their old analog channels into digital broadcasts the goal is to get rid of analog all together. I see this as bad because I can see the digital compression, the digital service in my area is deplorable with frequent errors/freezes/encoding-decoding issues and most of all this will require subscribers to have rented boxes. They could also be squeezing the size of the digital stream too.

Cable companies are also having trails on switched broadcasts. At most times not all the channels in the services are being viewed. At the local redistribution office a device will switch off channels that aren't being used and they could be used for other services the only problem with that technology right now is that it takes time to switch to channels that aren't in use, however channel flipping with digital cable isn't instant either and we might be forced to use that too...


My biggest gripe is that over the years we've seen new technology - new ways to bill us for stuff, but the quality of it all has gone horribly low.
Click to expand...

then they are telling you lies... cable modems are using frequencies in the 50+ghz range... wayyyyyyyy above even the highest analog cable TV channel frequencies...

they just want to kill off analog becuase digital makes them more money
 
Order said:
25x faster than what?
It is maybe 5x faster than my cable connection. Do they mean 25x faster than their own speeds?
Click to expand...

That should probably say up to 25x faster. That is how a lot of ISPs like to play their games. EarthLink likes to state that they are up to 75x faster than dialup then at the botton of the screen in small print it says that they are using the average between 28.8 and 56K speeds which would mean they are assuming that about 42.4 so their 75x faster than dialup is only about 3Mbps. 75x faster than 56k would actually be more around 4Mbsp.

Same here, 25x faster than 6Mbps would give you 150Mbps, so Comcast is going off of their slower service (6Mbps) to make it sound better to people that don't know any better.
 
Hey! Maybe we can finally catch up to the rest of the world in speeds! Oh, wait... No we won't... Because there is no competition...

We originally paid for 6mbps/512kbps connection, which was the highest Comcast offered here. But, we were unable to reach any higher than 4.5mbps download, no matter hwta was done, so we dropped down to 4mbps/384kbps, which STILL costs a RIDICULOUS $40/month... Screw Comcast... Screw the U.S. government for letting the TelCom's and Cable companies to Duopolize.

:mad:
 
I don't like Comcast as well.. I've had them in the past for an ISP, and it was terrible. DNS servers would always be down, my service would just cut out for an hour at a time, and sometimes speeds would be just a hair double that of 56k. Not only that, but every time I'd call customer service to complain and get a tech out, they had tech support based in Canada, and I'd get called things like an American Pig or arrogant American. I ended up cancelling and not having to pay the early termination fee because they feared a lawsuit.

I have Wide Open West right now, and I'm satisfied with a rock steady 6.6mbit down and 1.2mbit up.

Comcast has recently began advertising the speedboost in my area, and its a joke. It works just long enough for the speed tests on various websites to show an awesome speed. But with actual downloading and uploading, it tapers off to normal speeds after a minute or so. I tried seeding a torrent on my friends Comcast speedboost connection to test it out, and it was at around 2mbit for 30 seconds or so, then tapered off to 750kbps.

I'd really like them to release the 'fast' service they talk about in the article, because that would mean I also get a faster speed with my current service so they stay on par with Comcrap. :)

Or wait.. are they just claiming the modem to be that fast.. and the service will probably be much slower? ;)
 
My comcast cable internet works great, I had some problems before but that was due to old wiring through out the house. Once that was replaced the rare problems went away.
 
FLECOM said:
then they are telling you lies... cable modems are using frequencies in the 50+ghz range... wayyyyyyyy above even the highest analog cable TV channel frequencies...

they just want to kill off analog becuase digital makes them more money
Click to expand...

Mrrrmpf!

Gigahertz, my ass. :p

levels.jpg


That's 579 mhz, in between Channel 2 and 3 of the analog TV band. All five of our downstream channels are in that window, the upstreams are even lower at 30 mhz and 35 mhz (the one shown on the chart). Incidentally, that's the "Signal" page off my SB5120 cable modem, and it shows a modem on 'cruise control' (no retransmits, no error correction or codeword errors).

DOCSIS 3.0 "channel bonding" uses four upstreams and high rate QAM modulation to produced the wicked data rates outbound from the CPE (your computer).

As for the digital vs analog argument, you're right. Cable companies would LOVE to get rid of the bandwidth hog analog channels, because you can shoehorn four to eight SD channels in the same spectrum without much in the way of visual degradation. You can blame sports junkies for the transition; just how damned many ESPN channels do you guys need, anyway? :D
 
Just for giggles. My home modem is an "uncap", used for troubleshooting on the node where I live. The ping time is screwed up apparently by my router, the rest speaks for itself:



For the technically inclined, the node is running on a 3.2mhz wide upstream with 16QAM modulation, the downstream is running 256QAM. The CM file for the modem sets the data stream as "best rate", meaning the cable modem is competing equally with the other 185 modems on this node for transmit slots. At 5am, that download rate routinely hits 27000 kb/s. That upload is about as good as it gets for the DOCSIS 1.1 compatible upstream. If I can ever get things configured for pure 2.0, that would be more like 15000 kb/s, which we routinely saw during testing.
 
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