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The Engineer
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Super Fast Cable Modem

05/09/2007 11:36 AM

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.

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/ap_on_hi_te/fast_cable_modem

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Guru
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#1

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/09/2007 3:11 PM

Korean cable users all ready have 100 Mb cable service and real time streamed TV. they will soon have up to 10 times this. Now that's fast.

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The Engineer
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#2
In reply to #1

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/09/2007 4:20 PM

It won't be long before one-way communication such as radio, tv, etc will be a quaint relic. Hard to imagine being able to download an entire movie in one second. Though in all likelihood the movies will be more like 10GB by then (High Definition, Faster Frame Rates, more colors, etc). Still, its exciting.

I read somewhere that google is working with some observatory that has a 5000 megapixel camera that scans the sky. Supposedly anyone will be able to access a database of images and look at them. Sort of an online approach to astronomy that caters to amateur. It sounds exciting.

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#3
In reply to #2

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/09/2007 6:32 PM

Google seem intent on conquering planet earth and all who live on it. Does that remind you of another business that fears Google MS? Perhaps the politicians are now just puppets!

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The Engineer
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#4
In reply to #3

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 10:39 AM

Not employees, politicians are "outsourced political service providers". For a fee, provided by a lobbyist on behalf of the corporation, the politician drafts legislation to the client's specifications and does what he/she can to pass it into law. Untethered capitalism and late stage democracy, BFFs.

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Guru
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#5
In reply to #4

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 11:23 AM

Keep taking the pills Roger, the other utopia is just around the corner.

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The Engineer
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#6
In reply to #5

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 11:38 AM

I hope that's a reference to equilibrium, a greatly under-appreciated movie in my opinion. Sure, it beats you over the head with its themes, and sure there are some holes in the plot, but its still a completely engaging movie.

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#7
In reply to #6

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 11:51 AM

Unless thats the old real man saves real woman and makes peace with real green aliens under a bright sky lit by 3 suns and 4 moons; that promptly explodes, I think I must have missed that one. What I was actually hinting at is that I'm almost a professional cynic when it comes to politics.

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The Engineer
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#8
In reply to #7

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 12:57 PM

That's too bad because as I said, Equilibrium is a good movie. If you get a chance, check it out, though I should warn you, people either love it or hate it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground on it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/

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Guru
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#9
In reply to #8

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 6:49 PM

Perhaps it is more like west world where robots replace humans. Would we ever notice?

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Guru
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#10

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/10/2007 11:05 PM

Lets all not loose sight of the fact that that the raw speed of a cable pipe does not in any way guarantee Internet performance.

The DOCSIS standard equates to a layer 2 (of the OSI model) connection. The layer 3 considerations are addressed by the cable companies DOCSIS router, usually a Cisco unit, sitting at the head end of the cable system.

The bandwidth in and out of that router has more to do with "real world" performance then the size of the pipe to the cable modem. Don't get me wrong... 150 megabits is great... as long as the upstream data links can supply and take away the data at the required rate.

Rick...

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#11

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/11/2007 12:47 AM

Yes, a little faster than the 2400 baud (a good deal on a Hayes was $535.00US) I started out with when I was running a couple BBS's and had 5 phone lines running to the house as a hobby. A person sure becomes addicted to speed, but the more users on the cable, the slooooower things run. Hopefully they will get that so we don't notice it so much.

I like it when my cable pipe isn't bogged down and I can download at 1MB+ per second. Have done that several times. 600MB in less than 10 minutes, and they say they are going to give us 600MB in less than 1 minute? I'm all for it!

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#12
In reply to #11

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/11/2007 10:20 PM

Man... does that bring back memories. I started a WildCat BBS with a 256kb 4 Mhz XT back in 1989. Then added a 80286 with a whopping 1 meg of ram and RS-232C serial link between them. Then got rid of the serial link and installed ARCnet with a passive hub when the third machine was added.

This "hobby" eventualy grew into...

  • 8 nodes running Novell 3.12 on 10mb ethernet... Yes I have the world's largest home base meuseum of wirthless PC junk, anyone interested in buying it? LOL
  • 9+ GB of storage back when 80 MB drives were considered huge, anyone remember Segate MFM drives?
  • 2 SCSI juke box rom drives, that handled 4 disks each in a magazine...
  • 8 , with (anyone remeber this name?) "Night Owl" shareware roms...
  • A FidoNet Node...
  • A 19.2kb satellite (anyone remember Planet Connect?) ffed for usenet traffic.
  • The very first public Internet access, this was before Tim Berner-Lee invented the http protocol at CERN, which was Newsnet news forums.

Then along came the web and killed the BBS. Oh well, that's life... we shut down the BBS in 92. But by then the hobby had morphed into a viable business.

Today... we are a regional ISP in the Eastern Ontario market. We have a honking big fibre pipe, when I remember paying over $800.00 for a USR 14.4 baud modem I laugh, into our server farm and we host a whack of web and mail domains. Have several hundred dial-up, ADSL and fibre customers and provide VAR service to business in the market.

Funny... how it goes, and it all started with a WildCat BBS!.

Rick...

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#13
In reply to #12

Re: Super Fast Cable Modem

05/19/2007 5:18 AM

RBBS on the MS-DOS machines, Z-node software on the Kaypro-10 running Zcpr-3. I was Z-node #4. $6,000 Toshiba notebook with an added parallel CD drive ($125)...sold it to one of my employees a few years ago for $50. Notebooks seem to lose their value in just a few years! I only ran a BBS for 10 years, one Z-node and one DOS side by side for a few years. I too gave it up when everyone went to the Internet. (including me) What a way to spend money.

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