[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Docsis 3.0

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I guess this will be available here soon, but really I would not want to 
pay $150/mo for internet service.  The article has me thinking I'm paying 
$53 for 8 mbps now when I should be paying $43 for 6 mbps --- I'll have to 
do something about that.  If Comcast will be blocking P2P, then why would 
I want it to be fast?  --Mike

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http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/comcast-to-bring-speedier-internet-to-st-paul/

N.Y. Times
April 2, 2008

Comcast to Bring Speedier Internet to St. Paul

By Brad Stone

Minnesota sports teams are not known for coming in first. But the Twin 
Cities are now out in front in at least one respect: Comcast plans to 
announce tomorrow that it is beginning the rollout of a new broadband 
Internet technology in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, starting this 
week.

The technology, Docsis 3.0, is a bandwidth hog's dream: Internet users can 
feast on download speeds of up to 50 megabits per second and upload speeds 
of 5 megabits per second. Comcast's chief executive, Brian Roberts, 
demonstrated the technology at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this 
year by downloading a high-definition copy of the movie "Batman Begins." 
It took just four minutes.

The service is pricey. In the Twin Cities, the new tier will be offered at 
$150 a month, as compared to an 8-megabit-per-second download tier now 
offered at $53 and a 6-megabit-per-second download tier at $43.

Docsis 3.0 (the acronym stands for Data Over Cable Systems Interface 
Specifications) gives cable companies like Comcast a competitive offering 
to IPTV services like Verizons' FiOS, which can reach similar speeds in 
some areas of the country. Docsis 3.0 works by bonding together four 
channels " each could otherwise be used for an analog TV broadcast " and 
allowing them to be used as one big data pipe. In regions where 
infrastructure is constrained, Comcast will make room for the expanded 
bandwidth by pulling back some analog channels and using sometimes 
controversial compression techniques on its other bundled services.

Mitch Bowling, a senior vice president at Comcast, said the company would 
make Docsis 3.0 available to 20 percent of homes in areas it serves in 
2009 and will finish the rollout to the rest of the country by 2010.

"This creates more choice and an additional tier of products for our 
customers in all our markets once it's deployed," Mr. Bowling said. "It's 
also a platform that application developers will take advantage of to 
build new innovative applications that can get the most out of the new 
technology."

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