Get Today's Headlines on your cellComcast promises 160 Mb/s Internet access by 2009
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February 2008
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The rollout of the so-called DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem technology should be good news for cable customers hungry for more bandwidth, according to an Associated Press report. But industry analysts say the new technology still won't be able to match up with the blazing speeds of fiber optic services such as Verizon's Fios. Cable companies aren't known as nimble innovators, but Comcast Corp. is out to change that perception this year with ultra-high-speed Internet service, more high-definition content and gadgets that link video, phone and broadband services. Comcast says it will take just four minutes to download "Batman Begins" in high definition. "We're about innovation and having the best network," Chief Executive Brian Roberts told The Associated Press in a preview of his speech at the Consumer Electronics show on Tuesday. Roberts is expected to demonstrate a technology that delivers up to 160 megabits of data per second: It will allow him to download a high-definition copy of "Batman Begins" in four minutes. The technology, DOCSIS 3.0, will start rolling out this year. "If it's as successful as we hope, in 2009 and beyond we will have it available in millions of homes," he said. On the other hand, a study released in late 2006 found that DOCSIS 3.0 won't eclipse fiber optics: "By most accounts, FiOS wins the bandwidth battle against Docsis 3.0 hands down, a point that even the most partisan cable engineers and strategists usually concede," the report says. "Using its existing BPON architecture, Verizon is able to offer shared bandwidth of 622 Mbit/s downstream and 155 Mbit/s upstream, divided among no more than 32 homes." By the same token, the report concludes that Verizon will probably deliver much faster broadband speeds with FiOS than cable operators could ever hope to match, even with the adoption of the Docsis 3.0 specifications. Although the new Docsis standard will enable MSOs to offer shared data speeds as high as 160 Mbit/s downstream and 120 Mbit/s upstream, it says, FiOS has the capability to offer even higher speeds because of its superior network capacity. E-mail entry: |
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