Comcast CEO sees 160Mbps internet in 2008

Remember that blisteringly fast channel bonding modem Comcast showed off earlier this year? Turns out that the firm's CEO is apparently aiming to roll out internet services that can reach up to 160Mbps down / 120Mbps up sometime in 2008. As in, next year. In a recent interview with Fortune, Brian Roberts stated that service based on DOCSIS 3.0 technology would start "rolling out" sometime in 2008, and casually noted that it should provide "more than enough bandwidth to do multiplayer online gaming." Additionally, Cable Digital News explains that the firm has plans to cover some 20-percent of its footprint with the uber-quick service before 2009, and while we're left to guess what areas will be covered, we'd bet locales fetching FiOS could entertain some competition. Granted, we've still got aways to go before we can go toe-to-toe with a certain Swede, but we'll take any progress we can get.

[Via ArsTechnica, image courtesy of AFP / BBC]
Read - Fortune interviews Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
Read - Comcast closes in on 100Mbit/s

[giantenemycrab @ Nov 30th 2007 9:57PM]

They'll still choke your torrents... but faster!

[kastonie @ Dec 1st 2007 1:06AM]

man comcast is so garbage. I live in houston, and ever since they took over time warner, my internet has just been plain garbage. It even routs through pennsylvania for some reason since they took over. Also, when bittorrent is on, not only my torrents are choked, my whole internet experience is choked. The moment I close bittorrent, everything goes back to near normal. I cant believe they can get away with doing something like this even after being outed on the matter...wtf comcast...Its comsucktic!

[[e-mail] @ Dec 3rd 2007 11:06AM]

Doesnt turning on bittorrent encryption get around the traffic shaping problem?

ya'll just need to turn it on!

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Avoid_traffic_shaping

[djcameron @ Nov 30th 2007 10:00PM]

Online gaming performance is all about the latency, not necessarily about the bandwidth.

[Ben @ Nov 30th 2007 10:09PM]

Yeah, seriously. My friend's 1.5Mb DSL gets about 20 less ping than me to Texas servers; and I'm on Comcast's 6Mb plan.

[Totalfixation @ Nov 30th 2007 10:05PM]

so............a 160Mbps divided by how many resident? [chuckle]

[Ryan @ Nov 30th 2007 11:56PM]

DSL is also bottle-necked.... just not in the same place. In reality there isn't a huge difference but coaxial has much more bandwidth than a simple phone line will ever have.

[Bunklung @ Dec 1st 2007 8:04AM]

250? 500 or more people sharing 160mbps? How advanced can you get?!?! The killer app will kill the cable modem... When everyone on the node is web surfing, it's fine. When people actually start to use the bandwidth... What happens? Has anyone seen my Sandvine?

Also, if I was a network operator, I'd rather have my bottle neck in a place I can upgrade: the ASAM (DSL)/in the central office. The last mile is the last place you want a bottle neck. Cable can split the node, kick heavy users off, block traffic, advertise unattainable speeds, and hope nobody actually uses the service. What a great product!

[Brent @ Nov 30th 2007 10:07PM]

120 meg up? they can't even keep my 756 k up... constantly at 350.

[Justin @ Dec 1st 2007 10:18AM]

I had this same problem... I was paying for 768k up, and it never went past 384k. Turned out I was using a DOCSIS 1.0 modem. That spec can only handle 384k upload. I bought a newer 2.0 modem, fixed it immediately.

[Tim @ Nov 30th 2007 10:09PM]

Yeah, but what's the point, if you're not a gamer? Comcast still chokes torrents.

[Hoov @ Nov 30th 2007 10:09PM]

And this is the same company that won't even let you reach your current transfer rate?

[lordebon @ Nov 30th 2007 11:37PM]

Indeed.

"160Mbps unlimited* plan!"

*Usage of more than 10GB combined per month may be subject to limiting your connection to 56k. Which will be the most you can expect at some times anyway.

It's Comcraptic!

[rockintom @ Dec 1st 2007 11:00AM]

Not to sound like I actually *support* comcast (noo, bad, shun), but I've always gotten faster-than-advertised down speeds. Up are crap, but that's pretty normal.

[wcnghj @ Nov 30th 2007 10:13PM]

By then they will have blocked access to everything but their own site.

[Lemaj @ Nov 30th 2007 10:20PM]

Online gaming performance is all about the slowest persons connection speed, so you can have all the speed in the world but it don't matter if somebody else's connection is Walmart speed.

[Bob @ Nov 30th 2007 10:30PM]

It's obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Reader @ Nov 30th 2007 11:52PM]

Yeah last time I checked when someone else has a shitty connection I just get to beat the shit out of them while they stand there.

[Andrew @ Dec 1st 2007 1:19PM]

*Psssssst* You're the one with the Walmart speed.

[Homan @ Dec 1st 2007 10:19PM]

Lemaj is right about Real Time Strategy games, everyone else is right about FPS / MMOs

[Luigi193 @ Nov 30th 2007 10:24PM]

it will be 5 years til we get FIoS where we live....
I can't imagine how long untli this launches. Some towns here (in the always "wonderful") Vermont don't even has DSL!!!

[prttymf8 @ Dec 1st 2007 1:24AM]

No kidding. Looks like they're still trying to download grammar books at 14.4kbps.

[e_rocm @ Nov 30th 2007 10:26PM]

Sigh . . . and here I am stuck on a street without broadband. I would do just about anything for 1.5Mb DSL let alone 160Mb cable.

[JosephMohmed @ Nov 30th 2007 10:31PM]

Same, HughesNet is our only option other than Dial-Up. $800 setup and $100 a month after that for a rare 600kb/s max down, half the time it's worse than Dial-Up and my latency's never been below 700ms. Two year contract. Shit sucks.

[RC @ Nov 30th 2007 10:30PM]

My internet is already fast (Comcast 16MBps). I can only imagine having it 100x faster.

Bring it on Comcast!
Give me DOCSIS 3.0 and Channel Bonding!

[Jesse @ Nov 30th 2007 10:48PM]

10X faster.

[Nick @ Nov 30th 2007 10:58PM]

check your math. it's more like 10 times faster. I'd give an arm an a leg to have download speeds of 1.6GB per second (100 times faster)

[Jettic @ Nov 30th 2007 11:38PM]

All of you are wrong, if you look at the title it says the speed would be 160Mbps, the lowercase 'b' means it's megabits, the capitol B means megabytes, basically RC by saying "My internet is already fast (Comcast 16MBps)" your saying that you can download 16 MB a second.. lol, if you turn that into bits instead of bytes, (16MBps*8=128Mbps) then RC is saying that is internet connection speed is 128Mbps at the moment, and thats ridiculous, T3 is only 44.736 Mbps, and thats way faster than cable. Basically, RC is wrong and so are the next two replies under him...

[Owen V @ Nov 30th 2007 10:39PM]

what about the unavoidable bandwidth shortage of 2010?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/20/research-firm-says-planned-internet-capacity-upgrades-will-fall/

[Ryan @ Nov 30th 2007 10:43PM]

It'd be good news if Comcast would service our house. They won't run cable to our area. Two miles up the road and HEY! they've got it. Why don't they send some development money our way?

[e_rocm @ Nov 30th 2007 10:54PM]

I feel you man. The street behind, in front, and the street perpendicular to my street all have Comcast but they wont come run cable to my street. Because there are only 15 houses on the street they said it wouldn't be worth it for them.

[Wwhat @ Dec 2nd 2007 12:09AM]

Good news to get comcast? WHAT?

[Ryan @ Dec 2nd 2007 12:14AM]

lol Dodged a bullet?

[kevinm @ Nov 30th 2007 10:52PM]

I'm not holding my breath in seeing this anytime soon. 2008 you say? This a joke if they just have it in very small select areas.

[soul_krasty @ Nov 30th 2007 10:52PM]

wow..in my country..we only have 1Mbps only..huhu..

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Nov 30th 2007 10:54PM]

A little bit of math here (which I am admittedly too lazy to attempt) would show the utter impossibility of this feat. Unless they roll it out to, like, 50 customers, their backend connection won't be NEARLY fat enough to come even close to providing this kind of bandwidth to the Internet. Now, if they're talking 160M/120M to the Comcast network, then maybe. But at that point, whoop-de-freaking-do. My guess is that the impetus for this is IPTV. You'll get 160M/120M but only to their network, which is where the IPTV will be served up. You'll still get 5M/768K to the Internet, which is all anyone really cares about.

[Don Cooper @ Dec 1st 2007 11:46AM]

The point about capacity is a good one. I don't think Comcast, or any other cable company for that matter, has the capacity to handle anything like these speeds. So even it's technically possible you won't see it. Comcast may find someplace in their service areas where they can roll this out on a limited basis but that will be about it.

[BananaBoat @ Nov 30th 2007 11:15PM]

My area doesn't have Fios, so I don't think I need to worry about DOCSIS 3 getting rolled out here anytime soon. It's a little bit aggrivating that they build up 3 or 4 markets and leave the other 100 out in the cold. They could atleast up the max speed here to 12mbps from 6mbps...that'd be a nice change.

[Mark @ Dec 1st 2007 12:05AM]

what's the point of high speed if they choke your torrents? You could go to usenet, but they'll choke that too.

[nonamo @ Dec 1st 2007 2:13AM]

Good for him, still struggling to get up to 2mbit at home! and thats £25-$50 a month as it is :@

[Adam @ Dec 1st 2007 2:21AM]

160mbps is the same as 20 MB/s. Verizon fios offers 20 MB/s. Sounds like Comcast is trying to impress people with a little marketing spin.

[Ryan Worrell @ Dec 1st 2007 2:37AM]

Um. Are you stupid? All ISP's market their speeds in mega-bits per second. Even FIOS. BTW FIOS doesnt over 20 mega-bytes per second, they over 20 mega-bits per second, DOCSIS3.0 blows the shit out of FIOS. Hell its a good start. FIOS can't even get their own shit rolled out correctly after all this time, At least Comcast is making headway. My only complaint is the torrents. But a lil uTorrent encryption and all is fine.

[Adam @ Dec 1st 2007 4:30AM]

Um are you stupid?

Learn some grammar before you start throwing insults like an 8 year old.

"BTW FIOS doesnt over 20 mega-bytes per second"

"Doesnt over" huh?
Didn't they teach you punctuation spelling in third grade?

a "lil"? What are you ....stupid?

[MRCUR @ Dec 1st 2007 9:53AM]

Actually, Verizon offers 20Mbps FiOS, not 20MBps.

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Dec 1st 2007 10:25AM]

Verizon Doesn't offer 20 megaBYTES per second anywhere. Such bandwidth could only be obtained by a large business, and would cost big bucks. 6 figures. I challenge you to prove otherwise.

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Dec 1st 2007 10:37AM]

Let me amend my last statement slightly. Verizon probably offers optical carrier lines that could get 20 megaBYTES/sec, but not to YOUR house. Unless you have lots of money to waste. In case you're interested, you'd probably need >= OC-3 connection to get that kind of bandwidth, roughly $4000+/mo.

[DB @ Dec 1st 2007 2:50AM]

I had 80mbps last year with fiber, until they neutered it and started charging in 4 tiers;
1mbps, 3mbps, 10mbps, 20mbps...

Should have never let them install the new box...

[moondy @ Dec 1st 2007 3:16AM]

Americans are pretty damn ungrateful for what they have. Dial up still exists in Australia WITH download caps (not that you can download anything with that speed).

[wickedpheonix @ Dec 1st 2007 5:42AM]

well considering the fact that:

1) Americans have money and voting power and a little less than free-market capitalism to spend on this
2) Americans think that their country should be the best in the world for anything, recently that's only been true for military power (sorta... Iraq became the next vietnam a couple years ago now) but subconsciously they'd like it to be for internet capabilities as well
3) South Korea is the s**t for a great ISP now... yeah 100/100 is not as much in South Korea as it would be in the US because of all the connections overseas but I mean come on 100/100 for $20/mo?! People want that...

So yeah it may sound a little stupid with a couple too many holes in there but its true.

[Xtopher Robin @ Dec 1st 2007 9:16AM]

Yay! Now torrents will download faster -- oh wait, they'll be at the same speed: nil.