Comcast's DOCSIS 3.0 high-speed internet rolls to Chicago
By Darren Murph 
posted January 28th 2009 9:44PM
posted January 28th 2009 9:44PM
[Via Electronista]
posted January 28th 2009 9:44PM
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Nice to see that even Comcast's upgraded high speed is still crap compared to fiber.
If they don't compare to fiber.....who is offering higher speeds than 50 MB to residential?
I actually have one of these modems already in the NW suburbs of Chicago. They sent us letters saying that our modems needed to be exchanged. It was relatively simple, and there is a definite improvement.
When is someone besides Comcast going to start rolling out DOCSIS 3.0?
50 Mbit speeds = hitting 250gb cap in 12 hours
Exactly, all this does is get you to your cap quicker. Then they can start charging overage fees...
Pardon my ignorance on this one guys...I've heard of DOCSIS 3.0 before, but I have no idea how it works. The article says that existing customers will see a bump up in speed. Do we have to get a new modem to see that increase, or will it come no matter what? Did anyone see a link to which Chicago suburbs in particular have this available already? Thanks in advance for the help.
Yeah, I'm also curious how existing customers would get a speed bump unless they are also upgraded to some level of DOCSIS 3 service. In most areas of the county, we aren't even pushing the limits of what DOCSIS 2 is capable of.
I live south of Seattle and I exchanged a 7 or 8 year old RCA modem out for a new one from Comcast and I have had a 27 Mbit connection ever since. It appears to be a regular 2.0 Motorola modem. So I know that 2.0 has got lots of space to go from the 6.0 that I am paying for. There has been an anouncement resently that we all were getting speed bumps for free but I highly doubt that everyone is getting 27. Someone must not have entered a limiter when they activated this modem. Weird.
Most of the speed increases come from the fact that the upstream and downstream channels can now be bonded. For example, you can bind three downstream channels @ 38 mbps (assuming QAM256) for a total of about 114 mbps and three upstream channels @ 10 mbps (assuming QAM16) 30 mbps of upstream capacity. If you are on a 2.0 modem, you will theoretically get better performance as while you can't take advantage of the bonding (only the 3.0 modems can do that) each individual link should be utilized less but that is going to depend on just how heavily used your particular node is.
Big deal. I get 20Mbps down / 5Mbps up from Fios for $45/month.
I'm with you Fuzz....I get 30MB down and 5MB up from Cablevision for $49.00.
I've been a Comcast customer in a northwest suburb of Chicago since they bought the system from AT&T. I have a Motorola DOCSIS 2 modem that I purchased in my home. Up until last spring my service was rock solid. Then I started experiencing outages periodically throughout the day. This went on until sometime around September. Things got solid again at that point.
The reason I bring this up is that starting sometime around July I noticed that I was getting download speeds of around 32 Mb/s and uploads around 8 Mb/s. I didn't upgrade my service or my modem. These numbers are based on www.speakeasy.net.
When I put a meter on my machine and downloaded a 1 GB file I noticed that I got a rate of around 30 Mb/s for the first 50 MB and then the rest came in at a constant 15 Mb/s.
I'm thinking of going with the 50 Mb service. But I don't see any reason to upgrade to the 30 MB.
Also, I looked at Verizon FiOS, which isn't available in my area, and it looks like they cap their rates at 50 Mb/s and it costs the same as Comcasts 50 Mb service
I don't see how this article is 'HD', shouldn't this be on regular engadget?
ben,
The only reason these speeds are of any interest to me is because of my HD streaming.
I live in the uber-sticks, where I enjoy 1Mbs DSL as part of what I not-so-affectionately refer to as a Land Line MegaBundle for a $117.
The happiest day of my life was when I saw a Comcast truck parked in the ditch near my house, and learned that Comcast bought the
little mom and pop cable company in my area. I'd cut off one of anything I have two of for even a 10Mbs connection.
Regarding Aaron Smith and Eric's comments from January 29th, 2009 that you will hit your 250GB cap sooner just because of a speed increase... this is not true. The 250GB cap that was mentioned is directly tied to your online surfing/gaming habits and how many file downloads that you make each day -- not to the speed of your line. Just because somebody doubles your line speed doesn't mean that you are forced to surf more websites or download more files each day. That’s your personal choice to make. It merely means that you won't have to wait quite so long for those file downloads or websites to load. I did replace my DOCSIS 2.0 Motorola SBG900 for the new Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 SB6120 and found that even without upgrading my line, there was a notable speed increase with the Motorola SB6120, so I might suggest a first-step of asking Comcast to switch your modem, or run out to one of their stores and replace it yourself (the rental fee per month is the same regardless of which modem you have) and see whether or not you really need to pay for an upgraded line -- again, based upon your personal surfing habits. As a web developer, for me the more speed the merrier, but $139 per month for a 50GB/10GB line is still a bit out of a reach at the moment. My bet is that as FIOS and AT&T U-verse penetrate deeper into the market with their high-speed internet offerings, eventually my 22GB/5GB line will be upgraded for free by Comcast to 50GB/10GB, or even higher -- but always remember that a cheap hardware firewall can totally trash your throughput speeds, so you have to be on top of things there as well. Best of luck.