Rogers rolls out 50Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 service, 802.11n router

Well, it looks like Canadians no longer need to be envious of some of the speedy internet options available south of the border, as Rogers has just announced the roll-out of its own DOCSIS 3.0-based service that matches the likes of Comcast's offering. As you might expect, however, coverage is limited to the Greater Toronto Area to begin with, although Rogers is promising that it'll be rolled out to some other, yet to be specified areas in the "coming months." What's more, Rogers is also introducing a new 802.11n router alongside the service, and it's even giving one away to the first fifty customers that sign up for the Ultimate service (priced at $150 per month). After those are gone (and some do indeed still seem to be available), the router will sell for $200.

[Via Electronista]

[SkankySquirrel @ Jul 9th 2009 2:49PM]

Good new for women everywhere!

[MaX PL @ Jul 9th 2009 2:51PM]

Comcasts FIOS service?

Good job engadget...

[trentrturner @ Jul 9th 2009 4:10PM]

Nice one! That's the first thing I thought, too. But no one else seems to have caught on...

[laxfan0930 @ Jul 9th 2009 4:48PM]

What? The fastest and most reliable Period?

Ohaahahahahaha!!

[Zach @ Jul 9th 2009 6:35PM]

Still a 60GB cap...

[Rob Bourne @ Jul 10th 2009 3:36AM]

I would have been sorely disappointed if the first comment hadn't been about that. Surely the Rogers team noticed?!

Have an upvote!

[jambino @ Jul 10th 2009 10:22AM]

I was scrolling through the articles and had to look twice.
I think the top down view of the mouse is what does it.

[orribull @ Jul 9th 2009 2:49PM]

News*

[Rajesh @ Jul 9th 2009 2:50PM]

$200 router, Apple EXTREME Base Station is cheaper!

[michael.lerner @ Jul 9th 2009 3:48PM]

It's a DOCSIS 3.0 modem AND router.

[Grodesh @ Jul 9th 2009 3:57PM]

The extreme base station is 199 Canadian dollars, exactly like this router, so no, it's not more expensive:
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB763AM/A/AirPort-Extreme?mco=NDk1NDk1MQ

[Toby @ Jul 9th 2009 2:51PM]

Since when does Comcast have FiOS ? What am I missing with that comment? Verizon is FIOS - all fiber optic connection. Comcast is still using decades old copper. Help me out here guy.

[Platinum_Skeet @ Jul 9th 2009 2:56PM]

Cable and Fiber companies aren't too different. Where the Fiber starts are at almost the exact same points in most cases it's just the cable companies don't have the backbone...

[dan2600 @ Jul 9th 2009 3:08PM]

comcast uses fiber to the local node, then it is copper the rest of the way.

FIOS uses fiber all the way to your home (they install a box) then switch it to copper to the end point (i don't know why they don't use a fiber cable to the modem, but whatever).

also the backbone of the cable companies is less then Verizon, so fiber or not, its just not as fast (I believe I read some were it is because they are running some legacy TV signal over the same pipe...but im not sure)

[Pc_Madness @ Jul 9th 2009 4:25PM]

"i don't know why they don't use a fiber cable to the modem, but whatever"

Wouldn't it be because fibre is expensive and if you've gotta run it in and around the house to get it to where it needs to be, coax is going to end up being cheaper.

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 9th 2009 9:58PM]

"Platinum skeet" is a clueless idiot who is talking out of his ass.

Cable companies have a hybrid fiber-coaxial network where they use highspeed fiber-optic cable as a backbone that runs to an endpoint in each neighborhood. This could be called "Fiber to the node" or "fiber to the neighborhood" service. The endpoint is inside a large utility box that houses switching equipment that connects the fiber backbone to the copper coaxial cable network that is run to individual homes in the area. While speeds are relatively low, this isn't a problem. However, DOCSIS 3.0 can support a maximum speed of about 400mbps down and 160mbps up for THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD. Since most people have low connection speeds of 3-10mbps and are not constantly pushing it to the maximum, this shared bandwidth is enough. However, if you have a few dozen heavy users in your neighborhood buying 50mbps service, then the whole neighborhood is going to get screwed. Of course the company's have mechanisms to mitigate this to some degree, but the problem is there and it is going to become a big issue as more people keep Upgrading to faster connections.

True "fiber-to-the-home" offerings like that of Verizon's FIOS have the fiber-optic cable literally drug to each individual house in a given neighborhood -- Thus there is no bandwidth-limiting copper choke point at all. As soon as the data gets through the Fiber-optic terminal hooked up in your garage, it will travel on fiber all the way up the major backbones. In fact, the fiber optic connection is easily capable of speeds far faster than your 100mbps ethernet router in your house. Active GPON fiber speeds are capable of going over 1.0Gbps! Services like FIOS are future-proof to a much higher degree than cable, and as more users in a neighborhood move to fast 20,30,50,100mbps speeds, there is no need to worry about saturating the connection.

[brandscill @ Jul 10th 2009 3:50AM]

Perhaps they don't run the fiber around your house in case someone cuts through it, looks at it and then BOOM blind.

[anil @ Jul 9th 2009 2:53PM]

Comcast's FiOS service??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!11111111111111

[bmasc814 @ Jul 9th 2009 2:56PM]

...Verizon has FiOS. Comcast has cable.

[Chugalug @ Jul 9th 2009 2:56PM]

Shaw Cable in Canada released 100Mbps service quite a few months ago, I think it's only in Saskatoon though, I hope it comes to my Area soon. I have the 25Mbps with Shaw now and it is awesome, I would even take the 50Mbps from Rogers but they are only in Ontario.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 7:48PM]

How much is the up speed?

[amdprophet @ Jul 10th 2009 6:57PM]

Shaw's Nitro package in Saskatoon is 100mbps down and 5 mbps up for $250 /mo. I spoke with Shaw a couple days ago and one of the agents had noted that the price is likely to drop once they deploy it in the west (British Columbia) in a couple of months.

[Alex F. @ Jul 10th 2009 11:08PM]

Novus in downtown Vancouver already has 50 down / 10 up for $180 / mo and it is FIOS not Shaw Cable.

[fboots @ Jul 9th 2009 2:55PM]

Videotron has been offering the same service in montreal, for half the price

Ahhhh rogers...

[Adam Zey @ Jul 9th 2009 3:22PM]

Videotron's service is a marketing ploy, not a practical service.

1) You get 1mbit of upstream, which is laughably insufficient for 50mbit of downstream. You'd fully saturate your upstream with ACK packets just downloading something. In fact this is the absolute minimum required upstream to even download at 50mbit; any lower upstream and your downstream bandwidth would be capped.

2) They include a tiny 100GB cap. Admittedly this is better than the 50GB cap that this service had for a long time, but this still means that you can only use your connection at full speed for about TWO HOURS A MONTH before you run out of bandwidth and start incurring $34/hr bandwidth overage fees

3) $80/mth isn't cheap! Just because it's cheaper than Rogers doesn't mean that it's still expensive.

[Jacob Marttinen @ Jul 9th 2009 3:25PM]

actually, if you'd go to the via link, you'd see that the service offered by videotron is pre-3.0 DOCSIS. rogers is offering full DOCSIS 3.0 here.

[fboots @ Jul 9th 2009 3:29PM]

yeah the up is a joke, as is the cap

it is expensive yes im not here for a flame war, just pointing out that you gotta be layers of "wtf" to make quebeccor look respectable :P

(btw im not an uber egghead whats the diff between pre-docsis anddocsis?)

[Alan Strangis @ Jul 9th 2009 3:31PM]

Videotron is Quebec only though, froggy. [biggrin]

[fboots @ Jul 9th 2009 3:33PM]

thats IT were seperating! [angry10]

[Alan Strangis @ Jul 9th 2009 3:47PM]

[trum]

[Valicore @ Jul 9th 2009 4:54PM]

F-ing Vidéotron is a TOTAL JOKE, they put so many restrictions on it that the only thing you can do with the service is complain about it. Grrrrrrrrrrr Vidéotron, grr.

[BFish @ Jul 9th 2009 2:56PM]

More throttler ;)

[kjb434 @ Jul 9th 2009 2:58PM]

The reality is that pretty much all major metropolitan area are using fiber optics. All FIOS does is take it to your house. Comcast is all fiber optic in Houston. Just the last segments to the home or apartment is copper. If it was all copper, they would have ran out of capacity years ago.

[FuzzFace @ Jul 9th 2009 2:59PM]

yea 50Mbps but throttled, also it doesn't mention anything about the bandwidth cap(all rogers speed tiers are capped) or the upload speed

[Richard @ Jul 9th 2009 2:59PM]

Comcast DOES use fiber optics:
http://www.comcast.com/fiber-optic/default.html?CMP=KNC-1TO120080401GOOGLE6

Engadget either messed up ROYALLY, which is how it looked, or they were simply referring to Comcasts network in a strange confusing way.

[Jeremy W @ Jul 9th 2009 3:05PM]

FiOS is a brand name, not a technology. The technology behind FiOS is GPON, not DOCSIS which is used by Comcast and all other cable Internet providers.

[Richard @ Jul 9th 2009 4:19PM]

Yes, but there were people above saying that Comcast doesn't use fiber, only copper. Not true. My thought was that Engadget might have assumed Fios was some sort of shortened version of Fiber Optics.

[ALBGunner04 @ Jul 9th 2009 3:01PM]

I also got confused with the "Comcast FiOS" lol

Also, does anyone know why Bell dramatically reduced their Bandwidth usage for their plans? Thank god my plan (Max 10) has 100GB usage, but Max 16 I'm looking at seems to have 75GB max and there's no Max 10 on their page anymore? WTF are they gimping their service?

[Alan Strangis @ Jul 9th 2009 4:03PM]

If you're on bell, you'd be better off to switching to a 3rd party like TekSavvy. It's only 5Mbps, but for half the price, give you the option of either 200GB/m or true unlimited (because it's on a different backbone and has an added ~30-40millisecond delay per packet).

[oghowie @ Jul 9th 2009 3:02PM]

$150 a month?!?

[BFish @ Jul 9th 2009 3:32PM]

Finland, cable 110Mbps 44.90€/month first 12months, then 55.90€/month.
No throttler or caps.

[Miles @ Jul 9th 2009 3:03PM]

50Mbps is like 2MB per second.
I couldn't care less.

[Soulsaber @ Jul 9th 2009 3:06PM]

err more like 6 MB/s

[Andy Gratton @ Jul 9th 2009 3:09PM]

Math FAIL!

50mbit = ~6MB/sec

[Miles @ Jul 9th 2009 3:16PM]

When do we get 50MB/s?

[jay jay @ Jul 9th 2009 3:55PM]

stupid message board sorry for double post.

@Andy Gratton and miles
Double Fail
to convert connection speed into download speed divide the connection speed by 8. 50/8 = 6.25

[yoshi @ Jul 10th 2009 12:19PM]

Miles @ Jul 9th 2009 3:16PM

When do we get 50MB/s?

When we get 400Mb/s

[FuzzFace @ Jul 9th 2009 3:05PM]

maybe engadget should be reporting that Bell/Aliant has announced it will be bringing fiber to the home to the cities of Fredericton and Saint John New Brunswick as a trail and the first whole cities in Canada to get FTTH

http://bellaliant.ca/english/news/view_art.asp?id=1888

[jason @ Jul 9th 2009 3:06PM]

$150/month HAHAHHAHAHAHAH LALOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omg yea, *tear* that's a great joke, you guys need a TV show.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 7:39PM]

$150 canadian even, not that fake money obama has printed :)