Comcast 'rolls out' 'world's first' DOCSIS 3.1 modem, pumping 1Gbps over existing cable Everyone's favorite ISP Comcast says it has switched on its first live gigabit internet service without having to lay a single inch of new cable. The lovable American giant has installed what it says is the world's first DOCSIS 3.1 modem in a home in Philadelphia, offering download speeds of 1Gbps without having to install new …
Just string fiber along with their other RG-59 cables they have strung from unbelievable straight, branch-less tree to the next.
Most utilities (except gas, water & sewer) in a (sub)urban and remote areas in the US are on (telephone/graph) poles - no need to dig anything. A couple a bucket trucks/cherry pickers, and butt-load of p-ties/zip-ties and your done...
I'm (all)mostly joking. . .
Nothing apart from water and sewer lines is buried round here (maybe the occasional missing person but no knowledge of that honest officer), due largely to the long periods of sub zero weather followed by frost heaves during the thaw. Road surfaces can develop foot high hills almost overnight, would cause havoc with cables unless they are buried down with the sewer and water lines.
If its over existing cabling then even putting in fibre involves no digging - just pull it through tied on to the end of the bit its replacing.
I've been here less than 10 years and the engineers are round regularly and frequently digging up the road to lay some more cable to replace the soaked cable - rainfall has trebled since I moved in. Now ISTR 10km of fibre would cost less than a tenner when they used to pull it a Martlesham Heath Robinson (ca1990) and would be impervious to water ingress for a long long time.
Sadly, it sounds as though Comcast will have the market for Docsis 3.1 modems to itself for the foreseeable future. You won't be able to stop at Best Buy and pick one up for yourself, and just connect it to the incoming line, as you can with 3.0.
Which means we'll have to buy/rent Comcast modems, at some exorbitant cost, and be subjected to their ever-expanding "dual" modem plan that plants a WiFi hotspot in every customer's home, while the customer picks up the tab for the split bandwidth it demands.
I'm looking at you askance, Comcast.
A) "You want DOCSIS 3.1 service? Sure, and while we're setting that up, let me tell you about the premium cable TV plan you buy with that."
B) "No, we can't unbundle the premium cable package that comes with the DOCSIS internet service, but the good news is that as part of the bundle you also get home phone service. And we have this home security package too!"
C) "There might be some data caps and congestion charges too, but I'm sure they are minimal."
D) "How minimal? That's not my department--let me transfer you to billing!" /begin hold music
E) /continue hold music
F) /interrupt hold music with "Welcome to Comcast! We appreciate your business. Do you know that you can access your services using our website? Please press "1" if you want take a brief customer survey after your call is complete"
G) /more hold music
H) "Hello, you have reached the Comcast billing department. You have called outside our normal office hours and we are closed. Please call us back between 8 AM and 5 PM, Eastern standard time. Goodbye!"
Considering I know tons of people that would just be happy to get 100Mb I am wondering why they are pushing 1Gb so hard.... work on getting all your networks up to at least a minimum speed of say 50Mb before shooting for the sky. I am not sure how far comcast is in that goal since I was a TW customer by force but considering the amount of time I couldnt hit 10Mb while paying for 30, I wouldn't imagine the Comcast is much better.
You're in for a wait, then. DOCSIS 3.1 is only two years old and still has plenty of legroom. It's theoretical max is 10Gbps down/1Gbps up. If there is continuing progress, it will probably be at the expense of channels as physical limitations kick in. Besides, most major cablecos are at least partially fiber now and will probably be making their next major infrastructural investments in moving the last mile to fiber so as to keep up with firms like Verizon already at the FTTH stage (I have access to both Cox and Verizon FiOS; I stick with Cox right now to avoid extra box rentals).
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