04/03/2008, 12:10pm, EDT

Thursday, April 3rd

Comcast first in US with 50Mbps cable Internet

Comcast today said it would be the first cable Internet provider in the US to offer Internet access based on the new DOCSIS 3.0 standard for cable Internet service. In its early form, the service will bond together multiple cable channels to offer download speeds of 50 megabits per second, or more than six times the 8Mbps ceiling previously set by the company's existing 8Mbps tier. This early implementation isn't set to have full support for the technology on uploads but will still offer 5Mbps upstream.

The extra speed is currently considered a luxury tier and will be available at first in a $150 monthly plan compared to the $53 for existing technology. Minneapolis and St. Paul are currently the only cities to have access, though Comcast has already said it will expand the network throughout 2008 and may also increase speeds up to 100Mbps by the end of the year.

The cable firm warns that its launch will require that a few analog stations be taken off-air and compression added to HD channels to make room for DOCSIS 3, whose channel bonding consumes much more bandwidth than earlier single-channel services. Comcast's launch also comes amid controversy over its network management techniques, which will no longer throttle BitTorrent later this year but may still impact some services.

DOCSIS 3.0 is considered essential for the cable industry to compete against Verizon's FiOS and other fiber optic services, which have already reached the 50Mbps mark. The extra speed is already being used for IP-based TV on Verizon's service and will be necessary for mainstream HD downloads, which will take as little as four minutes for a whole movie on a 100Mbps connection.

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Verizon, Comcast, BitTorrent, FiOS, DOCSIS

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ender

HD channels

04/03, 12:26pm, EDT

Oh, great. Now their already over compressed and pixelated are going to get even MORE compression and pixelation to make room for this? If they want to free up bandwidth, how about dropping all the channels that almost nobody watches. I really don't need three golf channels and 5 weather channels!

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iChick

Too much $$

04/03, 12:40pm, EDT

$150/month in addition to their already high cable bill charges.... No way. Family budgets are already stretched thin with the rising fuel costs. Very very small niche.

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eldarkus

Yea...

04/03, 12:44pm, EDT

Shit company with shit service.. No thanks!!! I'll stick with my 15Mb FiOS, thank you! :)

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eldarkus

and...

04/03, 12:47pm, EDT

ya know its funny that they are going to further degrade the quality of the TV service. FiOS murders DirectTV and trumps Cable in picture quality. nice to know that with everyone wanting HD.. they will degrade it.

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jcatma61

Ya know...

04/03, 1:33pm, EDT

I'm already wondering why I continue to pay $220/mo for their "triple play" package. The 3mbps service alone is a $50 portion.

Looks like I'll be breaking up the monopoly at my house soon if this is going to be the way they play it.

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ender

re: ya know

04/03, 2:15pm, EDT

I've found Comcast VERY willing to negotiate on price. They are apparently losing so many customers that they really didn't put up much of a fight when I called and complained last year about their 2nd price increase of the year and then again about the poor signal quailty I was getting. I'm still putting up with their crap service and even worse DVR (don't have much of a choice where I live), but I'm paying at least a 1/3 less than their advertised rates.

Still, if/when Verizon brings their FIOS to the Chicago area, I'll be one of the first in line!

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jdonahoe

remember cable-ready tvs?

04/03, 3:25pm, EDT

If Comcast starts degrading the HD channels in order to expand the number, I may have to seek out Verizon. Comcast has the gall to charge $7 dollars extra a month to be able to watch the basic local channels in HD on the 1st HD tv, add an additional HD tv and it's an additional $14 per tv per month. So a standard three tv household will be paying an additional $35 on top of the $50 for standard service. This is all because they want to sell you on "On Demand" services. The HD tvs are capable of hundreds of cable channels without a box(HD channels even). So remember when they dropped the per tv charge, it's back!! Congress needs to intercede on the ripoff artists, I mean Comcast.

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bigpoppa206

Comcast doesn't compress

04/03, 8:05pm, EDT

their signal. I record over the air and from my cable connection and the resulting files are almost identical in size.

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jameshays

Watch less TV

04/15, 4:41pm, EDT

Gees, there isn't anything that great on TV any more and you can get your movies either through iTunes, netflix or blockbuster. Dump TV altogether. Is there anything on TV that you can't get somewhere else? I'm so sick of people complaining how broke they are when they spend over 100 dollars a month on TV, 100 dollars a month on cell phone, etc.

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