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Communications The Internet United States

50Mbps Cable Launched on Long Island 291

Posted by timothy from the zippy dept.
the-dark-kangaroo writes "Cable Vision have teamed up with Narad Networks to provide a new 50Mbps broadband service in the New York metropolitan area. The current deployment has a capability of 100Mbps (the connections are symmetric) with future developments allowing up to 10Gbps connections. The system utilises current cabling systems allowing enterprise level connections to homes and businesses."
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50Mbps Cable Launched on Long Island More

50Mbps Cable Launched on Long Island

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  • They can't even handle 10mbit/1mbit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DosBubba ( 766897 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:28PM (#12936960)
    OptimumOnline caps their customer's upload throughput at 150kbit/s for uploading "too much". They don't even tell you what "too much" is. Their normal caps are rather generous at 10mbit/1mbit, but what's the point if you can't actually use it?

    • Re:They can't even handle 10mbit/1mbit (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      • they won't tell you the limits
      • they draw the conclusion that uploading == p2p == piracy
      • they tell you that p2p is unsafe because it will give you viruses
      • and they DENY that the fact that several of my neighbors have the Optonline phone could have anything to do with why I have been CAPPED TWICE.
      • and thanks to the supreme court, I will NEVER have a choice for high speed access.

      They want me to use the Internet like it was a shopping channel. minimal demands and don't ever actually use all this speed that t

    • Yes, you're using a consumer service which has cretinously designed policies implemented badly with poor communications to the users so they'll be scared into only doing couch potato stuff instead of participating in the Internet, but you probably knew that when you bought cable modem service (or certainly figured it out quickly soon after :-) But the problems aren't technology - they're policies and terms of service, and it's not that they can't provide higher speeds, they're just not providing them to *
    • OptimumOnline caps their customer's upload throughput at 150kbit/s for uploading "too much". They don't even tell you what "too much" is. Their normal caps are rather generous at 10mbit/1mbit, but what's the point if you can't actually use it?

      I've had OptimumOnline for the last year and it is the best broadband internet service I've ever had. I have 10 megabits down, 1 megabit up, and I've never been capped. Granted, I'm not stupid enough to leave Kazaa up sharing files 24/7, but I've done my fair share

  • very nice (Score:2, Insightful)

    by spyder913 ( 448266 )
    especially the part about the symetric connections. I'd be happy to get 5M upload at the moment.

    • I'd be happy to get 5M upload at the moment.

      Are you using your connection for warez? (Copyright infringement is prohibited.) Are you using your connection for trading freely redistributable works over eMule or BitTorrent? (Running a server is usually prohibited on a residential class connection.) Are you using your connection for telecommuting? (Business use is often prohibited on a residential class connection.) Read the TOS carefully before you sign a commitment.

  • As much as Long Island sucks... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nokilli ( 759129 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:29PM (#12936976)
    ...I gotta say, 50Mbps broadband would be enough to entice me to return. I'd like to run a Freenet node, but only if I had big bandwidth upstream. 50Mbps is _big_ bandwidth, and it's symmetrical.

    With all the fear and loathing over p2p, I'm surprised to see that they're allowing high-speed symmetrical connections like this. I was fully expecting 50Mbps down/16Kbps up, or something similarly retarded.

    And what does this do to hosting providers like serverbeach? That 50Mbps is going to be unmetered, right? So the game server, your new pay-per-view pr0n site, and the blog all get hosted at home on the Mac Mini. Wow.

    And no, it's not flamebait about Long Island. People who live there know what I'm talking about. It's the traffic. You have to drive to get anywhere and even a simple trip to the grocery store and back can make you go insane. To say nothing of commuting. And if you're actually commuting to Manhattan and back, I only have two words for you: hard drugs.

    • Re:As much as Long Island sucks... (Score:5, Funny)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:47PM (#12937104)
      And if you're actually commuting to Manhattan and back, I only have two words for you: hard drugs.

      There are other things you can buy in Manhattan, you know!

    • You couldn't have 50Mbit down, 16Kbit up. You need enough upstream in order to send acknowledgement packets, not only on the TCP level but on the application level if so required (which often is.) With 16kBit, you might be able to reach 384Kbit downstream. MAYBE.

      When my cable went to 4Mbit, they increased the upstream to 512Kbit. When I'm downloading at a full 4Mbit via http, I'm almost completely saturating the 512Kbit upstream. So they didn't increase my upstream because they were just feeling nice

      • Re:TCP/IP class 101 in session (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TCM ( 130219 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @09:02PM (#12937938)
        When I'm downloading at a full 4Mbit via http, I'm almost completely saturating the 512Kbit upstream.

        If it were really 50Mbit downstream, they'd need to give something like 8Mbit up, or at the very least 4.

        I call BS. The overhead for ACKs on a pure download is _not that_ high. I ran netstat -bI 1 while downloading a file via HTTP:

        376704 9420
        323586 9708
        378421 9724
        377904 9228

        First number is bytes down, second is bytes up over the last second. The ratio is roughly 40:1. You must have done something wrong saturating half an Mbit with a 4Mb download.
        • Well it can vary from user to user. The "ratio" you refer to would depend on the RWIN (TCP Receive window size) set in the OS and/or router. This controls how much data is recieved before an acknowledgement packet is sent.

          Yours appears to be around 40k. But if I recall correctly the default on Win 98 and other older systems was sometimes as low as 8k, which would be in line with what the grandparent saw.

          I would be interested to know what OS he was running.
      • When my cable went to 4Mbit, they increased the upstream to 512Kbit. When I'm downloading at a full 4Mbit via http, I'm almost completely saturating the 512Kbit upstream. So they didn't increase my upstream because they were just feeling nice, they did it because they had to, so the downstream would scale upwards.

        As another poster pointed out, you must be smoking crack. Even if you send some massive 72 byte acknowledgement (tons of IP options) per 1500 byte packet down, that's a ratio of 1:20, or perhaps
    • They're going to allow high-speed symmetric connections because there's demand from customers who are willing to pay more for it. The press release doesn't talk about pricing, but this isn't going to be the same $20-50/month that typical consumer cable modems cost, and probably not even the $50-100 that low-end business cable service costs. I'm guessing it's somewhere in the $500 range, maybe $150-1000.

      The interesting issues are going to be pricing, average throughput (e.g. how many people are you sharin

      • I don't know about your pricing ideas, I had 10Mbps(fiber to the home) each way in Sacremento for a while for around 50 bucks a month, the trick was, I could only transfer 5 gigs each way a month. if that were a server, it would have to average 30kbits /s or go overboard and then pay 10$ a gig thereafter. i would imagine they're going to set up some sort of limit like that.
    • Great, now my mom (who lives on Long Island) can tell me how great and super fast Optimum Online is and do I have it? And I get to answer yet again, no mom, I have a cable modem, but Comcast is the service provider.

      And then proceed to watch her fire up AOL.

  • It's the beginning... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by intmainvoid ( 109559 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:30PM (#12936981)
    Video on demand over ip, here we come.
    • It's called IPTV. HJ
    • Why now? Oh yeah, the Supreme Court just ruled they aren't common carriers. [slashdot.org] Enjoy being fed high bandwidth their way.
    • Have you looked at the configuration screens of your digital cable box lately? You have video-over-IP already. Your cable box has an IP address, and gets a compressed digital video stream from the local cable node/hub/provider, which it decodes into a picture and pushes out an output on your box (s-video, component, HDMI, etc.).

      For digital services like video on demand, the box uses shared-key security and the MAC address to authenticate and "unlock", then the node just pushes the content down like data

  • And probably 10gb a month transfer limit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nihilistcanada ( 698105 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:33PM (#12937009)
    Why is it that they always love to wax orgasmicaly about how fast their connections are but all these unlimited plans have caps of 10gb a month or so? How about you give your customers increased bandwith usage rather then hypothetical speed increases?
    • Perhaps. Perhaps not. As a current Cablevision/OptimumOnline user, I downloaded over 10GB in just Linux distros just this past week: one 4GB Knoppix 4.0 DVD, five FC4 CDs, four Centos 4.1 CDs, & CDs 1-4 of Debian 3.1r0a.

      As for speeds, I get 10Mbit/1Mbit. There is a local Debian mirror at Suny Stonybrook and I get about 800KB/s sustained from it. I can upload to my website at a max of 80KB/s. Sure its a ratio of 1:10 but its been this fast for the past three years & I have never been emailed or post

  • fttp... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by torrents ( 827493 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:33PM (#12937011) Homepage
    looks like fiber to the premesis is causing real competition... good to see cable companoes still know how to compete...
    • I was looking for the technical side, didn't look too hard, but I was kinda thinking the same thing. I was wondering if they'd hooked up with the MOCA guys as an early adopter until I remembered that it used existing cable...
  • They never do these test market things in my neighborhood. Probably because its not high income enough.

  • what will you even use it for? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pablo_max ( 626328 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:36PM (#12937033)
    Lets face it, people using those huge connections are mostly downloading very large files for p2p networks. I know there are other uses, but I say generally. Now that the door have been opened for companies to held liable for the actions of users, its only a matter of time before ISP are killing your connection and turning you over to the RIAA or the like so they can save themselves a law suit. Disagree all you want. Hollywood WILL get their way. After that, whats the point of a insane fast connection....oh let me guess, for "research papers"? It's a sad time in america.

    • Re:what will you even use it for? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:43PM (#12937083)
      Hosting game servers, high quality video chat, voice conversations, sending home movies to the relatives, making your personal photo libraries available, hosting your blog, video on demand from those hollywood types you mentioned. More importantly how about being able to do several of those things at once instead of just one at a time as is often the case now.

      There are thousands of useful and totally legal things that can be done with very high speed connections that can't be done very effectively with the current "broadband" offerings. Just because it can be used for illegal activities doesn't mean those are the only uses for such connections.

    • Re:what will you even use it for? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by startleman ( 567255 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:46PM (#12937099)
      I disagree.
      There are tons of uses for more bandwidth. One only needs to envision online services such as fast system backups, multimedia mail, videophones, on-demand HDTV over ip, . . . .shall I continue? I don't beleive that the only people that will benefit from larger bandwidth are pirates and p2p users...
      just my 2 cents.
    • Hollywood WILL get their way.

      Because, of course, that's what's happened to date.

      Oh wait...

    • Seriously though, as everybody has noted, there are tons of legal things to do with a fat pipe. Web-hosting is a hot one. Remote backups of my mom's computer. Audio streaming is still legal... at least I think it is. Remote desktop connections like VNC and Terminal Services. H264 multi-user video chat. Anybody who has to ask what to do with a fat pipe does not have the passion for networking that some of us do.

      My biggest concern wouldn't be what to do with it, but what kind of latency comes with that
    • It's funny you mention research papers. In fact, I am working on a research paper at this moment, and have found it very useful to have an optical fiber plugged into my computer, since it allows me to transfer simulation data (several GB) between the university and my home computer.
    • 50 Mbps symmetric service isn't something for the average home user, who can be served much less expensively with asymmetric services (even if they're 50/5 or whatever.) This is a business service, presumably with a business price level, and since it's symmetric and fast they're presumably permitting businesses to run web servers (just like they *should* be doing with consumer service but are too stupid and stubborn to do.)

      The technically cool thing you get from this kind of service is that the physical

  • Cablevision service nightmare (Score:5, Insightful)

    by warren96 ( 720171 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:41PM (#12937067)
    Never believe anything Cablevision writes or says, it'll be just smoke and mirrors. Had the "service" and anytime there was a hiccup, no connection, smtp service down, long delays in response, their "tech support" ws nowhere to be found. That is if you can actually get a live person to answer the "customer Service" or "Customer Support" phone lines. I wouldn't go back to cablevision service even if it was free for ever. Not worth the hassles. Ex cablevision customer from Brooklyn.
    • Yea but cable vision in brooklyn always sucked. One kid I used to know lived on the Brooklyn Queens border in cityline (not more then 10 blocks from me) always had complaints. Out on LI I have a few friends and they dont have any complaints.

      I live in south queens and we have Time Warner cable at one home and Verizon 3.0/768 DSL at another. No complaints with either service (except the RR cable is much faster and more responsive then the DSL). I know a few people with RR cable from TW and they also never ha

  • In other news (Score:5, Informative)

    by Psionicist ( 561330 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:42PM (#12937076)
    Here in Sweden you can already get 100 mbit up/down without limitations or caps for around 45 USD ( www.bredband2.se ) in an assortment of locations, not only universities. It's even better in Japan and Korea I think.
    • http://www.uppsalanytt.se/news.asp?newsID=1192 [uppsalanytt.se] (sorry, in swedish). And there might be a cap on that connection, I don't really know.

      And also, IIRC, those gigabit connections were available in Japan/Korea before in Sweden, don't have any link to use as confirmation though.

    • I read somewhere, but I can't find the story to back it up, that a large portion of Tokyo is wired with gigabit. That sort of thing works much easier in high-density populations where you have several hundred people living in one high-rise, so I can't expect to see that in the burbs any time soon... :(

    • Re:In other news (Score:3, Informative)

      by Alef ( 605149 )
      Actually, at least in Västerbotten [wikipedia.org], optical fiber networks are built to most households (even in villages). It currently costs about 20 USD per month (175 SEK) for 100 Mb, although there is an installation fee of about 1000 USD.

    • Emigrating Hordes of Nerds... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dr.Dubious DDQ ( 11968 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @07:22PM (#12937337) Homepage

      Well, I'm sure the Swedish government will be tracking you down to have a word with you, since it's YOUR post that will have been responsible for Slashdotting The Swedish Immigration Board's website [migrationsverket.se] now...

      I have to admit, the idea of real LAN-speed broadband internet in my home is givin' me a nerd-on...

    • In Japan at least this is the case because they started getting broadband much later than the US. In the US they already had broadband which both made it less important to upgrade things yet again, and also made it less profitable to do so.
    • rub it in our face why don't you. at least we have the world's most expensive military! eat that! ...i'm going back to my 1.5mbps adsl and ENJOYING IT!
    • It's not better in Japan. Fiber Optic (I don't know the speed rating) is around 70 USD/mo. I have DSL (45mbit down/?? up) for 35 USDsmo.
      • Your information is outdated. Usen has FTTH for JPY2,980 (~US$27) per month. TEPCO's FTTH offerings are also well below $70/month. Unless you live in remote regions, I'm sure you can do better than $35/month for ADSL as well.
        • That sucks for me. I got here in September, and spent months looking for a good deal for broadband. FTTH was advertising JPY7,000 when I got here. I live in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, which borders Tokyo. The price must have changed quite drastically in the past few months. J-Com was expensive for someone who doesn't need TV, so I didn't go with that.

          Man, that really sucks! I wish I could have gotten FTTH so cheap in September!

  • Donuts (Score:3, Funny)

    by InvaderSkoodge ( 858660 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:42PM (#12937081)
    So how do you write that sound that Homer Simpson makes when he sees a box of donuts? That's the sound I'm making right now...
  • That's just around the corner! Doesn't say if this will benefit current reseidential customers though.

  • Cable Vision? No thanks. (Score:4, Informative)

    by weevlos ( 766887 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:47PM (#12937111) Homepage
    Last time I had service with them, I had latency shoot up to above 1000ms two router hops ahead of me for about 7 hours a day. Absolutely useless service, would not advise anyone to fall for their marketing.

  • I don't care. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kc32 ( 879357 )
    Great. A giant city gets an even faster internet connection. Until I can get it in Kansas, I don't really give a shit.
    • This is Long Island, not just Brooklyn and Queens. It's like stretching Overland Park out to Lawrence and Shawnee Mission. Doesn't mean you'll be able to get it anywhere west of Wichita or up in Atchison any time soon, but if you're living out in farm country you're obviously there for the peace and quiet.

  • Porn in HD!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:56PM (#12937164) Journal
    I am dumbfounded. 100 megs a second?? Is that what they said. That is a whole HUGE milf file in less than 3 seconds.

    Seriously, before I could only have a player about a quarter the size of my monitor, if I tried to expand the size of the porn any more, it would not be clear. Her skin would not look smooth and soft. Now I can watch porn the way it was intended to be, in High Definition.

    And before people start bashing me, anwser one question? How much money is made in porn on the web every year? How much money does Amazon make on the web? See... the web is there for porn, everything else is icing on the cake.

    To the people of IRAN, if you censor your web, you will never get 100 megs a second. The moment you let people masturbate, the porn industry will come to Terahn and give you 100 megs a second!! But along with titles such as "Touched by Alah", you will have to let people have "Mr. Azerja, the goatfucker". Actually, I am sorry for that last joke. Please forgive me. I am going to burn in hell for that one.

    What else is 100 megs a second good for? TV on demand? I wonder how the DirectTV and Dish will counter these fast speeds that cable has. What will DSL do? I hate supporting cable providers, because back when they were the only choice (for cable tv), they were the worst customer service pricks around-

    Me: "Hi, I saw your advertisment for $29.95 instal with two months of HBO for half price with basic service"
    Them: "Hey, hold on one second... *strange noise*... Okay, what did you want???
    Me: "I'd like to order cable service, can you come out this Saturday?"
    Them: "No way. Let me look... ahh, okay, we can come out in three weeks, the 13th."
    Me: "Any way you can come sooner?"
    Them: "No"
    Me: "Okay I guess, what time can you be here?"
    Them: "We will be there between the hours of 8am and 7pm."
    Me: "WHAT??? I'd like to not wait all day"
    Them: "Hold on, I have another call."
    CLICK- call disconected.

    Second Call

    Me: "Hi, I was just disconnected"
    Them: "Oh, yeah, what do you want again?"
    Me: "I'd like to order service"
    Them: *noise of chips crunching* "Yeah, fine, okay".
    Me: "How do I order service"
    Them: "Let me get to that screen. I am going to need to put you on hold again"
    Me: "NOOOOOOO"
    CLICK- call disconected

    Third Call

    Me: "You hung up on me again!"
    Them: "No I didn't, I put you on hold"
    Me: "Whatever, I want to order cable service"
    Them: "Sure thing, we can get to you in four weeks, on the 20th"
    Me: "You just told me three weeks, now it is four?"
    Them: "Yeah, we had a mad dash of orders since I last talked to you"

    The only good thing about the cable industry is they are so fucking currupted, it is easy to steal from them. I know people who had free HBO for 10 years just because they slipped the instal guy $20 bucks. Now that things are going digital, it does not work as well, because you need that box. And RTF Gold does not descrable all the pay-per-view stuff. But the one trick that is left, if you only want basic service and internet, is to order just the internet and then split the cable. You will get basic programming for free.

    Having said that, I wonder what the sweet spot for broadband and tv service is, including stealing? Anyone have the gigantic dishes? Anyone know how to get all the premium stations and pay per view for free?

    • "Anyone know how to get all the premium stations and pay per view for free?"

      Go to work for the cable company?
      As a TimeWarner employee, I get all the digital cable, all the HD, all the premiums, all the extra channels, all the video on demand, DVR, 3 extra digital boxes, and free RoadRunner (5M/384k). Easily $250+/month.

      • Re:Porn in HD!! (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        As a TimeWarner employee, I get all the digital cable, all the HD, all the premiums, all the extra channels, all the video on demand, DVR, 3 extra digital boxes, and free RoadRunner (5M/384k). Easily $250+/month.

        Yeah, but you have to work for the cable company.....

    • But the one trick that is left, if you only want basic service and internet, is to order just the internet and then split the cable. You will get basic programming for free.

      Not with Cablevision...f**kers put a filter on my line.

  • Memories... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @06:58PM (#12937177)
    I remember selling my Sega Genesis and a slew of game cart's for $100 towards a 14.4 kbps modem back when 28.8 was a distant rumor. I remember imagining text zipping by at 28800 baud and wondering why anyone who wasn't downloading warez would ever need a modem that fast.

    I also remember thinking that the World Wide Web was just a passing fad.

    If service providers can give enough consumers more bandwidth, content providers will give consumers more to download.

  • Hope they can afford to finish this (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeepRedux ( 601768 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @07:03PM (#12937212)
    The Dolan family, who controls CableVision, have just proposed a $7.9B leveraged buyout of the cable assets. To get the cash, they are planning on selling $4.25B in junk bonds [reuters.com]. This would be the second largest junk bond offering in history, after the RJR ("Barbarians at the Gate") junk bond.

  • Thats it..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ichigo Kurosaki ( 886802 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @07:22PM (#12937338)
    I'm moving to New York

  • Verizon's FiOS is competition (Score:5, Informative)

    by __aaijsn7246 ( 86192 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @07:27PM (#12937378)
    Cablevision isn't just doing this to be nice. Verizon is set to launch FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) in the area very shortly. In NJ they have been stringing fibers for the last few months.. I actually called them today and they told me I would be able to order fiber possibly as early as tomorrow. I'm currently an Optimum Online subscriber and am definitely going to be switching over ASAP.

    Their pricing plan is pretty good:

    Down/Up
    Up to 5 Mbps/2 Mbps $39.95
    Up to 15 Mbps/2 Mbps $49.95
    Up to 30 Mbps/5 Mbps 199.95

    The number direct to the FiOS center is: 908-474-9728
    Verizon doesn't publicize it yet, but the people who answer do have access to a database telling them which switches are going live and when. Today when I called, I told asked if I was going to have service in my small town.. when he said no, I told him the local switch which served us (obtainable via Local Exchange Routing Guide). He acted very surprised and said that indeed we would have FiOS activated very soon now.

    Of course this was obvious as Verizon has spent $$$ wiring fiber everywhere which should be the next big thing(tm). They even replace the normal copper wires going to your house with fiber (doesn't work in a power outage though! I hope nobody gets upset about 911 ;) Or is it okay for fiber not to work during power outages as it is Verizon who supplies it rather than some upstart VoIP business that doesn't have the lobbying power that incumbent telcos do...?) If you have a pair of binoculars you can check out your poles and look for the little Corning boxes.
    • They even replace the normal copper wires going to your house with fiber (doesn't work in a power outage though! I hope nobody gets upset about 911 ;)

      Why would it not work during a power outage? I've actually seen a FTTP setup at a small-town run telco when I went to repair a server there. It was slick. They basically have a durable plastic case that you mount on the wall in the garage. It has a self-enclosed UPS with replaceable battery, power conditioner, fiber modem/router/wireless 802.11G card opt
    • I just bought a new house in the Coppell/Lewisville Texas area where Verizon is rolling out FTTP for all new development. Just a quick disclaimer, I'm speaking from personal experience, so I don't know for sure if they are doing this in the New York area or not.

      At any rate, I had this same concern when Verizon came to install our fiber. To my delight, Verizon installed a battery in my garage (just sits on the wall) that has an approximately 1 hour life that will serve your fiber phone line in case of a ser
  • I'm happy with my 256/512 for £25 a month. Mind you, it has newsgroups, no filtered ports, and really helpful tech support.

  • I honestly doubt it (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AdamReyher ( 862525 )
    Let's face it. Cable companies have always advertised speeds then never delivered. CableVision is, one of the lowest in quality, in my opinion. I know many OO subscribers who can attest to this.

    While the individual pipes may be able to handle 100Mbps and greater, unless they lay an entirely new system down, guaranteeing it and preventing bottleneck will be almost impossible.

    FTTP, like that provided by Verizon (which I have), is much more promising. The new system is there and in place. Verizon has the fin
  • i was an OOL customer for more than 4 years but when i started using gallery http://gallery.sf.net/ [sf.net] and uploaded massive amounts of family/personal pictures, they capped my speed to 400kbps. i got it uncapped twice then luckily, FIOS was deployed in my town - was one of the first 5 installations in Northern New Jersey. i switched. installation was free and i got a discount because of my existing calling plan with Verizon. FIOS works for me. i've uploaded gigs of photos with no problems. all i need is port

  • Not a subscriber-level service (Score:5, Informative)

    by mreed911 ( 794582 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @08:36PM (#12937776)
    Having worked for Time-Warner in the Roadrunner division, and having RTFA, let me be the one to smash your dreams:

    This is not a subscriber level service.

    Cable companies essentially have the same topology in HFC (hybrid fiber-coax) networks. They have their data center, with their connection to the backbone, and have fiber to several hubs, which are essentially the "regional" or "metropolitan" branch sites. From the hubs, served by fiber, coax is run to the individual nodes, which subscriber services are branched off from. What this is all about is the connection between hubs and nodes - there's more overhead bandwidth available farther downstream - but not yet to the customer premise. The four coax lines sent from the hub to the node can now support 100mbps symmetrical.

    This enhances the inter-nodal communications, the junctions between the fiber backbone most major cable companies have deployed and the coax they use to push their various signals out to consumer premises. In essence, they're getting 100mbps over coax for the four coax "pipes" used to support the node itself. While it's a big deal insomuch as it means they have a lot more ceiling with regards to bandwidth and deployment of available services, it's not the point that they've got fiber past the hubs to the individual nodes... yet. It does mean, however, that there's less need to deploy more nodes (read: capital expense) so they can spend that money on R&D and getting "faster" to go "farther." Ultimately, it'll end up with fiber to the pole, then finally fiber to the house.

    What it WILL mean? You should see an increase in upload caps sooner than you thought... and cable companies are getting ready for a lot, lot more HD and HD-on-demand services. Remember, their focus is still video - data is just an added bonus.

  • SINGAPORE : SingTel has confirmed Pakistan's Internet and cellphone links to the rest of the world have been cut off [channelnewsasia.com] by a fault in a key submarine cable.

    But it has played down reports that millions of people have been affected by the breakdown.

  • Standard cable modem service is based off DOCSIS 1.0/1.1/2.0. This is something completely different and works by using higher frequencies on the cable that what is in use in most cable plants. It's very cool none-the-less but don't expect to see it off cablevision unless they adopt the same technology. (Maybe they will)

  • Proprietary systems are bad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alereon ( 660683 ) on Tuesday June 28, 2005 @10:34PM (#12938480)

    Why does CableVision feel the need to create a new proprietary standard when we have a perfectly good standard already: DOCSIS [wikipedia.org], the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. DOCSIS 2.0 offers 38mbps down and 30.72mbps up, which ought to be plenty for everybody. If it's not, get another channel and bond them together until you have enough. DOCSIS 3.0 will even handle the channel bonding FOR YOU.

    Since cable providers already run fiber until the CMTS [wikipedia.org], which is usually within the last mile, why not run fiber the rest of the way or live with 38/30mbps service rather than creating a new proprietary cable modem standard?

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