Comcast Unleashes Super-Fast Web Speeds

[RangerXLT8]

Originally Posted by Jokerswild

I'm waiting for a oc768 line.

"OC-768 supports rates of 40 gigabits per second (Gbps) on a fiber optic carrier, a rate that translates to the equivalent of seven CD-ROM's worth of data in one second. Developed to meet ever-growing demands for bandwidth, OC-768 uses dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to carry multiple channels of data on a single optic fiber."
pfftt already have one. lol

[unknown555525]

LoL! OC networks are what companies LIKE comcast use to split up and sell. They cost MILLIONS of dollars per month for the high end!! I think ones like OC12 go for $200,000 per month.

[Jokerswild]

Well I didn't say it was going to be a short wait.

[Boy'nBlack]

Weird that it's news. I had Comcast Fiber in Manteca, CA (cow town) in late 2006. Consistent 25M down and I forget the up (but it was above 12M). The run was from the street to the house and a little J-box on the side of the house. I didn't get charged a penny for the run.

The upgrade stemmed from me requesting a clean line for my HD TV and this is what they did...perked my connection speed and hurt my HD viewing. I had no compression before the install, and after it was really noticeable. So you guys with not just a computer to worry about, but HD content in the living room, should worry a bit about fiber. Unless they fixed it, it was a downgrade. Compression is really bad on Comcast and AT&T univers fiber runs. Time Warner is really good in the TV arena, but then just normal for the computer. Some day, I'd like to think they'd support two dedicated lines if this is the trade-offs.

I happened upon Time Warner for the first time because of the stupid regulation. Across the street is Comcast, I can't get it. More than happy though from seeing what Time Warner does for the display quality. When is this de-regulation going to happen? Not that I'll switch, but it'd be nice to have more than one Cable Broadband to pick from...my bill pile agrees.

Just pointing out that there's some ill side effects to consider. I'll take a great HD picture over some fat bandwidth in the computer room. Give me a clean low-ping line for the computers and non-compressed data for the TVs.

[unknown555525]

I have no idea what your talking about.. Fiber optic is lossless. If you'r getting a connection, then it's a solid connection, it uses a lazer focused onto a fiber optic string , there is no good or bad quality, it's either working perfect, or not at all. Coaxal which is a standard cable line, uses the transfer of electricity over a small line, even bending it too much can interrupt with the flow of electricity and cause data loss.

Also you have that backwards, Fiber optic lines are faster, and can transfer non-compressed data, where as a slower line such as coaxal would be the one to suffer from compression to push all the data through the slower line.

One more thing to consider is that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of an electric current, so again, your ping would be lower over fiber.

[RangerXLT8]

Yep people with cable modems are surely affected by their neighbors watching 60" HDTVs, it can kill your internet transfer speeds.... Fiber is an entire different story, it moves at the speed of light.

i'm going to talk to my neighbor, he works for Tyco as a Project Manager laying Fiber across the oceans...
One time he mentioned that copper has to be run with the fiber to power it... That might not be the case though for our houses, he lays it for thousands of miles across the ocean floor. He told me that a big problem they have is ships dropping anchor on the fiber, and people in different countries stealing the copper power cables to scrap for money....

[Lead Head]

Never had a bandwidth problem with my cable hook up. Always has been full speed. Cable can transfer non compressed video as well, the current standard is starting to choke up a bit, but once providers purge analog, that will free up an unbelievable amount of bandwidth on the cable lines.

As far as speed is concerned, I have read that electricity in a copper conductor moves at about half the speed of light, well atleast an electromagnetic wave. Light moves at around 300000000 m/s, or about 616899600 MPH. Even at quater that speed, I don't think you need to worry about copper lines effecting your ping.

Anyways with digital over copper, you either get all the data or you don't, usually only poor conductors can be effected by bending them to much. Fiber can also be effect by to much bending as well.

[screwballl]

Comcast has been caught with too much crap lately.... wish people would just leave them and go with the alternative (or go without)...

DailyTech - Comcast VP Defends "Blocking," Lashes Out at FCC Chairman
DailyTech - Comcast and BitTorrent Kiss and Make Up (not really)
DailyTech - Comcast to FCC: "Can't Touch This"
DailyTech - Comcast: Put Up or Shut Up
DailyTech - Comcast Screws with File-Sharing Traffic

DailyTech - Rogers Cable Follows Comcast's Lead, Puts the Squeeze on HD
DailyTech - Comcast Trades Quality for Quantity with HDTV Offerings

[theburan]

I don't care much for comcast, but that's not a big problem out here in South Dakota. Really, the ways to get internet out here involve Knology (used to be Prariewave, but they got bought out and went national over the past year or 2), midcontinent (seems pretty big in the midwest, it's what I use at home, nice solid cable connection, 8-9mbps down no matter what, more than enough for what I need, and seems pretty impressive since well, we're in the middle of nowhere), Wildblue (aka, satellite or crappy internet.... don't care for the stuff myself, but it's there), and then Internet from a number of smaller isp's, running everything but wireless (which is getting a little more popular nowadays, but is still pretty dang finicky... but better than satellite), dsl (both through their own network and by reselling qwest dsl service), cable, which is pretty reliable, and FTTH, or as everyone seems to call it now, FiOS (I still call it by Fiber To The Home, just cause that's what it's referred to at work), and a bit of dialup still. Now, my job is at an internet helpdesk, and we do support for a fairly large number of isps (not just in south dakota, quite a few on the east coast, some stuff in colorado, a number of isps in nebraska and ND too, and we even do support for the trump towers and some other stuff in ny at night...), and FTTH is definatly the most reliably service that we do support for. If it's broke, odd's are the customer's computer is borked or the wire from the cable to the wall went bad (or there's a horrible outage going on and the internet is broke for everyone), although cable internet is still close behind (we aren't densely populated up here, so it's not too common to see speed issues with cable modems, honestly). Honestly.... anything besides dsl is nice (dsl is really finicky, because the phones lines have a habit of sucking out here, or at least, having too much distance to cover for dsl to work nice).

I guess where I'm going with this is just that cable of FTTH are both awesome internet sources... and my life would be way easier if that's all that existed.

Although honestly, I'm not really sure where I was going with this post. Hmmm.

[screwballl]

Thats the thing, DSL is slowly dying because of the aging telephone infrastructure. Some companies have upgraded it but many others have not and are trying to use these 50 year old phone lines to carry thousands of customers into the new age of higher speeds and it is failing miserably.
I know locally in the FL gulf coast, Sprint (now Embarq) has been spending some time and money upgrading their phone systems and lines to use coax straight up to the house since it is stronger and less prone to underground moisture. This is pretty much what is needed almost anywhere that is using the old POTS copper lines outside of the house although it will be years before they even come close to attempting this in rural areas on the fringe of their connection area.