Cisco has demonstrated a DOCSIS 3.0-based system running in excess of 1.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps), with a 48-channel downstream connection. The achievement, which was demonstrated at CableLabs Winter Conference, required three of Cisco's prototype cable modes, each running 16 download channels and four upload channels.
Charter Communications recently announced it will launch the one of the fastest widely available Internet services in the US, capable of delivering 60Mbps download speeds and 5Mbps uploads. Called Charter High-Speed Internet Ultra60, the service will initially be released in downtown St. Louis before expanding to other, unnamed markets. At the same time, the Internet provider says it will upgrade its Charter High-Speed Internet Max service to give subscribers 20Mbps download speeds instead of the current 16Mbps without increasing their monthly rates.
Comcast's systematic DOCSIS 3.0 release is quietly expanding, as it was reportedly launched last week in more Chicago suburbs and it is believed the service will become available in San Francisco's Bay Area before week's end. Comcast met its target of bringing 20 percent coverage to its markets by the end of 2008, and is now on its way to update all of its technology to the faster Internet access by the end of 2010. The provider's fast Internet service promises to bring download speeds as fast as 50Mbps to subscribers under its Extreme 50 service plan.
Comcast today officially launched and expanded its DOCSIS 3.0 service in a bid to compete against Verizon's FIOS and other very high-speed Internet connections. Originally available in a limited form just in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, the now established Extreme 50 plan bonds cable channels together to reach downstream speeds of 50Mbps, or bandwidth three times faster than the provider's DOCSIS 2.0-era 16Mbps tier. The performance is high enough to make HD video feasible: a full 6GB movie can download in as little as 16 minutes.
Comcast's cable TV network will be all digital in the space of three years, according to claims by an unnamed senior executive at a communications company. The service provider is allegedly buying up as many six million digital-to-analog devices from Motorola and others this year as well as 12 million in 2009, all of which will be handed out to subscribers whose TVs don't support digital tuning. The move will let Comcast shut off analog cable entirely in favor of purely digital networks; the process should have all of Comcast's cable base on digital channels by 2011.
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.
At least two major Western Internet providers will have Internet access topping the 100 megabit per second (Mbps) mark before the end of the year, according to announcements. American cable provider Comcast has confirmed at CES that it is readying a service based on the new DOCSIS 3 cable modem standard that will bond together multiple cable channels to achieve Internet speeds far in excess of the version 2 speeds available today. Under good conditions, the technology translates to about 160Mbps for downloads and 120Mbps for uploads. This has led to full-length HD movie downloads in under four minutes during demonstrations, Comcast says.
