Posted on 05/09/2007 11:54:36 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is holding its annual convention in Las Vegas (where else?) and this year, super-high-speed cable service is finally moving into the limelight. Announcements from hardware providers like Motorola and Texas Instruments suggest that we're finally moving closer to the promised land of DOCSIS 3.0.
DOCSIS 3.0 offers two immediate benefits over what cable ISP subscribers are currently stuck with (DOCSIS 1.1): faster speeds and support for IPv6. The technology has the potential to bump download speeds to 160Mbps and upload speeds to 120Mbps, although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.
In the first widespread deployment of pre-DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, a South Korean cable ISP was able to pump 100Mbps service into the homes of its subscribers. This week's announcements provide hope that the kind of speeds seen in Korea will be making their way across the Pacific before too long.
Motorola, Singapore-based StarHub, and cable hardware provider Vyyo announced that they have successfully tested DOCSIS 3.0 hardware, delivering speeds in excess of 145Mbps. Testing was performed over StarHub's hybrid fiber-coax network in Singapore and used a combination of Motorola hardware and Vyyo's spectrum overlay products.
Texas Instruments has also announced a new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem architecture that it says will enable "fast adoption and deployment of advanced DOCSIS 3.0 specification-based products." Called Puma 5, TI's solution provides advanced home networking support and is optimized for data, voice, and video traffic.
The announcements demonstrate that while the cable companies will have to invest in some new equipment, wholesale infrastructure improvements will be largely unnecessary. This is especially true for cable companies that have already deployed mixed fiber/coaxial networks. The upside? Faster DOCSIS 3.0 deployments in the US.
Cable companies have another incentive to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 in a rapid manner. Verizon and AT&T are investing heavily in fiber networks of their own. While AT&T's fiber-to-the-node solution won't break any speed records (DSL download speeds are capped at 6Mbps), Verizon's FiOS network offers the kind of bandwidth that is out of reach even for DOCSIS 3.0. Of course, much of that 3.5Gbps of bandwidth is reserved for television programming (leaving around 622Mbps for broadband), but FiOS has the potential for even faster speeds as more technological advances are made and FiOS TV is migrated to an IPTV system.
Comcast plans to demo DOCSIS 3.0 at The Cable Show this week and, more importantly, plans to begin DOCSIS 3.0 trials later this year, according to Cable Digital News. Large-scale DOCSIS 3.0 deployments are unlikely to begin until next year, and a November 2006 report estimated that only 40 percent of the cable modems in use will support the technology by 2011—by that time, FiOS will be available to well over 18 million households in the US. Still, it's encouraging to see one of those "three-to-five-years-away" technologies poised to finally hit the market.
No more waiting porn downloads...
“....although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.”
It’s still shared media bandwidth.
When this type of technology becomes prevalent in homes, network TV will plummet in usefulness.
“The technology has the potential to bump download speeds to 160Mbps and upload speeds to 120Mbps, although that bandwidth will be divided up between households attached to a single node.”
I got pretty excited about this until I read the caveat. Depends on how many households per node....getting to 160Mbps would push us close to full res HDTV over cable. That would be exciting...
Two words:
Content.
OK, one word.
Two words:
Content.
OK, one word.
Already happening. This will acclerate the decline.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1830357/posts
Where Have the TV Viewers Gone? (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
Yahoo! Finance ^ | May 8 2007 | David Bauder
Posted on 05/08/2007 4:03:45 PM CDT by Milhous
Industry Struggles to Keep Advertisers As Figures Show Less People Are Watching TV
I’ve been traveling through Europe for the past couple of weeks - 30-40 mbps service is widely available and dirt cheap. Sort of pisses me off, since the only comparable in the US is FiOS, and its availability is limited.
That sounds like 74 minutes to download 100 GB. Pretty cool.
ANother article, same subject:
Yahoo! Newshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/ap_on_hi_te/fast_cable_modem
Back to Story - Help
Comcast CEO shows off super quick modem
By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business WriterWed May 9, 7:50 AM ET
Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today’s standard cable modems.
The cost of modems that would support the technology, called “channel bonding,” is “not that dissimilar to modems today,” he told The Associated Press after a demonstration at The Cable Show. It could be available “within less than a couple years,” he said.
The new cable technology is crucial because the industry is competing with a speedy new offering called FiOS, a TV and Internet service that Verizon Communications Inc. is selling over a new fiber-optic network. The top speed currently available through FiOS is 50 megabits per second, but the network is already capable of providing 100 Mbps and the fiber lines offer nearly unlimited potential.
The technology, called DOCSIS 3.0, was developed by the cable industry’s research arm, Cable Television Laboratories. It bonds together four cable lines but is capable of allowing much more capacity. The laboratory said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification under the standard by the end of the year.
In the presentation, ARRIS Group Inc. chief executive Robert Stanzione downloaded a 30-second, 300-megabyte television commercial in a few seconds and watched it long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes.
Stanzione also downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster’s visual dictionary in under four minutes, when it would have taken a standard modem three hours and 12 minutes.
“If you look at what just happened, 55 million words, 100,000 articles, more than 22,000 pictures, maps and more than 400 video clips,” Roberts said. “The same download on dial-up would have taken two weeks.”
Other cable industry executives, including Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Philippe Dauman, cheered the demonstration during a panel afterward.
Brian Dietz, spokesman for the conference host, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said the demonstration was the key technological advance showcased at the conference.
“It’s an exponential step forward and we’re very excited,” Roberts said. “What consumers actually do with all this speed is up to the imagination of the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”
BTTT
That is one cool web site my friend.
RAM Tough: The Coming 64 Bit Computer Revolution
*************************************
Allows more neato videos to be produced....which will use more bandwidth....
Comcast, please, they have been behind the curve since they introduced cable. Direct TV and over the air HD have solved the TV problem. Still have Comcast to appease the other guest rooms and cable model for internet use. So Mr. Comcast explain why my cable model usally only operates at 10% of capacity.
Not necessarily... the graphics may be more superior, but as long as the codecs used are same, it needn't necessarily use more bandwidth.
Being shared by 40 homes takes you down to current cable speeds. However, ISPs bank on not everybody using their bandwidth at the same time so you'd still get blazing speed in all but peak hours unless they throttle individual homes.
I get full rez HDTV over cable now.
Can you believe all the ripped movies on that thing? It`s insane. WIthout fail, everytime a movie opens in theaters, that website has the entire movie posted a few days later. When that movie “300” came out, a few days leater they had it not only posted, but posted in near DVD quality. Don`t ask me how, but there it was. I couldn`t believe it, I watched the whole thing. Like I said, how they are not sued into oblivion is beyond me.
Check out Grindhouse, I love this movie. It reminds me of all the cheesy flicks I use to watch with my brother in the `70`s, we would sneak into all these X rated movies at this theater that never locked their door at the rear of the building. This movie Grindhouse got those flicks down exactly. Something I never understood is why the theater always had bad prints with tons of scratches even though the movie was new.
http://www.movieforumz.com/showthread.php?t=11513
That's because the projector's gate was so filthy dirty that it was scratching the print with every showing.
Sorry. I meant over internet.
One more thing. Cable (nor anyone else) does not broadcast 1080p. Only 1080i and 720p.
Oh man, that`s what it was wasn`t it? You`re right, because back then these theaters use to be garbage heaps not to mention people smoking (cigarettes, cigars and “other stuff”) all the time in the audience. Damn, you hit the nail right on the head because I can remember clear as day seeing nothing short of a dust storm in the projector light. You`d see where the projector was, and see all this dust and crap floating in the lamp light, real sleazy theaters back then. THANKS!
Around here it’s only 720p and according to Comcast, unlikely to change. DirecTV is also 720p. Most locals at the big box stores are saying that 720p is likely to be it, with 1080i/p only from discs. It’s a bandwidth issue for all, the needs of the highest HDTV just takes too much for now.
FIOS may force a change, but bandwidth is limited on cable, even if it were all digital. Comcast around here uses fiber to the node, but the node is all single stand cable for 40 houses or so.
Fiber to the curb is the answer.
Screw that. What about hosting porn. ;-)$$$
Con.
Tent.
You were right the first ti me.
1080i and 720p are high definition.
1080i is 30 frames per second.
720p is 60 frames per second.
1080p is 24 frames per second.
They each have their value. When a movie is broadcast at 1080i, every pixel is there to be reconstructed into 1080p if you have the appropriate hardware. If you have 5 grand to drop on a scaler, you can watch broadcast movies at true 1080p glory.
The bandwidth is actually a little higher with the 1080i signal than 1080p.
It’s two words if you say it twice.
Everything is “3 to 5 years away”; oh, how I long for yesterday when they promised everything tomorrow.
Actually, with that bandwidth, you’re looking at roughly ten HD channels with MPEG2 compression. If I remember correctly, ATSC standards (which is the digital equivalent of NTSC) allows for 11mbps per over-the-air channel.
Comcast works great where I live. DirecTv vs Comcast is a joke IMO. I had DirecTv for years and it is fine for TV but they don’t offer internet service worth speaking of. i will take Comcast and Tivo any day over DirecTV.
Problem is, CBS, NBC, HBO, Showtime, Discovery, national Geographic (to name a few) produce their HD content in 1080i. ABC, Fox, ESPN produce their content in 720p. For Comcast to show a 1080i source in 720, they have to de-interlace it and put it back together at 720p. Vice-versa for 720p content to be shown in 1080i. Currently, only High Definition DVD’s contain content that is 1080p. The broadcast copanies are a long way off from producing that content. Scaling it up to 1080p is better than not...but its not the same as native resolution being 1080p.
My original point was that with 160Mbps download times, we could be getting full resolution (not MPEG2 compressed - and there issues with that comperssion) 1080p content over the internet.
If they can get terabyte+ hard drives going, this could kill hddvd/blu-ray and certainly regular DVD. Kind of a shame, I like owning and renting actual media. I’ve only used the Xbox360’s download movie thing once. It’s way too expensive and the quality wasn’t great. You also are really limited on how many times you watch it.
I did the same thing. Once they dropped Tivo support for their next-gen HD stuff, I went to Time Warner with a Tivo Series 3. Expensive, but the HD on it looks fantastic.
If Directv actually launches the 2 sats they promise and get lots of uncompressed HD channels, I may go back. I sure don’t care for their DVR though.
It’s not far off now. the problem likely won’t be storage or even processing capability. It’s with the content owner (the MPAA) who doesn’t truly believe you own what you purchase. Blue Ray/HD DVD’s cannot be “ripped” onto said hard drives for you to consume how you want. Apple is making the first foray into digital content distribution with movies on iTunes and the Apple TV coupled with the h.264 codec. But they are 480p quality and there is no (legal) way to rip the DVD’s you currently own. There are some rumblings about Apple “renting” HD movies over the internet. But at current download speeds it would take half a day to download them before you can watch them.
Blah, I’ll stick with blu-ray for a long time. There will be a huge incentive for them to overcompress online movies to keep the bandwidth low. Unless you get all the features and the ability to buy and store them from online, forget it.
“Unless you get all the features and the ability to buy and store them from online, forget it.”
No disagreement here...
You are not going to get 160 MBPS to all 30,000 houses in a town. The demo was bogus, it showed only ‘what could be done’. Aggregate the bandwidth required by many simultaneous users, and the number would be not possible. By the time you get your share, it will be way down. In our neighborhood we have one shared cable loop for 40 houses or so. At the end of the block it goes into one fiber strand then on to town the head end.
DOCIS 3.0 uses several normal 6 MHZ cable channels in a bonding scheme to get the speed demoed , but a cable has only a limited number of these. It’s more like burst bandwidth rather than constant. If everyone connected to download video simultaneously, the bit rate would drop drastically.
I doubt that we will get much more than 720p unless you use a BluRay DVD or download it then view. The over the air and cable broadcasts are not going to make it much higher than 25 Mbps, probably the same as FIOS. Overall the picture quality is better, but not the resolution that was originally advertised.
I have been doing some experimenting with IPTV and it is looking pretty good, slightly better than 480i, but they are holding the data stream to under 100kbps and it still has a lot of breakup on fast action scenes. Quality is not up to DirecTVs 1 to many 2-5 Mbps.
I understand about the 160 Mbps being broken up (see my original post). We need a breakthrough of some sort to take video on the web to reasonable levels of quality enough to offset broadcast/cable/satellite. It’s the future...just not yet...;-)
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