Telstra has been quick to respond to criticism of the capabilities of DOCSIS 3.0, and HFC networks in general, with a blog post on Nowwearetalking from its CTO, Hugh Bradlow.
Bradlow was particularly upset about accusations from Optus’ government relations chief, Maha Krishnapillai, who was reported to have described Telstra’s upgrade was a poor second choice because it was a ‘shared network’, and therefore slowed down as the number of users increased.
Well if this is so, given all that Telstra has said about the need for and benefits of widespread high speed broadband one has to ask why it is dipping its toe into the water with DOCSIS 3.0 announcing only a Melbourne rollout when, on a simple extrapolation of the $300m cost, it could have 2.5m households in major cities able to access the network for about $700 and probably finish the job my mid 2010.
You can read Bradlow’s full rap on the wonders of DOCSIS 3.0 on Nowwearetalking. According to Bradlow, it stacks up very favourably against FTTN. “When we say that Telstra’s upgraded cable network will deliver up to 100Mbps downstream speeds, we mean it. Even in peak periods, the cable network will deliver 70 – 100Mbps burst downstream speeds, – a higher peak speed, in fact, than FTTN would offer.”
Dermot Cox of C-COR Broadband – the main supplier of HFC gear to Telstra – made a submission to the Senate enquiry into the NBN. He had the hubris to claim that “The next wave of technology development will be driven by the world’s leading cable operators to meet customers’ increasing demand for more bandwidth and video-centric applications like IPTV, interactive video, distance education and video telephony. Not once did he mention that the capacity of DOCSIS 3.0 is shared between all users on a co-ax cable.
True, but it’s a fact that cable people seem particularly reluctant to discuss. I’d asked Telstra’s GMD Networks and Services, Michael Rocca the day of Telstra’s announcement how many users in Telstra’s Melbourne HFC network typically shared a single run of coax and if Telstra intended to reduce this number as part of the upgrade. I had great difficulty in getting him to answer the question, and he never did give me a number but did say that about 100 addition nodes would be rolled out as part of the DOCSIS 3.0 upgrade. According to Bradlow, the number of users per node in HFC networks is “typically 150″ (but he did not suggest that this applied to Telstra’s network).
source: itwire.com
It looks like the folks at TWC are bad losers. They are now considering dropping the planned rollout of DOCSIS 3.0high speed citing that it was part of their plan for consumption based billing.
In other words, if they are not going to get the blood money they planned from CBB, they might not feel the need to roll out wideband (even though they are not implicitly tied). Alex Dudley, VP of public relations for Time Warner explains via his twitter feed:
@gigastacey it was scheduled as part of cbb trial, but we all know how you feel about that.
@netpro2k It doesn’t…just that the rollout was scheduled with the trial and now all of it is on hold.
@Stryph Biggest cost is actually bandwidth allocation.
Obviously, if they are concerned about another major public backlash, they had damn well better come through with this. As a TWC customer, I will definitely be one of those people shaking my fist. [PCMag]
source: gizmodo.com
Less than a month ago, I wrote about Comcast’s deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 in New England and areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey, following up on the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. I mentioned that they expected to reach more than 10 major markets in the coming months.
Here we go: Comcast launches DOCSIS 3.0 in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including such communities as Aberdeen, Spokane, Beaverton, and Eugene. The Extreme 50 tier offers download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Comcast will also double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers at no additional cost.
The company has a web page which allows you to check if wideband is available in your area or to sign up for e-mail updates when it is rolled out to you.
source: cabletechtalk.com
Less than a month ago, I wrote about Comcast’s deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 in New England and areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey, following up on the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. I mentioned that they expected to reach more than 10 major markets in the coming months.
Here we go: Comcast launches DOCSIS 3.0 in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including such communities as Aberdeen, Spokane, Beaverton, and Eugene. The Extreme 50 tier offers download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Comcast will also double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers at no additional cost.
The company has a web page which allows you to check if wideband is available in your area or to sign up for e-mail updates when it is rolled out to you.
source: cabletechtalk.com