Cable Modems to be 1000x faster in 2008

Greg Harris · October 11th, 2005, 06:49 AM

A.J. Where do you live? I live in FairLakes and I haven't heard of this. So there is a faster modem that cox is giving out for free to it's customers??

Christopher C. Murphy · October 11th, 2005, 06:57 AM

A.J. - yes, it was a benefit...you got upgraded for free!! It's about time the 1996 Telecom act pays off!

Jacques Mersereau · October 11th, 2005, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Emory

There is a technology currently being used by colleges called Internet 2. Apparently it was developed by Georgia Tech in Atlanta but is used across universities to move huge amounts of data. I just saw a local news story on Tech students being in trouble for apparently using it to download media, songs, etc., illegally. It was said that this technology allows the ability to download a DVD movie at DVD quality in about 30 seconds. Uhhh, that changes everything.

Yes, we have used Internet 2 (I2) for several years doing things like
'distance collaboration', where we've piped live video and audio to
remote locations. For example: Dancers in my studio appear hundreds lof miles away as giant projections behind another dance company at
Columbia University.

Recently we linked up with The New World Symphony out of Miami, FL.
Using a new technology called DTVS, we are now able to take the
firewire output of a camera, tape deck or CPU, and with a big enough
'pipe', funnel DV (with full res. audio) back an forth with something under
a 250 mil. seconds of latency.

Joe Carney · October 11th, 2005, 10:00 AM

Greg, I live near Fairlakes also (very close to hwy 29 just east of the parkway and West Ox road).
FIOS is not available at this time (Verizon were the first ones I called when I moved in). But I did opt for the speed upgrade from Cox that give me up to 15MB down and 2MB up and it appears to be working great. Don't need FIOS for now. I am currently using my own DLink cable modem to save money each month. Skype and Festoon work great on it too.

BTW, nice to meet you, I just moved out to Fairfax from Arlington. Maybe we could get together and talk shop? Have you eaten at the Crab House yet?

James Emory · October 11th, 2005, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. J. deLange

And an update from northern Va.: Verizon installed FIOS in my neighborhood. The response of the cable company (Cox) was to mail everyone a new cable modem and upgrade service to 5 mbps down, 2 mbps up for the same price. And they deliver these rates. So despite my all my whining FIOS did turn out to be a great benefit to me!

2 megs up?!! Wow, I would do anything for that kind of upstream. I have Comcast and I think were getting around 5 megs to 6 megs down and the most we are getting up is 300K-400K. When I need super duper up or down I just go the parking lot the library and get wireless T-3! Are you ready for this, a 300 meg file uploads in less than 20 minutes!

What is FIOS?

Christopher C. Murphy · October 11th, 2005, 12:40 PM

Whoa James, that's some screaming bandwidth! I've got to find out if any local libraries have that around here!

James Emory · October 11th, 2005, 01:07 PM

Yep! It is sure enough fast and free 24/7! The main reason that the upstream is so fast is because they hardly have any traffic in that direction. Their heaviest load is on the downstream with around 30 public workstations and who knows how many personal ones throughout the building. It's never really slow even during peak times because it's a T line but if you go up there after hours, you'll be getting the whole thing to yourself! When I say to yourself, I mean not too many people know that it reaches out into the parking lot because it was announced to only reach outside to the garden area. I love it!

A. J. deLange · October 11th, 2005, 02:07 PM

RE: What is FIOS? Well the F stands for Fiber and that's about as far as I go. It is Verizons home fiber optic service.

Note that 300 MByte in 20 minutes is 2 Mbps. I'm guessing the limitation is in your wireless connection - not the T3.

James Emory · October 11th, 2005, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. J. deLange

Note that 300 MByte in 20 minutes is 2 Mbps. I'm guessing the limitation is in your wireless connection - not the T3.

You are aware that was the upstream speed right? Compared to cable's speed with an upload time of 3-4 hours for that same file size? Like Richard Petty says about BC Powder, it's just plain FICED!

Anhar Miah · October 14th, 2005, 07:10 PM

I cant really see how, the internet as a whole can be speeded up any further untill ALL the telephone infastructure AROUND the world is replaced with high bangwidth technology. The old copper wires where never intended for that kind of bandwidth. Any telecom engineers lurking in these forums could please shed some light on this matter?

Anhar

A. J. deLange · October 16th, 2005, 10:48 AM

James,

Yes, and that's the speed I get from cable in the up direction.

Anhar,

Think of the internet as a big river with tributaries with the tributaries being fed by creeks. The river is the internet backbone using the latest and greatest broad band communications methods with tons of throughput capacity. The tributaries which feed the big river have less capacity and some of the creeks less still. But some of the creeks are larger than others and as long as I have broadband and can reach a tributary with enough bandwidth and my intended recipient has the same at the other end I can communicate with him at broadband rates. None of the backbone runs on copper. Copper is pretty much limited to the "last mile" i.e. the access into peoples homes. If I send a person with copper a 300 Mbyte file I can upload it in minutes and it will be forwarded to that persons ISP within minutes but it will take him hours to download it. If, OTOH, he has 5 Mbps cable or fiber he will be able to download it in 8 minutes and if he has 15 Mbps, 3 minutes.

You are right that ALL the internet cannot be sped up until everyone has a high speed connection. But it can serve all high speed connected users as long as the backbone capacity is there and for the moment it is.

Greg Boston · October 16th, 2005, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. J. deLange

James,

Yes, and that's the speed I get from cable in the up direction.

Anhar,

Think of the internet as a big river with tributaries with the tributaries being fed by creeks. The river is the internet backbone using the latest and greatest broad band communications methods with tons of throughput capacity. The tributaries which feed the big river have less capacity and some of the creeks less still. But some of the creeks are larger than others and as long as I have broadband and can reach a tributary with enough bandwidth and my intended recipient has the same at the other end I can communicate with him at broadband rates. None of the backbone runs on copper. Copper is pretty much limited to the "last mile" i.e. the access into peoples homes. If I send a person with copper a 300 Mbyte file I can upload it in minutes and it will be forwarded to that persons ISP within minutes but it will take him hours to download it. If, OTOH, he has 5 Mbps cable or fiber he will be able to download it in 8 minutes and if he has 15 Mbps, 3 minutes.

You are right that ALL the internet cannot be sped up until everyone has a high speed connection. But it can serve all high speed connected users as long as the backbone capacity is there and for the moment it is.

I've been lucky enough to live close enough to a CO switch that was tested to be good up to 5.5mbs on copper wire. Everytime I think we've hit the limit with copper, someone comes up with a way to up the ante.

-gb-

Anhar Miah · October 16th, 2005, 12:19 PM

Thanks AJ ! I wonder how the intenet will now start to evovle as wireless technology expands, who knnows in 20 years time the way data may travel around the world might become even more complicated.

Anhar

James Emory · October 16th, 2005, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. J. deLange

James,
Yes, and that's the speed I get from cable in the up direction.

I just can't see how you are able to upload a 300 MB file with cable at the same speed as T-3. Even with the business rate for cable the transfer is at most 400K, less than 1/2 a meg upstream. How are you able to do this? You don't have to finish it, but could you please start a 300 MB upload and tell me what the ETA of the transfer says? If you do have the time to perform a complete 300 MB upload, let's see if the actual time matches the ETA.

A. J. deLange · October 16th, 2005, 02:27 PM

If I remember it correctly a T1 is 24 VGCs at 8 ksps with a depth of 8 bits. That's 1.536 Mbps payload. Again, if I remember correctly, a T2 is 24 T1's or 36.86 Mbps and a T3 24 of those for 847.3 Mbps. Thus at 2 Mbps you are only using 0.2% of a T3. That's why I commented that the limitation was bound to be your WiFi connection - not the T3. I have noted many times that the incoming rate when I transfer files from home to work is very close to 2Mbps. That's what my cable company and Verizon both advertize. Note again that my upload was about 200 kbps from Cox until Verizon moved into the area and started offering 2 Mbps.

October 11th, 2005, 06:57 AM	#17
Christopher C. Murphy Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,707	A.J. - yes, it was a benefit...you got upgraded for free!! It's about time the 1996 Telecom act pays off! __________________ Christopher C. Murphy Director, Producer, Writer

October 11th, 2005, 12:40 PM	#21
Christopher C. Murphy Trustee Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,707	Whoa James, that's some screaming bandwidth! I've got to find out if any local libraries have that around here! __________________ Christopher C. Murphy Director, Producer, Writer

October 14th, 2005, 07:10 PM	#25
Anhar Miah Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: United Kindom, England Posts: 290	I cant really see how, the internet as a whole can be speeded up any further untill ALL the telephone infastructure AROUND the world is replaced with high bangwidth technology. The old copper wires where never intended for that kind of bandwidth. Any telecom engineers lurking in these forums could please shed some light on this matter? Anhar __________________ The IT Ninja Learn, Teach, Grow..

October 16th, 2005, 12:19 PM	#28
Anhar Miah Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: United Kindom, England Posts: 290	Thanks AJ ! I wonder how the intenet will now start to evovle as wireless technology expands, who knnows in 20 years time the way data may travel around the world might become even more complicated. Anhar __________________ The IT Ninja Learn, Teach, Grow..

October 11th, 2005, 06:49 AM	#16
Greg Harris Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Fairfax, VA Posts: 356	A.J. Where do you live? I live in FairLakes and I haven't heard of this. So there is a faster modem that cox is giving out for free to it's customers??

October 11th, 2005, 10:00 AM	#19
Joe Carney Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Centreville Va Posts: 1,828	Greg, I live near Fairlakes also (very close to hwy 29 just east of the parkway and West Ox road). FIOS is not available at this time (Verizon were the first ones I called when I moved in). But I did opt for the speed upgrade from Cox that give me up to 15MB down and 2MB up and it appears to be working great. Don't need FIOS for now. I am currently using my own DLink cable modem to save money each month. Skype and Festoon work great on it too. BTW, nice to meet you, I just moved out to Fairfax from Arlington. Maybe we could get together and talk shop? Have you eaten at the Crab House yet?

October 11th, 2005, 01:07 PM	#22
James Emory Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Atlanta, Georgia Posts: 1,892	Yep! It is sure enough fast and free 24/7! The main reason that the upstream is so fast is because they hardly have any traffic in that direction. Their heaviest load is on the downstream with around 30 public workstations and who knows how many personal ones throughout the building. It's never really slow even during peak times because it's a T line but if you go up there after hours, you'll be getting the whole thing to yourself! When I say to yourself, I mean not too many people know that it reaches out into the parking lot because it was announced to only reach outside to the garden area. I love it!

October 11th, 2005, 02:07 PM	#23
A. J. deLange Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: McLean, VA United States Posts: 749	RE: What is FIOS? Well the F stands for Fiber and that's about as far as I go. It is Verizons home fiber optic service. Note that 300 MByte in 20 minutes is 2 Mbps. I'm guessing the limitation is in your wireless connection - not the T3.

October 16th, 2005, 10:48 AM	#26
A. J. deLange Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: McLean, VA United States Posts: 749	James, Yes, and that's the speed I get from cable in the up direction. Anhar, Think of the internet as a big river with tributaries with the tributaries being fed by creeks. The river is the internet backbone using the latest and greatest broad band communications methods with tons of throughput capacity. The tributaries which feed the big river have less capacity and some of the creeks less still. But some of the creeks are larger than others and as long as I have broadband and can reach a tributary with enough bandwidth and my intended recipient has the same at the other end I can communicate with him at broadband rates. None of the backbone runs on copper. Copper is pretty much limited to the "last mile" i.e. the access into peoples homes. If I send a person with copper a 300 Mbyte file I can upload it in minutes and it will be forwarded to that persons ISP within minutes but it will take him hours to download it. If, OTOH, he has 5 Mbps cable or fiber he will be able to download it in 8 minutes and if he has 15 Mbps, 3 minutes. You are right that ALL the internet cannot be sped up until everyone has a high speed connection. But it can serve all high speed connected users as long as the backbone capacity is there and for the moment it is.

October 16th, 2005, 02:27 PM	#30
A. J. deLange Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: McLean, VA United States Posts: 749	If I remember it correctly a T1 is 24 VGCs at 8 ksps with a depth of 8 bits. That's 1.536 Mbps payload. Again, if I remember correctly, a T2 is 24 T1's or 36.86 Mbps and a T3 24 of those for 847.3 Mbps. Thus at 2 Mbps you are only using 0.2% of a T3. That's why I commented that the limitation was bound to be your WiFi connection - not the T3. I have noted many times that the incoming rate when I transfer files from home to work is very close to 2Mbps. That's what my cable company and Verizon both advertize. Note again that my upload was about 200 kbps from Cox until Verizon moved into the area and started offering 2 Mbps.