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SAN FRANCISCO — If you think that today’s high-speed Internet connections are fast, wait till you see what cable operators plan.
The industry’s standard-settings unit, CableLabs, plans to endorse this month technology that will let operators boost speeds 400% to 1,600%, over their existing lines.Motorola and Cisco are among the companies offering alternative methods to increase broadband speeds by linking together the bandwidth used for four or more conventional TV channels.
What would the faster speed bring?
“The sky’s the limit,” says CableLabs CEO Dick Green. “There are a lot of high-data-rate services lurking out there — including a lot that we haven’t even thought of.”
While cable operators now usually transmit broadband at 3 million bits per second (3MB), a download of “a billion bits per second is completely doable,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told the industry’s annual convention here this week. “The network could do this quite easily.”
That could dramatically affect how people use the Internet when the new modems to handle the speeds arrive, which is expected to be in 2008.
“This will change our lives well beyond entertainment,” says Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers. For example, when speeds allow quick sending of detailed images. such as X-rays, he says, “You’ll do the majority of your health care straight from the home.”
Others envision a host of other applications. For example, businesses could easily arrange video conferences with high-definition TV. Consumers could download an entire HD movie in about five minutes vs. today’s 22 minutes.
And, “There will be a need for higher speeds as games become more graphics-intensive,” says Adelphia Chief Technical Officer Marwan Fawaz.
Hospitals and schools also may be among the first to take advantage of the additional transmission capacity, which is expected to cost more than current high-speed Internet services.
Operators want to get moving to keep ahead of phone companies, led by Verizon, that are building communications systems with more fiber-optic lines — and therefore more transmission capacity — than cable.
“There’ll be a speed arms race,” says RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.
But the new cable standard, known as DOCSIS 3.0, also will make it easier for operators to handle other chores.
“I could take a cell phone and program my digital video recorder,” says Richard Doherty, who is with The Envisioneering Group. “Quality of service is a big part of it.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-04-05-speed-usat_x.htm
This won’t happen, if you want to see why take a look as to why we don’t have this technology today.
EEDOK wrote:This won’t happen, if you want to see why take a look as to why we don’t have this technology today.the reason we dont have this technology today is that its still in the process of being developed. keep in mind that back in the day, people thought that the earth was flat, that we would never have airplanes, that no one could ever possibly need more than 16k of RAM. anything is possible. just because we dont have it now doesnt mean we wont have it in the future.It will happen, it’s only a matter of time. When I first started out online back in the ’80s, I was using a 300 baud modem. Dial-up speeds progressed to where I was getting about 44 Kbps. Finally DSL extended it’s reach to where I live, and that jumped to ~600 Kbps. I’m currently using cable internet and getting speeds in excess of 1 Mbps. And SBC has already laid fiber-optic cable to every house in our city, in preparation for offering service with speeds up to 30 Mbps sometime this year.
Already a majority of households in the U.S. have some form of broadband connection, and obviously it changes the way we use our computers and the internet. In our home, I cancelled our phone service entirely and switched to VoIP. When we eventually switch over to fiber, I may opt to cancel my satellite TV and watch that over fiber as well.
As I said, it will happen, it’s just a matter of when.
Tigerblade wrote:the reason we dont have this technology today is that its still in the process of being developed. keep in mind that back in the day, people thought that the earth was flat, that we would never have airplanes, that no one could ever possibly need more than 16k of RAM. anything is possible. just because we dont have it now doesnt mean we wont have it in the future.
Even once the technology is developed, it will still take forever for us to get it. SBC and Verizon are both rolling out their new fiber-optic networks, but the estimated time until they finish putting out all the cabling is 5 years.And SBC has already laid fiber-optic cable to every house in our city, in preparation for offering service with speeds up to 30 Mbps sometime this year.
Jeff, how do you know they have laid it out? And how do you know that they plan on offering the service within the next year? I would much like to hear, as I live very close by to you (Santa Ana) and have been looking forward to getting fiber-optic cabling in my neighborhood for some time now.
Tigerblade wrote:the reason we dont have this technology today is that its still in the process of being developed. keep in mind that back in the day, people thought that the earth was flat, that we would never have airplanes, that no one could ever possibly need more than 16k of RAM. anything is possible. just because we dont have it now doesnt mean we wont have it in the future.
Ever stop and wonder, how 10 years ago you could easily get over 70 channels worth of live video feed near instantly, yet today you can’t get a live video feed over the internet anywhere near the speed and quality of 10 years ago?Will will get it sometime, the technology is always progressing so I think this will happen. Someday dial-up will be like what DSL is today. Of course then almost everything and everybody will be online. A bunch of people and stuff is online already, just think of in 5-10 years!
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