LAS VEGAS – 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 already is 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 lab said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification by year’s end.
Rocky Mountain News – Comcast modem faster than a runaway train