With internet usage expanding exponentially and demand for high-speed connections ever growing, cable internet companies may soon be facing serious bandwidth issues, according to a report by ABI Research. The problem comes from more demanding applications, including high-definition video, video on demand, online gaming, and higher-bandwidth Internet applications, which could lead to fewer high-definition television channels and sputtering internet speeds. "The increasing bandwidth demands on cable operators will soon reach crisis stage, yet this is a 'dirty little industry secret' that no one talks about," said Stan Schatt, VP and research director for ABI Research.
Currently, cable providers utilize roughly 750MHz worth of bandwidth: ~676MHz for downstream applications like analog cable, digital cable, HD programming, video on demand, Internet data, and VoIP service and 54MHz for upstream transmissions; according to ABI, however, 750MHz just isn't enough to deal with future growth. "Uploading bandwidth is going to have to increase," Schatt stated. "And the cable providers are going to get killed on bandwidth as HD programming becomes more commonplace."
Currently, cable providers utilize roughly 750MHz worth of bandwidth: ~676MHz for downstream applications like analog cable, digital cable, HD programming, video on demand, Internet data, and VoIP service and 54MHz for upstream transmissions; according to ABI, however, 750MHz just isn't enough to deal with future growth. "Uploading bandwidth is going to have to increase," Schatt stated. "And the cable providers are going to get killed on bandwidth as HD programming becomes more commonplace."
In order to keep customers happy, cable companies may have to resort to costly methods to increase available spectrum such as purchasing spectrum overlay devices capable of providing up to 3GHz of spectrum. Beyond that, few options are available, including rate shaping (controlling the rate at which data packets are transmitted), digital switching (more on that below), overlaying fiber over existing coaxial cable installations, and better MPEG-4 compression (which will lower the bandwidth overhead for HD video). Evenutually, however, cable companies may have to adopt IPTV, which treats video programming as IP data, and thus allows for selective transmission of channels, whereas currently cable companies transmit every channel they provide to each house. "Digital switching is key," Schatt argues. "Ultimately, the cable companies will have to move to IPTV. They'll be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century."

I don't see how this can pose a problem since when the cable companies stop transmitting analogue there will quite a bit of bandwidth for stuff like HD content and the channel bonding stuff for the next gen of cable Docsis 3.0 will allow over 480Mbps and 120Mbps upstream.
Btw what's FiOS, is it different to cable or is it the same technology but instead of copper it's fibre optic.
Hopefully our neighbourhood get open net fiber so we can have some competition against the cable.
Open net http://www.bynett.no/ means the fiber connection and its services are seperated, so I can choose the Internet provider that give me IPv6 and good upstream.
I don't see how this can pose a problem since when the cable companies stop transmitting analogue there will quite a bit of bandwidth for stuff like HD content and the channel bonding stuff for the next gen of cable Docsis 3.0 will allow over 480Mbps and 120Mbps upstream.
Btw what's FiOS, is it different to cable or is it the same technology but instead of copper it's fibre optic.
With Bonding you still have all the same issues you have on DOCSIS 2.0... the 480Mbit is shared... not dedicated... and then the more channels you bond the more bandwidth it takes up... more channels running cable modem, less TV channels you can have...
Unless they start pushing H.D. and phasing out regular cable.
I am happy with my Internet speed and somewhat pleased with the cable television.
If you RTFA, it's talking about problems you're going to have. Not how things are now.
Convinced them? I call BS on that one. Either Comcast paid somebody off or your city fathers are total morons. There's no other rational explanation...at least none that I can think of.
Convinced them? I call BS on that one. Either Comcast paid somebody off or your city fathers are total morons. There's no other rational explanation...at least none that I can think of.
I don't knwo what they did behind our backs, but they convinced the town somehow not to allow verizon to go with Fios in the area... Comcast likes its monopoly of the area and is doing all it can to keep out competition...
The truth is, the cable companies are looking for ways to established tiered internet services, so they can price gouge customers more than they are doing even now. Not only for broadband, but for content. They bundle a bunch of unwanted channels along with popular channels so that customers are forced to pay for the entire package, with channels they don't really want, instead of individual channels. The cable companies would like to extend this kind of tiered service packaging to broadband as well.
Ever notice how cable prices continue to rise even though equipment costs are DECREASING? They're still charging customers 1990s tech-era prices, even though they are now using servers with 1000x the capacity of 1990s tech!
The telecom scammers are second only to the oil companies, military contractors, and medical insurance companies in corruption.
When you show me a country with the landmass of the US that has it throughout the entire country, I'll believe you.
Holding up countries that aren't even as big as some of our states as examples of how it can be done is comparing apples to watermelons.
When you show me a country with the landmass of the US that has it throughout the entire country, I'll believe you.
Holding up countries that aren't even as big as some of our states as examples of how it can be done is comparing apples to watermelons.
That doesn't count because the cities in America are dense enough that having a fiber network would make perfect sense. They simply want to keep milking profits from their old copper network as long as they can.
look back 10 -15 years ago and how slow the internet was as hardware becomes better bandwidth increases but because they try to get more people online more hardware is needed staff to maintain it and electricity bills go up as well as the need for land and buildings = shrinking or not growing profits
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