Comments on: Verizon’s cable spectrum mashup: evil genius or simply genius?

By: majortom1981

majortom1981 — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:55:33 +0000

I just recentlysaw a document that states coax as of right now can do 10gigabit . Cablelabs is thinking of getting away from docsis channels for coax and making it pretty much one big pipe.

Coax still has a lot of room left for now

By: William Diaz ✔

William Diaz ✔ — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:02:36 +0000

Ive been against the Verizon/Cable Spectrum purchase since they announced it. Verizon and AT&T already both have an enormous amount of 700Mhz spectrum, and both are recycling their 850/1900 networks anyway for 3G/4G so there is no reason they need more. As for their timing, I think Dan Hesse said it best that Verizon was remaining quiet because they had plans to make a move in the spectrum world, and made agreements with AT&T…”You buy T-Mobile, take that spectrum, we will buy anything else, and drive Sprint, Metro, Leap, and Dish out of business!”
On a side note, AWS that Verizon picks up should be divested with this deal. AT&T shouldnt be allowed to buy it, but T-Mobile should be able to buy it at a nice small price.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:39 +0000

I’m trying to figure out the logic behind this sentence:

“Today that’s not so bad, since most cable companies have deployed the faster DOCSIS 3.0 technology that can deliver up to 100 Mbps down to homes, but it’s depressing to consider that five years from now we may still have that same infrastructure and little opportunity to go forward, unless the cable companies want to invest in fiber to the home.”

Why would the cable companies need to bring fiber to the home to increase Internet speeds above 100 Mbps? Their coax cable delivers 5 Gbps today, divided between MPEG-T and DOCSIS, so simply shifting the allocation allows them to offer 1 Gbps or more for Internet.

They were able to move to DOCSIS 3 by bonding 4 40 Mbps channels, and the gear they have allows them to bond 8 or 16 already. They freed up the channels by compressing their MPEG streams more effectively, and the technology that made that possible has a lot more fuel in the tank.

FiOS only competes with cable in 15% of the country, and there’s no sign that Vz intends to discontinue it, just as there was no sign they were going to expand the footprint before this deal came down.

I also wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about Free.fr’s mobile-over-Wi-Fi system until field reports show that it’s worth the admittedly low price they’re asking for it. We’ve been burned by outdoor Wi-Fi several times before, as you know.