Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

50 Meg DOCSIS will reach well over 60% next year, as Cox's new announcement brings the projection up. Things are moving even faster around the world. The costs are so low it's a no brainer to upgrade very quickly. Cablevision said "under $100," Comcast said "under $50" and now Mike Fries of Liberty Global says it's as low as $20. He tells the NY Times "This just isn’t an expensive capital investment.”

The result is 160 Mbps (shared, downstream) service costs 6,000 yen ($60) per month at J:COM, a Liberty Global subsidiary, and they are considering speeding the upstream as well. Saul Hansell in the Times suggests "the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they’d still make as much money. The cable industry here uses the same technology as J:COM."

The DOCSIS 3.0 spec was designed to allow inexpensive upgrades. I was told the 160 meg level was chosen because many systems would only require a software upgrade. It's not quite that simple all the time. I believe LGI carefully planned ahead to keep upgrade costs low, and some of the older CMTS will need more expensive work. At some point (2014? 2017?) increasing Internet traffic will cause problems for the 160/120 shared speeds of the early DOCSIS systems, but 320 meg chips are already sampling and the spec is designed to reach a full gigabit.

Fries added, "The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora’s box. The super-fast service will encourage customers to watch video on the Web and drop their cable service."