Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Minimum EuroDOCSIS 3.0 downstream is 200 meg - shared - compared to 160 meg in the U.S. version. EuroDOCSIS uses 8 MHz channels, compared to 6 MHz channels in the U.S. Of course, those speeds aren't reached if more than one home is drawing bandwidth, but it's amazing how often people will come close. 100 homes in Kent are in a trial with bursts "up to 200 meg," which they will likely come close to the majority of the time. Jeff Baumgartner calls them "lucky duckies."

Virgin reminds us that "there are no wireless routers able to deliver throughput of speeds as high as 200Mb, and computers require very high specification in order to be able handle data at such a high rate." In fact, there have been frequent problems with speed tests and computer capabilities that have led to misleading low speed measures.

Virgin is far away from this as a regular offering, while the technology for even higher speeds is advanceing rapidly. Both Broadcom and TI have announced chips that bond 8 downstream channels, for 400 megabits (shared) in the EuroDOCSIS version. Henry Samueli of Broadcom invested some of his earlier chip profits in a hockey team, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. (logo above)