WinstonFray wrote:I've been following DOCSIS 3.1 as closely as I can. I'm execited and very ready for the plunge into gigbit speeds, but there's something that is upsetting for me. That D3.1 is such a huge leap but still turns out low upload speeds seems counter intuitive. It solidifies the idea that Comcast doesnt have any plans for increasing upload speeds, unles you're willing to pay thousands of dollars a month for it. Even a boost from 12 to say 50 would be sufficient for most content producers, but just 35mbs? I can't rationalize why anyone would pay for so much download speed if they aren't seeking a symettrical connection, or something close to it. We're entering the age of virtual reality. That alone is a two-way street. You don't need to be a major corperation to benfit from producer-grade internet, allowing you to upload your videos and songs as quickly as you could download someone else's. This baffles me and doesn't reignforce any level of loyalty beyond the fact that I can't get another service in my area.
D3.1 is basically like the 'upgrades' to analog modems as they were able to successfully keep adding more data capacity in same 'bandwidth'. the max for d3.1 is 10gb down and 1gb up as I recall. The real gain to the system is that the copper cable with d3.1 gives you FTTP connection speeds without any real 'new' investment in the comcast's local cable plant. the d3.1 does include a wider 1 ghz spectrum. Time will tell. copper to the home as opposed to fiber reminds me of DSL trying to offer competitive speeds comapred compared to cable until it hit the technology ceiling of bandwidth over POTS lines.
the major 'push' for d3.1 is the motion picture security groups are demanding higher headend (CMTS) to customer cable modem encryption and d3.1 natively supports the mpeg4 streaming as compared to d3.0 supports up to mpeg2.