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Re: Complain about Comcast=Have your Reputation Scrutinized Yes, if and where that happened. But Comcast has been rather vocal about where it does network improvements and it hasn't been saying much about doing DOCSIS 2 upgrades. I think it's been holding out for DOCSIS 3. (Wouldn't you if you were them?) It has DOCSIS 2 in the former Adelphia areas and anywhere else it may have inherited the equipment from a network purchase. DOCSIS 3.0 does not fix the problem of using old modulation schemes on the upstream. It introduces channel bonding on both the up and downstream but what would you rather channel bond, QPSK channels or 64QAM channels? Getting the plant to DOCSIS 2.0 is an important step in the grand scheme of things. To get to a 50/10 speedtier you basically need to have DOCSIS 2.0 upstream modulations deployed. Upstream channel bonding will not be available for awhile yet.
As to your question about which areas are seeing DOCSIS 2.0, well we all know Minnesota has DOCSIS 2.0 deployed. I believe quite a few markets have deployed 6.4mhz channels but that is hard to glean from one's cable modem.
As you mentioned in your rebuttal letter virtual node splits can be implemented with relative ease and with little impact to the end subscriber. With the way most CMTS line cards are designed there usually ends up being quite a few extra Upstream ports available for use. Using multiple returns to a node is another way to effectively "uprade" capacity. As is changing modulation schemes. I think Freepress' generalization of the upgrades as window dressing is based merely on opinion and not fact. We know the options discussed above are available to Comcast and would cost them relatively nothing to implement. My point is that it is fine to remain skeptical with Comcast but to note that upgrades are possible without costly upgrades to "the core network." |
