Metrocast Offers Fiber To The Home Sort of -- deploying Motorola RF over Glass (RFoG) solution While some cable operators are now running fiber to the home service, they're usually only doing it in higher-end developments where they get an easy return on their investment. One such carrier is Metrocast (see our user reviews) who've decided to deploy Motorola's fiber/coax hybrid RF over Glass ( RFoG) technology -- a solution that lets cable operators use their traditional coax hardware over fiber. According to a Motorola press release, Metrocast will be deploying the technology "in select Virginia properties in specific rebuild areas." According to the Metrocast website, unless you live in one of these higher scale developments, the fastest broadband service they currently offer is 10 Mbps downstream.
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  nokken
join:2001-02-07
Memphis, TN
1 edit | Surprising I was stuck with Metrocast as my cable provider while I was in college. While their expanded basic television offerings were great (who doesn't like free HBO?) their Internet service left something to be desired. This announcement that they are experimenting with new technology baffles me.
•Terrible service (oversold nodes - forced a switch to DSL for my gaming habit)
•Slow (just this last year they finally added a tier above 3Mbps down)
•Overpriced ($50 + taxes and fees for their "Pro" 3Mbps downstream is pretty terrible)
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"The key to flying is falling and not hitting the ground." | |
|  | | | | | said by nokken:I was stuck with Metrocast as my cable provider while I was in college. While their expanded basic television offerings were great (who doesn't like free HBO?) their Internet service left something to be desired. This announcement that they are experimenting with new technology baffles me. •Terrible service (oversold nodes - forced a switch to DSL for my gaming habit) •Slow (just this last year they finally added a tier above 3Mbps down) •Overpriced ($50 + taxes and fees for their "Pro" 3Mbps downstream is pretty terrible) wow weather scan in analog cable.
but NO HD at all in some areas. | |
| | | | | Re: Surprising I have Metrocast here in Laconia NH. I talked to a represenative last night, and apparently they are doing a "major" upgrade to the internet here, but she didn't know how much. Normally, ever January- every other January, there is a 1 MBPS download speed difference, and a 256 KBPS upload speed difference. My guess, is that the new speed will be about 8.0 MBPS download, and a 1.0 MBPS upload speed. (The upload now is only 512 KBPS.) For $140.00 a month, it's crap compared to Comcast which stops servicing New Hampshire about 30 miles south and north of NH. What is the luck  . | |
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Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| So, does this actually do anything for the consumer? From a quick Wikipedia scan (google rfog site:wikipedia.org), it appears the only advantages are:
1) ability to run PON concurrent with RFoG on the same fiber
2) better quality line
So, to the consumer, unless the carrier actually installs optical equipment, it's exactly the same as DOCSIS over good coax. yes?
It seems this is only valuable to the carrier as a path to future "true fiber" connections. | |
| |  jsz0Premium
join:2008-01-23
Jewett City, CT | Re: So, does this actually do anything for the consumer? Yes and no. As you mentioned the big benefit is having a medium to every home that is almost unlimited in terms of future bandwidth demands. Reliability comes in the form of fiber, less "moving parts" between the customer and the source, and also battery backups at each home.
In the short term it matches the same amount of bandwidth most PON systems like FIOS use for video service (860Mhz) and still has capacity left over for ~24 bonding channels for DOCSIS 3 which equates to ~1Gbit/sec of bandwidth. To put that into perspective most of the DOCSIS 3 deployments today that are competing with GPON/FIOS are only 4 or 8 channels. So it addresses both short and long term bandwidth demands. I'm guessing in most cases the long term upgrade path will be 10G-EPON instead of GPON. | |
| | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: So, does this actually do anything for the consumer? Plus no more "overloaded" nodes. Everyone has their own node/38 dwn 27 up DOCSIS bandwidth pool. | |
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| | | said by MyDogHsFleas:So, to the consumer, unless the carrier actually installs optical equipment, it's exactly the same as DOCSIS over good coax. yes? It seems this is only valuable to the carrier as a path to future "true fiber" connections. I've never seen 'bad' coax, if you think you have bad coax I would like to give you a second opinion.
As for the 'only' advantages:
3. Analog is King. NO VIDEO COMPRESSION.
4. Immunity to interference.
5. Future proof technology.
to name a few. | |
| | | Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: So, does this actually do anything for the consumer? said by etaadmin:I've never seen 'bad' coax, if you think you have bad coax I would like to give you a second opinion. well maybe not literally -- but certainly there are bad coax local networks (or whatever you call them). When I had Road Runner, they could never get me a good stable low-error connection, in three different houses in Austin.
3. Analog is King. NO VIDEO COMPRESSION.
Compression and analog/digital are orthogonal. You can have uncompressed digital or compressed analog. In general, all else being equal, digital is better than analog for many reasons. This is one of the things AT&T got right with U-verse, everything's a digital IP stream.
4. Immunity to interference.
5. Future proof technology.
yep. | |
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 ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4
 ·VOIPo
 ·Choice One Commu..
| Hmmmm... Users have been complaining of very slow speeds at night. Maybe getting the core network to handle the current offered speeds would be a good idea. I use their 10/1 service which is very pricey at $70 a month but is the fastest around in our area. | |
| | | |  Re: Hmmmm...
There were reports of they working on DOCSIS 3, well see how that goes. | |
| | | | | Re: Hmmmm... What? You mean you don't have a choice? I've read that there is competition for broadband EVERYWHERE in the USA. | |
| | | | | | Re: Hmmmm... said by jjeffeory:What? You mean you don't have a choice? I've read that there is competition for broadband EVERYWHERE in the USA. If you're not joking, then you read WRONG. | |
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 billh491
join:2001-08-09
Pomfret Center, CT | I won't be getting this service from Metorcast Well I don't live in a higher scale development in VA so I guess I won't be getting any thing out of this.
And the reason is I would guess is they are competing with Verizon Fios there where here in CT the competing with the low end DSL provider called ATT at all of 6 megs down. So what is the point of Metrocast giving any better speed then 6 megs. | |
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Speeds? I know normal MetroCast has gotten up to 10/1 of late. Not great but better than 7/512 that they had before. Wonder what RFoG folks will get.
For all the haters out there, Verizon uses coax in the home too, though it's definitely not a typical DOCSIS+QAM setup like RFoG will provide.
If you're thinking that RFoG isn't providing a huge impact on service right now, you'll probabl be right. You will probably see higher internet speeds, but not by much. Maybe 15/2 or 30/5. Which would still be nice, but you're limited by your coax-side hardware.
What RFoG does do is make the transition easier to an all-fiber infrastructure; Metrocast techs can work with the connection like any other coax connection at the customer premises but the fiber is MUCH closer to the home than before, so there will be a lot less issues with last-mile network quality. Which is always a good thing.
Plus, now they just have to swap out headend equipment and they'll have a full-on fiber system. Maybe they're waiting until 10GPON comes out (very soon) to maximize their investment... | |
| | | | Re: Speeds? Yes they do have a 10/1 package, called the gamer for 70 bucks a month you can get it. No thanks.
And i know in MD, they already have fiber everywhere. Not sure why not just finish the rest. | |
| | | | said by iansltx:What RFoG does do is make the transition easier to an all-fiber infrastructure; Metrocast techs can work with the connection like any other coax connection at the customer premises but the fiber is MUCH closer to the home than before, so there will be a lot less issues with last-mile network quality. Which is always a good thing. Plus, now they just have to swap out headend equipment and they'll have a full-on fiber system. Maybe they're waiting until 10GPON comes out (very soon) to maximize their investment... I think you hit nail on the head.
RFoG is a transition technology. It provides backwards compatibility and interoperability with existing Customer Premise Equipment (CPE; e.g. CMs and STBs) and some back end equipment (CMTSs, VOD servers, and auth/provisioning).
This allows cablecos to move to an all-fiber plant relatively seamlessly. And do so when they're ready, on a phased basis, so they don't blow out the bank.
In and of itself, RFoG will only provide marginal improvements. The thing is RFoG won't be, or at least shouldn't be, deployed by itself. It'll be likely be part of a PON-based fiber deployment that a cableco does to provide more advanced services. Ideally they should offer fiber like internet speeds over it, like 100+ Mb/s, as well as IPTV, and so on.
I think you might be right about them waiting for some technology standards to mature. 10G EPON should be out soon. Also RFoG hasn't been completely standardized yet either. Hopefully that will get done soon, and we can see some deployments.
I'm really hopeful for Wave Division Multiplexing-Passive Optical Networks, or WDM-PONs, though. It combines the best attributes of PONs, like no active field elements, with the flexibility and speed of active, point-to-point fiber links. Each customer would be on a shared fiber PON, like existing ones except potentially far more users and over longer distances, but they would all have their own wavelength on that fiber. So each customer could theoretically have 10 Gb/s dedicated symmetrical bandwidth, or what have you. There still needs to be work done to get the cost of the technology down, and it still needs to be standardized as well. But I hope we could see it deployed around 2015 or so. | |
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| | Metrocast is a joke. We've had service previously. I'm not sure quite how I would describe them, but their pricing scheme vs. services offered is terrible.
Not to mention, we've had several cable techs not even aware of some basic vocabulary: coax, ethernet, grounding line. Most of their techs meet their minimum requirement: "high school diploma and some electronics knowledge".
I think part of the reason for me to move just one town over, was that I could subscribe to Comcast's Triple Play, which I will say is pretty darn great  | |
| | ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | Re: Metrocast is a joke. The phone techs are a complete joke, that's true. I will say the guys in the Metrocast forum though do work pretty hard to get things up and running. | |
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 VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | Good to see others experience what I have heard about Metrocast from friends.
Though there were no HUGE problems with them such as complete outages daily or anything
Speeds were never as high as advertised for anyone....or close to it. | |
| compPremium
join:2001-08-16
Cranberry Twp, PA | Good for Them I never had any outages with the service and download/uploads were always good but web browsing was painfully slow | |
| |  tenpin784I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH
1 edit | Re: Good for Them And "people" still don't believe me on that either! | |
| | | compPremium
join:2001-08-16
Cranberry Twp, PA | Re: Good for Them LOL tell them to try internet elsewhere | |
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