If telcos can promote their hybrid-fiber-coax as fiber, why can't cable operators do the same?

Over at Broadband Reports, Karl is taking aim at a couple of cable operators that are promoting their broadband Internet service as a "fiber optics" connection. Karl claims that these cable operators aren't being honest when they promote their hybrid-fiber-coax (HFC) networks as a "fiber optics" connection.

The operators that Karl highlights are in direct competition with telephone companies selling fiber-to-the-home Internet service.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, these same telephone companies are using coax wiring to transmit their fiber-to-the-home Internet service within their customers' homes.

Fiber to the curb deployments such as FIOS were advertised to be able to deliver much faster broadband speeds than cable's hybrid fiber coax technology.  In reality, FIOS still has to convert to conventional wiring to connect to the devices in the home which becomes the limiting factor in the connection.  Just as revealing, we have discussed the development of DOCSIS 3.0, which will increase speeds on our current network design by a factor of about 10-times.

At this moment, Insight's 10 and 20 meg services are among the fastest speeds in the country available to residential users.

In other words, cable has you covered today.  It's technology is advanced and flexible and will deliver all of the future telecommunications services rapidly and efficiently for decades to come.

The reality is that customers don't choose their broadband company based on what type of wires are used.  They choose their provider based on quality of their service.  That means, does their connection operate as expected and is the company good at customer service. 

So, if the telcos are also using a form of HFC to deliver their product, isn't turn-about fair play for the cable operators?

Comments

[Michael A.]

So, if the current speeds are 10 - 20 megs... how fast are we talking after the implementation of this new super technology?

[Journeyman]

Not sure what speeds Insight has planned for DOCSIS 3.0, but other operators are getting speeds in the 40 - 100 meg range.

[Michael A]

Thats great news! The faster the better imo... but there's only one problem...... cost. How are we looking for costs? I mean, are we going to be using this service for only corporate use? Or is this going to make it into consumer hands at a LARGE cost? Lastly.. what about hardware? Will we need to upgrade our cable modems? I have a older one (about 5 years old) and am wondering if it can handle that kinda bandwidth.

[Journeyman]

Some cable operators are already testing DOCSIS 3.0. Costs in those test markets are pretty competitive with current costs, but I don't have any idea what Insight's cost would be. It's a consumer product. I'm sure that some small businesses will use it, but its geared for home users.

One piece of bad news - you will have to get a new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem. Current modems aren't compatible with these new speeds.

[ARGO]

Depending on the speeds you may also need a Gigabit Ethernet card.

[David Crowell]

[quote]
The reality is that customers don't choose their broadband company based on what type of wires are used. They choose their provider based on quality of their service.
[/quote]

Exactly! I don't care if it's coax, fiber, or carrier pigeon. I care about bandwidth (in both directions), usage caps, latency, reliability, customer service, and price.

I love my 10 megabit Insight service. I'd like to see higher upload speeds though. If DOCSIS 3.0 will bring that, then I'm all fo it.

[bofkentucky]

It's all about properly sizing the network, the telco's simply have an advantage in their networks get to be end to end digital by default, with all the benefits it brings. Cable networks simply have to step up to the plate and aggressively decommission all their analog nets to reclaim and reallocate the bandwidth.

They need to quit fighting statewide franchising and expand just like the telco's are, those expensive vrad/bdt's have to be placed every couple of miles just like our nodes do.

Insight is better than any cable co I've dealt with when it comes to customer service, but going the extra mile (evening and weekend install crews) mean a lot to customers, and the comcast's and time warner's have to buy in as well, a good or bad quarter be damned.