Comcast: 100 Mbps Cable Modem Rollout Starting in 2008

Comcast-related news hasn't been positive lately, at least from a user's standpoint, as Comcast has been proven to be blocking P2P communications. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has weighed in on that one. This week at the CableNEXT conference, some positive news: Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner said in his Wednesday keynote that 20% of homes would be DOCSIS 3.0 capable by the end of 2008.

So what does that mean? The DOCSIS 3.0 spec would allow for 160 Mbps down and 120 Mbps up. Naturally Comcast won't say where the rollouts will be, but somehow I would figure it to be in areas where Verizon has started it's 20 Mbps symmetrical service, first anyway.

Of course, read the fine print: capable, allow. Infrastructure has to be in place first, and according to Werner in his keynote, it's going to be (as usual) downstream speed first, then upstream. Upstream channel bonding, allowing for these higher upstream rates: not until late 2008 or even 2009.

Also, no mention of pricing, but it's waaay to early for that anyway. However, as I said in my earlier post, Verizon's symmetrical FIOS pricing is basically the same as I pay for my Comcast (sans cable TV) plan ... with a lot more bandwidth. I wouldn't expect that to change for us sad, sad, satellite TV users.