Comcast to Deliver Multi-Gig Symmetrical Speeds to Customers Over Existing Connections in World-First DOCSIS 4.0 Deployment

[TheLostSwede]

Comcast announced that next week it will begin to introduce the first residential customers in the world to next-generation Internet powered by DOCSIS 4.0 technology. The latest version of DOCSIS technology is a giant leap forward in Internet connectivity that can deliver multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds to customers over the connections that already exist in tens of millions of homes in Comcast markets across the country.

As a part of the launch, Comcast will introduce a new portfolio of symmetrical products for residential customers. Comcast will begin rolling out DOCSIS 4.0 to select neighborhoods in Colorado Springs, CO, and will launch new markets throughout the country over the next few years. Select areas of Atlanta, GA and Philadelphia, PA are expected to begin rolling out before the end of this year.




"The ubiquity of our network, which is already accessible to tens of millions of homes, provides us with an incredible opportunity to bring multi-gigabit upload and download speeds to communities across the country with the scale and efficiency that no other provider can replicate," said Dave Watson, President & CEO, Comcast Cable. "Our connectivity experience, powered by the Xfinity 10G Network, will allow us to deliver speeds up to 10 Gbps over our traditional network to virtually all our customers, plus even better reliability, lower latency, and the best in-home WiFi coverage. We're entering the next phase of this industry leadership with DOCSIS 4.0 technology to introduce X-Class Internet products that will revolutionize the way our customers get online today and many years into the future."

Introducing X-Class Internet
Symmetrical 10 Gbps service based on fiber-to-the-home technology is already available in all of Comcast's markets, and as part of its continued network evolution and the introduction of DOCSIS 4.0, multi-gig symmetrical speeds are rolling out.

New and existing residential customers connected via DOCSIS 4.0 will have access to Comcast's newly introduced next-generation X-Class Internet portfolio. X-Class speed tiers include X-300 Mbps, X-500 Mbps, X-1 Gbps and X-2 Gbps upload and download speeds and low lag for the ultimate live sports streaming experience on Peacock, smooth connections on work calls, and ultra-responsive gaming.

"The enhancements that we have been making to our network over the past few years have been foundational to creating an award-winning network architecture that is fully virtualized and capable of delivering these exciting capabilities to our customers," said Elad Nafshi, Chief Network Officer, Comcast Cable. "This is an awesome achievement and I'm incredibly proud of the team of brilliant technologists here at Comcast who have worked relentlessly to make DOCSIS 4.0 a reality ahead of schedule."

Full Duplex DOCSIS
Comcast's path to DOCSIS 4.0 leverages breakthrough network technology known as "Full Duplex" that utilizes the same network spectrum to dramatically increase upstream speeds without sacrificing downstream speeds.

Comcast 10G Innovation
The DOCSIS 4.0 launch is the latest in a long line of world firsts that Comcast has spearheaded in the effort to implement DOCSIS 4.0. In April 2021, Comcast conducted the first-ever live test of full duplex DOCSIS and later that year tested the world's first 10G connection all the way from the network to a modem. In 2022, Comcast conducted a world-first live trial and connected a business location in the Philadelphia region to its live network including a DOCSIS 4.0-enabled 10G node and multiple cable modems. In February 2023, the company marked another major milestone in the nation's largest and fastest multi-gig deployment by announcing its latest Xfinity 10G Network upgrade launched to 10 million homes and businesses.

In addition to Comcast's efforts to deploy DOCSIS 4.0 and other 10G upgrades across its footprint, the company continually invests in delivering a superior connectivity experience that is not only fast but is also reliable with less lag.

• Award Winning Tech - Comcast has lead the industry in deploying technologies within its network to enhance speed, reliability and latency like distributed access architecture (DAA) and a vCMTS, which earned an Emmy Award for Technology and Engineering.
• Smart Network - Comcast-developed technology like Comcast Octave and Xfinity Fiber Meter (XMF), enables optimized network performance by proactively identifying and even repairing network impairments that impact customers' services.
• Storm-Ready WiFi - In August 2023, Comcast introduced Storm-Ready WiFi, the first product of its kind offered by an Internet provider designed to maintain a connection during a power or local outage.
• Low Latency - Deployed Active Queue Management (AQM) system nationally and currently trialing the latest CableLabs low latency DOCSIS (LLD) specification.

DOCSIS Technology
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) was first introduced in 1997 as a solution for high-speed data to be transmitted over existing cable wires, replacing dial-up phone lines for an Internet connection. Comcast has been a leader in deploying DOCSIS updates to deliver faster speeds to all the homes and businesses in its service areas. In early 2016, Comcast was the first to introduce DOCSIS 3.1-powered Gigabit Internet service and rapidly expanded Gigabit speeds across the country to more locations than any other provider.

Xfinity customers in Colorado Springs will be able to sign up online for the new DOCSIS 4.0-powered Internet plans.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[neatfeatguy]

Damn....looking at the graph I've been having upload speeds lower than what has been available since 1997. I hate you Xfinity/Comcast.

I wonder what kind of crap they're putting in place to hold back customers from actually achieving these speeds....probably want you to bundle in a land line phone, some kind of cable TV bundle and cell phone bundle. All for the easy to pay price of $199 a month for the first half a month and then prices will jump to $499 a month.

 

[Double-Click]

Comcast sucks. Their bad service is only surpassed by their even worse business practices / support.
I had to deal with them in college and am SO glad that where I live has more offerings than that (regional territories need to stop being a thing).

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Comcast sucks. Their bad service is only surpassed by their even worse business practices / support.
I had to deal with them in college and am SO glad that where I live has more offerings than that (regional territories need to stop being a thing).

I've had really good luck with them over the last decade although Fiber options haven't been all that great in my area so that is part of it.

I have heard similar sentiments to yours towards them though from a lot of people.

 

[Solaris17]

Absolute garbage. Easily the worst ISP I have ever worked with or been a customer of.

 

[Halo3Addict]

This announcement means absolutely nothing..

Xfinity is the only game in my town, and even though the pricing tier that I pay for requires a DOCSIS 3.1 modem, they only offer 10Mbps upload speeds.. absolutely ridiculous in this age. I think the highest tiered package in my area only offers a 30Mbps upload speed. It really is pathetic.

Terrible company.

 

[dir_d]

I am in Colorado Springs and Comcast gets thrashed by CenturyLink Aka Lumen. They have been offering 1gig up and down for $75 with no cap, for a very long time. Comcast on the other hand is $75 for 1gig up and 50mbps down and you have the 2TB cap. Comcast chargers $50 for the unlimited cap as well. The only people i know on Comcast are the people unfortunate enough to not have FTTH. Google Fiber is supposed to be coming here in a couple years as well, they have been running conduit and fiber all through the city for about a year now.

 

[Random_User]

Well.... this is about few steps close to this

This is America- the land of possibilities. And these guys use them to the full extent. By making advantage over naive and ignorant people, who form the hull of they user-base. Which then these corps use as example of a "consumer choice". There's no way to avoid or boycott these companies, as in many cases there're no alternatives. And the saddest part, that US citizen, forced to pay for all this crap from own pocket. The optics in US has had to be already laid down nation wide, like a decade ago?

Spoiler: But

If this will make you feel better, the difference is not even so big. I am somehow sure, the local ISP's look at US communication corps and use it as an example for their own business model. To be honest, here there's even no choice. No matter what ISP one choose, they all are equally horrible garbage. The level of "rubbishness" is within thin line difference. I'm somehow certain, that they already have one owner, and just colluded between themselves. The only real difference is in the mid of the city, where people have 100Mb/s-1Gb/s for twice as less as in other parts of this city, for 50Mb/s of Cat5 (not even 'e') with jitter probably already broken the bottom of grade scale. Sadly, no normal ISP even think to come to these monopoly/duopoly areas, staked out by these lousy oligarchy ISP companies.
The only big "Pro" is in this situation, is that they (ISP) luckily on their own, and not a penny being given from the budget. As much as every other area, honestly.

Half of the packets being lost. Every request to the support, is being - either "your router is bad, witch directly PC and try again", or "there's no issue on their side". The problem is I also get TV from them, and it's disaster. So it's not only router. And when it's raining/snowing, hot or cold, the switches on the roof, get wet or overheat, and I tell them for a decade already, and they simply ignore. Only the guys that work for this ISP, have their cables and connection top notch. So they like to flex on people, how the internet is so good, and other just shitting on the ISP, as they live on the same street as others who have problems. There's no way out of this situation.

The biggest problem is the safety. The twisted pair that comes from ISP switch, to my apartments, doesn't have any grounding at all. That already burnt two PC's onboard network cards and a router in 2009, when the lightning stroke, and the entire street lost their HW. No compensation whatsoever. Not even a penny.

It's not even possible to switch to another tariff, without prepaying for 3-6 moth ahead. Got switched from 30 to 50Mbps. The next day, the lags and stuttering became even more horrible. Not I have to reload the page couple times, in order it to load it correctly. The video stutter, the same goes for TV. The gaming is impossible.

 

[ADB1979]

IMHO, there are really two problems here that are not addressed with this new faster internet technology.

Availability, specifically for those who do not live in cities.

Price, internet in America is very expensive for what you get compared to most western countries, albeit, a lot of this is down to the vastness of America compared to most Western countries.

If Comcast instead focussed on both of these things, the average available performance across the country would increase dramatically, whilst keeping prices the same, or ideally lower. And put people in rural areas, or small town across America on a more level playing field with those in cities, most of which do not have 1G internet because of the price, whereas a significant amount of Americans cannot even get 20Mb internet because companies like Comcast simply have not built the infrastructure, and they pay the same (or more) as those in cities getting 10x the speed.

So, yes this is wonderful marketing Comcast, but the reality is that 99% of your customers won't even care, let alone buy it, whilst the majority get ignored.

 

[bonehead123]

Comcast has been a leader in deploying DOCSIS

Yea, well, they've also been the leader in deploying frequent, unannounced price hikes, unrealistic, uber-expensive data caps/overage charges, gotcha clauses that are buried deep in their contracts, sorry-assed to non-existent customer service and bait & switch tactics too... ......

Where I live (a fairly large metro area), they are known as "CommieCrapst" since the early-mid 90's...

 

[Minus Infinity]

Wow multi-gig symmetrical. In Australia our useless NBN authority only gives us 50Mbs upload speeds for residential, even on a 1000Mb/s download plan. The fastest plan for business is a pathetic 1000/400 that costs two arms, two legs and your kidneys. Our fibre network is fully capable of 1000/1000 but it will never ever happen. Most people would be happy with 1000/400 but that will never happen either for residential. The idea of ever even getting 3-4Gb/s download speeds is almost farcical in Australia.

BTW 1000/50 plans costs at least $129 p/m, 1000/400 business plans are at least $300 p/m possibly $400+.

 

[chrcoluk]

In the UK, we have primarily a mixture of 3 networks.

BT/Openreach, mixture of old DSL and new FTTP, their best consumer FTTP package has only only 130mbit upload paired with gigabit down.

Virgin Media (owned by liberty global) our DOCSIS cable ISP, they are in the progress of finishing a 10:1 upgrade on their network, which basically means upload is 10% of download, I am on this ISP with gigabit down and 100mbit upload. They utilise DOCSIS 3.1, and have no plans to go to 4.0, instead they rolling out FTTP now on their footprint.

Altnet FTTP providers (small FTTP startups) these are mostly very cheap alongside full duplex so 100/100 500/500 1000/1000 etc. However some are hitting notable financial problems, some have been gobbled up already, the biggest one out of these CityFibre I think is even having issues, they are having lots of unexplained long delays in rolling out in my city. It wouldnt surprise me if Virgin Media buy them out.

Openreach are clearly protecting leased line revenues so will likely never have high consumer upload speeds, the suggestions are VM will eventually allow fast uploads though, just held back currently with DOCSIS limitations.

 

[Daven]

I’m lucky to live in a Ting service area. 1 Gbps up and down for $90 per month and no data caps.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Fios 1 gig up and 1 gig down for 65 per month. USA! USA!

 

[JAB Creations]

A hard 1.2TB data cap just means people will get screwed even faster with these new speeds.

 

[neatfeatguy]

All you not using Comcast or at least have better options to go with and have better speeds up/down - I hate you all. (not really)

A hard 1.2TB data cap just means people will get screwed even faster with these new speeds.

Only if you plan on trying to download more material than you normally do.

Faster speeds aren't necessarily faster for most people. A lot of people can get by just fine with 200/300/400mbps download speeds. Not everyone out there is needing nor trying to download so much data that they need that 1GB range.

Sure, maybe that 1GB means you download that 150GB game in maybe a 10 minute interval over several hours, but how often are you trying to download that same (or even other) 150GB games after you finished downloading it the first time?

Most people are streaming music (which takes up very little bandwidth when compared to 720p streaming) or streaming videos that are 720p or 1080p. If you have two or three people in your home streaming at the same time, all streaming some 1080p video, 200mbps is more than enough for their needs.

The 250mbps download speeds I get work just fine, even if all 4 people in my household are trying to stream 1080p movies/shows at once. What I have a problem with the shitty upload speeds that Comcast limits on their plans. 5mbps for the lower plans closer to the top plans you get improved upload speeds of 10mps and I believe it caps out at 35mbps on their top-tier plan!

My brother and his wife and my parents have access to my plex server, but because of the shitty upload speeds of Comcast I have to limit the streaming for outside connections to 3mbps (which is enough for 720p playback, but not enough for 1080p). Even if Comcast would allow 10mbps it would be an awesome improvement over the shitty 5mbps that can sometimes peak at 6mbps. I can't really afford to dump an extra $25-75 for a better plan (got kid's braces to pay for now - damn expensive) just to get a pathetic bump to 10mbps upload or up to 35mbps upload that's offered on their gigabyte extra speed plan.

Tangent over.....Anyway, as I said, faster speeds doesn't necessarily equate to more data.

 

[Random_User]

Yea, well, they've also been the leader in deploying frequent, unannounced price hikes, unrealistic, uber-expensive data caps/overage charges, gotcha clauses that are buried deep in their contracts, sorry-assed to non-existent customer service and bait & switch tactics too... ......

Where I live (a fairly large metro area), they are known as "CommieCrapst" since the early-mid 90's...

And this is after receiving $billions of subsidies. An internet over TV cable. Basically pre-2000 technology. The poorest countries switched to ethernet ages ago. There's no excuse for these corps.
I might be wrong, as I'm not a specialist. But how much these cable modems add in additional power consumption and latencies, during signal conversion? And what is the interference. When I used coaxial modem, it was both hot and comsumed a lot of power, not to mention the signal was unstable, to say the least. And this all comes at additional costs for renting the modem.

A hard 1.2TB data cap just means people will get screwed even faster with these new speeds.

Indeed. Couple of entertaining FHD videos on YT, and few gigabytes are gone. The caps are of the era, when the technology was still in it's inception.
The data consumption has risen many times since then. But ISPs still linger with these old schemes and patterns. How is this still legal in the age of digitalisation, these IT companies claim has come?
Now apply the "game steaming" to this " failed framework", and look what it ends up.


Excuse me for incoovenience. Just some thoughts.

 

[unwind-protect]

If you get this, does it actually arrive at a 10 Gb ethernet port? Or is it just a wifi router with slower speed Ethernet ports?

 

[R-T-B]

This announcement means absolutely nothing..

Xfinity is the only game in my town, and even though the pricing tier that I pay for requires a DOCSIS 3.1 modem, they only offer 10Mbps upload speeds.. absolutely ridiculous in this age. I think the highest tiered package in my area only offers a 30Mbps upload speed. It really is pathetic.

Terrible company.

I'm lucky enough to get the true 40mbps upload on my tier, but that's still garbage for what I pay. The whole company is a mess, as I'm sure everyone here knows.

 

[bonehead123]

If you get this, does it actually arrive at a 10 Gb ethernet port? Or is it just a wifi router with slower speed Ethernet ports?

Your actual speeds cannot/will not exceed the slowest component in your set-up....regardless of what speeds they advertise or that you sign up for....

You could have a 100 Terrabyte/s service, but if any one of your modem, router, computer NIC, or wireless card are only capable of 1Gb/s, then that's all your gonna get

Just like if/when you connect your iPhone 5 or galaxy S20 to your shiny new, super-duper ultra-deluxe primo octo-band mega o/c $5000 WiFi 17+++++ router... it will still take you 5-8 hours to download all those movies or songs that you so enjoy, because that's all the device's old slow-assed wifi chips can do, hehehe

 

[trparky]

Comcast sucks. Their bad service is only surpassed by their even worse business practices / support.

Spectrum isn't that far behind, they suck too. AT&T also sucks but I can't complain too loudly about AT&T since at least they had the decency to deploy FTTH in my area.

 

[trsttte]

"We've been paid multiple times by the government to wire fiber everywhere but we simply refuse to do it and will just continue to cash in "

I wonder what kind of crap they're putting in place to hold back customers from actually achieving these speeds....probably want you to bundle in a land line phone, some kind of cable TV bundle and cell phone bundle. All for the easy to pay price of $199 a month for the first half a month and then prices will jump to $499 a month.

Those are theoretical speeds, not what you get with thousands of consumers on the same network

An internet over TV cable. Basically pre-2000 technology. The poorest countries switched to ethernet ages ago. There's no excuse for these corps.
I might be wrong, as I'm not a specialist. But how much these cable modems add in additional power consumption and latencies, during signal conversion? And what is the interference. When I used coaxial modem, it was both hot and comsumed a lot of power, not to mention the signal was unstable, to say the least. And this all comes at additional costs for renting the modem.

It's still ethernet, ethernet was originally designed to use a simple coax cable, what we see and commonly know as ethernet is just the result of many upgrades on top of the original idea. Fiber still requires a rented modem and what not, real issue is legacy systems are just insufficient for todays needs.

 

[Random_User]

It's still ethernet, ethernet was originally designed to use a simple coax cable, what we see and commonly know as ethernet is just the result of many upgrades on top of the original idea. Fiber still requires a rented modem and what not, real issue is legacy systems are just insufficient for todays needs.

Again. I'm not specialist. I'm not pushing my oppinion. But from completely "layman's point of view, it still more complex than optics to ethernet.

What I try to say, is that this is no wonder, that ISPs like the DOCSIS idea, since they already have the infrastructure. But given, how much money they took from the budget, they have no excuse for not paving fiber everywhere. They still have to invest money into upgrading old infrastructure and hardware/software.

BTW, as for optics modem- it may be not allowed by providers, but still possible to buy own router with SFP module support. Even old Mikrotik hAP and hEX S have this feature.

Spoiler

I mean it's much easier in urban areas to pave the optics to the apartment building (FTTB), and then connect each apt with twisted pair. Much cheaper, than FTTA, but still also less costs and HW with just eth switch to clients router compared to switch>modem>router. And the speeds are higher anyway. As much as reliability and troubleshooting.

This is more pain/expensive in case of rural areas and private houses, but it's still less hustle, than have an additional type of hardware, than just fiber/ethernet. And wiring very distant single object with anything else but fiber, is plain stupid.

In case of later, the ISP has only own hubs with their ethernet switches, and they have direct access to this hardware. Whereas the modem, is an additional unpredicted step in the provider's infrastructure, which is prone to malfunctions. I don't even mention the power loss on the modems, compared to the simple ethernet wiring. But this is IMO

 

[Athlonite]

How the hell is 10Gb down and 6Gb up symmetrical that's Asymmetrical, Symmetrical would be 10Gb down/up I think Crapcst doesn't know what they're talking about when they use the Symmetrical

BTW 1000/50 plans costs at least $129 p/m,

WOW for 20 bucks more I get 2Gb/2Gb FTTH and I agree with you the NBN rollout in your country is a travesty of ineptitude on you govts behalf they should have gone with the same system NZ used to roll out fiber

 

[JAB Creations]

And this is after receiving $billions of subsidies. An internet over TV cable. Basically pre-2000 technology. The poorest countries switched to ethernet ages ago. There's no excuse for these corps.
I might be wrong, as I'm not a specialist. But how much these cable modems add in additional power consumption and latencies, during signal conversion? And what is the interference. When I used coaxial modem, it was both hot and comsumed a lot of power, not to mention the signal was unstable, to say the least. And this all comes at additional costs for renting the modem.

Indeed. Couple of entertaining FHD videos on YT, and few gigabytes are gone. The caps are of the era, when the technology was still in it's inception.
The data consumption has risen many times since then. But ISPs still linger with these old schemes and patterns. How is this still legal in the age of digitalisation, these IT companies claim has come?
Now apply the "game steaming" to this " failed framework", and look what it ends up.


Excuse me for incoovenience. Just some thoughts.

Send me a DM.