Comcast’s new game changer

10 May 2007 | Culture, Internet, Marketing, Media | Comments

150 Megabits per second!

For an in-home, consumer internet connection.

Can I just say that again?

150 Megabits per second!

My current cable modem taps out around 5 Megabits.  What COULDN’T I do with 30x more speed?

Don’t miss John Paczkowski’s terrific and short All Things Digital post on Comcast CEO Brian Roberts presentation at The Cable Show.

Is it a couple years out? Yep.

Are Verizon’s FIOS and AT&T’s Project Lightspeed — both around 30MB — closer to market and actually IN market some places? Yep.

Might it be prohibitively expensive? Yep.

But that’s a phenomenal upgrade in bandwidth: from broadband to wide band. What’s next?

Just think of the implications:

• Big honkin’ video files download or stream in a snap
• Everything can be hi-def
• Huge applications like Google Earth or Second Life open in moments
• Your wireless home network and Skype phones have bandwidth to burn
• Online Office applications might suffer from less lagtime and therefore get more traction
• Further democratization of media
• Marketers freak out

BIG QUESTIONS:

#1) Is 150 Megabits only the downstream spead? What’s the upstream? One of the exciting things about Project Lightspeed has been the promise of a synchronous upstream/downstream service (with thanks to U. C. Berkeley’s Steve Weber for pointing that out to me).

#2) What about Net Neutrality? If we lose it, does that mean that Comcast becomes a walled garden of digital delights?