Comcast rolls out fatter pipes
April 2nd, 2008 | by Tim Wilson |According to USA Today, Comcast is planning to spread a little broadband love to its customers in Minneapolis/St. Paul this year. In an effort to compete with Verizon and its FiOS service, Comcast will roll out 50 Mbps download/5 Mbps upload service. They say they’re planning to go to 100 Mbps over the next two years and 160 Mbps after that.
The most obvious application for all that bandwidth is downloading all manner of media files. But what about online learning? With that much bandwidth, full-screen, full-motion videoconferencing is a gimme. 3D multiuser virtual worlds? Yep. Facebook 24×7? Probably. How much bandwidth does your entire district have?
4 Responses to “Comcast rolls out fatter pipes”
By Michael Janke on Apr 2, 2008 | Reply
At only $150 per month. Wow.
For conferencing, you’d have to have decent bi-directional bandwidth though.
By Tim Wilson on Apr 2, 2008 | Reply
Michael,
Yes, you’d definitely need that fat pipe running between both houses. If all of the people involved in a particular online learning community had the bandwidth though… “wow” is right.
-Tim
By Aaron Kardell on Apr 3, 2008 | Reply
Tim, thanks for the link. That’s a lot of bandwidth. I think I’d need a really good excuse to pay that much for Internet access at home, but believe me, I’m looking for it.
By Tim Wilson on Apr 3, 2008 | Reply
Aaron,
$140/mo probably wouldn’t pass the spousal test at my house quite yet. It will be interesting to see how that price changes if Comcast and Verizon really get into some good competition. I also wonder whether the availability of much great bandwidth will have any effect on the quality of downloadable content from the likes of Apple. It’s only going to get cheaper for them too.