The latest deployment of DOCSIS3.0 may be the fastest yet

Following announcements by a number of companies around the world of 160Mbps cable broadband services recently there has also now been new from Japan that it is now offering 1Gbps broadband services in certain parts of the country.

Even though availability may be limited KDDI is offering a symmetric1Gbps service for about £40 per month. Even though the news of a 160Mbps connection was not all that interesting, what was interesting was that the new 50Mbps service from Virgin Media was using DOCSIS3.0. The speed of service could be increased according to Virgin, although to allow for bonding the analogue channels that remain would need to be turned off.

Even though the concept sounds exciting there will be issues with 1Gbps broadband speeds in the home. Due to many home routers having occasional problems handling 50Mbps connections sharing this speed between multiple computers can be interesting and it is far from standard to have a computer with a Gigabit network connection. And the speed limitations of wireless connections are something that should be considered over the broadband service speed that is being used.

Whether data speeds of 1Gbps will ever be achieve in reality is the main concern for many people. With most datacentres hosting websites using 100Mbps links, although the aggregation onto the backhaul network of 100’s or even 1000’s of 1Gbps networks is where the most likely bottlenecks will occur.

Due to the relatively small amount of competition over these kinds of speeds it means that Virgin Media can charge a premium price in the UK for their XXL products and a price of £36 to £50 per month is often a cause for complaint. Pricing is, however, likely to become more competitive in the next few years with an increase in competition as FTTC rolls out. A lowering of pricing will come at a higher cost as an introduction of limits or increased contention comes with the higher usage due to cheaper prices.