Comcast later this year is going to start a market trial of an incredibly promising new broadband technology capable of delivering maximum download speeds of 10Gbps and maximum upload speeds of 1Gbps. This news comes to us via Multichannel News’ Jeff Baumgartner and it was announced earlier on Thursday by Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit, who said Comcast would start the trial sometime in Q4 2015.
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The technology in question is DOCSIS 3.1 and CableLabs informs us that it will give customers “gigabit speed access on the downstream and upstream, allowing them to download 4K video and ultra-high definition movies faster than ever.” The standard was released back in the fall of 2013 but is just now being deployed by cable operators.
It’s great to see Comcast working on this kind of high-speed broadband technology, although recent history has taught us to be cautious in our enthusiasm because pricing is always a major concern. Comcast’s 2Gbps Gigabit Pro service sounds incredible, for example, but it also costs a crazy $300 per month. Google Fiber, meanwhile, delivers 1Gbps service that costs a much more reasonable $70 per month.
If you want to read more about the nuts and bolts of DOCSIS 3.1, we recommend checking out this excellent tech primer that Light Reading has posted by clicking here.
