Verizon expands 50-Meg footprint

Brain Santo (2.27.07)
http://www.cedmagazine.com/article/CA6419926.html

Verizon expands 50 Mbps in 6 of its 16 state FiOS coverage.

The six states where Verizon's 50 Mbps tier is now available are Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Other FiOS markets will get the tier this year.

The mid-tier maximum connection rates in those six markets was increased from 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream to 20 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up, while the top-tier service was increased from maximums of 30 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up to 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up.

Verizon said that more than 6 million homes and businesses in parts of 16 states are now passed by its fiber network, but it declined to say how many of those could subscribe to the 50 Mbps tier. The TV franchise agreements Verizon has struck in the Tampa area cover only a few thousand households.

Cable Confronts Bandwidth Crunch

Alan Breznick (1.24.09)
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=115344&site=cdn&WT.svl=news1_1

Cable companies are finally recognizing impending bandwidth limitations, and gathering resources to address the problem.

Cable operators are now drawing up plans to boost capacity at both the headend and plant levels. Instead of debating whether the coming bandwidth crisis is genuine, they're looking at ways to confront the crisis by splitting fiber nodes in half, converting systems over to more efficient switched digital video delivery, testing pre-Docsis 3.0 channel-bonding technologies, and expanding their systems' RF capacity to 860 MHz or 1 GHz.

Cable technology strategists are also looking at boosting their QAM power, instituting out-of-band spectrum overlays, and upgrading to MPEG-4 video compression standards. They're even weighing such previously unthinkable moves as building fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks and adopting PON architecture, just like some of the big phone companies.

At a conference sponsored by PK Worldmedia Inc. in Houston Tuesday, found that increasing bandwidth consumption is threatening to overwhelm even their fastest broadband piplines. Conference speakers also noted that such prime cable rivals as DirecTV Group Iinc. and Verizon seem determined to outflank MSOs by offering several dozens or, in DirecTV's case, even hundreds of HD channels to their customers.

Dom Stasi, CTO of TVN Entertainment Corp., pointed out that his company now supplies 3,500 hours a month of VOD content to cable operators, up from a mere 150 hours per month in 2001.

Comcast To Launch Upstream Powerboost

broadbandreports.com (1.9.9)
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/80834


"A company insider informs us that Comcast is expected to announce plans for deployment of PowerBoost upstream speed enhancement sometime in the first half of 2007 for all 6Mbps/384kbps and 8Mbps/768kbps residential subscribers. Users will see upstream bursts up to 1Mbps and 2Mbps, respectively, for the 384kbps and 768kbps upstream speeds. While scheduled launch is expected to begin in February, as with downstream Powerboost deployment, specific dates will vary by market. "