Verizon To Use New Tech With Old Cables 188
Ant wrote to mention a ZDNet article about a new initive to get modern high-speed net access into homes utilizing old coaxial cable lines. Right now Verizon digs up streets and lays out expensive fiber to get homes online, but new tech may let them accomplish that task for much less hassle and expense. From the article: "Later this year, it plans to use new technology from the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) , an industry group that promotes using coaxial cable installed for cable TV to transmit broadband around the home. The organization says that its technology supports speeds up to 270 megabits per second. Because most homes already have coaxial cable installed in several rooms, Verizon can significantly reduce its Fios installation costs by using existing cabling to connect home computers to its broadband service."
Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Verizon? (Score:1, Informative)
Whoah, hang on... Verizon is offering broadband over plain old coaxial TV cable? Whoopty-frickin-doo! With tech like that, the rumors must be right... Man DID land on the moon last month!
Verizon FiOS Fiber to the home (I have it) (Score:3, Informative)
So this article summary is misleading. The fiber is *still* going to the home, it's just that they will not run Ethernet into the home if they don't need to. Instead using the pre-existing Coaxial runs which are already in place.
RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Will this anger Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia? (Score:5, Informative)
Your cables are your own (Score:3, Informative)
This was actually decided by a court case years ago, you own the cables in your house (Hence, Verizon now charges you when there are problem in your home). One question I would have is whether the cable TV and FIOS and live on the same cable, or if this is a way to force adoption of FIOS TV [verizon.com]
Verizon has been surprisingly willing to cable up homes accepting FIOS for almost no money, I've been wondering how long that can go on. Then again, they take a durprisingly long view of this stuff.
Man I want FIOS :(
Re:Who owns the existing coaxial cable? (Score:3, Informative)
The cable company owns the cable 1 foot away from the house entrance point. After that, it belongs to the homeowner/landlord. This was decided when the DBS guys started business and some cable companies wanted to block them from using the inside wiring.
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Now: FIOS->New CAT5
With this: FIOS->Existing coax
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Misleading summary (surprise) (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it should work. 270Mbps is not that much on coax. Television production studios have been runing smpte 259M (component 4:2:2 standard def. video @270Mbps), over '59 coax for years. Granted, it is much better stuff than in your average house, but it is often over much longer distances.
I would guess that the 270Mbps is the raw wire speed and will have a lot of error correction. That and active equalization should keep things in good shape, as long as there aren't any major cable problems, like crappy connectors or kinks that might change the impedence of the coax.
A real article, not the standard ZDnet fluff/press release stuff would be helpful.
Re:I thought they had learned.... (Score:3, Informative)
This shows what is possible today with coax. Production studios are shipping uncompressed digital HD over coax all the time (smpte 292m runs at 1.4Gbps), although they are often having to replace connectors and take more care in bending radius. 270Mbps shouldn't be a big deal if the cable is properly terminated and not kinked.
Using UWB, Firewire over Coax is doing 400Mbps (Score:3, Informative)
"The HANA exhibit will showcase how Pulse~LINK's CWave -On-Coax and the 1394TA's S400 interface provide a powerful, whole-home distribution capability that can run over pre-existing in-home coax cable AND co-exist with legacy cable and satellite programming. The demonstration will consist of two 1394-enabled CWave(TM) UWB transceivers, one in the Trade Association's booth and another in the Pulse~LINK booth, with splitters and several hundred feet of coax cable between them. 1394 HDTV audio and video will be streamed bi-directionally between the two booths in the HANA suite, showing how coax cable in the home works as a broadband backbone with 400Mbps application layer throughput for seamlessly transporting multiple simultaneous streams of digital content to 1394-equipped devices throughout the home."
http://www.pulselink.net/pr-jan02-2006.html [pulselink.net]
270 Mbps is hardly "competitive with fiber..." (Score:3, Informative)
270 Mbps on coax - the OP was correct, Whoopty-frickin-doo!
Re:RT..., oh, never mind (Score:5, Informative)
Did no one read the article?
Re:Will this anger Time Warner, Comcast, Adelphia? (Score:2, Informative)
They're already using this.. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not really sure how it's going to be cheaper -- coax isn't that expensive, and they were more than happy to replace the sub-par cabling that MediaOne/AT&T/Comcast had left behind. They even ran more wire inside the house to accommodate the way I wanted to setup things.
Re:They're already using this.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They're already using this.. (Score:1, Informative)
The MOCA dongle is currently external from the ONT but will soon be built in.
The Motorola STB all have built in MOCA networking.
The 15 mbps data connection rate shaped independently of the VOD traffic.
Re:new? (Score:2, Informative)
Ever heard of CCIR 601? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh, you mean THAT Verizon? (Score:5, Informative)
I switched from Comcast cable modem service to FIOS this past December.
1) Comcast was ~$45/month for 6.6/512k. With FIOS, I splurged and I'm paying $54/month for 30/5. You can, however, stay at $45/month with FIOS and get 15/3. Not to be biased, Comcast is rumored to be increasing their speeds to 16/?? without a price raise, at least around here. But, as a previous reply mentioned, torrents on a 30/5 line are rather sweet.
2) I'm a pure Linux shop at home. The installers had no problem with that. They were more concerned with my Linksys router which I was told has issues with PPPoE at or above 15Mb/sec. They welcomed me to plug it back in, so it wasn't a sales pitch. I eventually found many FIOS forum posts from people experiencing exactly what they described.
3) Their TV service isn't actually available here yet (Comcast stronghold, currently in legislation), but I know from other areas that it isn't IPTV. Their initial test area was somewhere in Texas I believe, and it's interesting to read their reactions to the service, which is extremely good.
Looks like you're wrong on all points. That must suck. A lot.