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USTA: 100 Meg Cable Soon Throughout U.S.
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 20:34
walt_mccormick
Walt at USTA
The U.S. Telecom Association would seem the last folks to say cable will outclass telcos across the majority of the U.S., yet VPs Pat Brogan and Glenn Reynolds told the FCC that "DOCSIS 3.0 provides up to 100 Mbps downstream and 30 Mbps upstream. It is currently being deployed and will be available throughout the U.S. by 2013." They were visiting Jennifer Schneider in Copps' office and wanted to claim they faced lots of competition. Ironically, they were arguing against reasonable "special access" rates for middle mile backhaul, a key reason many rural homes actually aren't offered high speed cable.

They are only about 85% right, incidentally. Somewhere between 5% and 15% of U.S. homes will not be offered DOCSIS 3.0 by 2013 unless they change the rules of the stimulus and cable franchising. 8% of homes can't even get a cable modem today, according to Kyle at NCTA, and many of those will not be reached by 2013. Some of the rest will not be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0. I suspected they took their claim from a Pike and Fischer press release that says "We conclude that the top cable operators will have DOCSIS 3.0 covering 100% of homes passed by the end of 2013." They forgot that millions of homes are not passed by cable and millions more that can get cable TV are not offered cable modems in any form. The cable operators below the "top" have far more unserved homes, and P & F does not claim they all will upgrade.

Sloppy, guys.