Charter Offers 60Mbps Cable Internet Service

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

North America has been known to lag behind other countries in terms of Internet speeds, but cable operator Charter is looking to change that. The company has just unveiled a new 60Mbps service, which would equate to well over 6MB/s download speed, for the premium price of $140. If you take downloading seriously though, the premium might not matter.

Alongside this new service, Charter is also being kind to their 16Mbps subscribers by automatically bumping them up to a new 20Mbps tier, which, all things considered, is still quite impressive. I couldn't find a bandwidth cap mentioned anywhere, because that might make all of the difference. 60Mbps is impressive, but if it carries a low cap, it might mean the world of difference.

I admit that these numbers make me a bit jealous though. Since I live in Canada, the choices are severely limited (maybe not so much in the largest cities), and are offered only by a select few companies who hold a total monopoly on the market. The absolute best offered in my town is 18Mbps/1Mbps, for $99.95. Oh, I forgot to mention the 95GB bandwidth cap. My current package is 10Mbps/1Mbps, same bandwidth cap, and it costs $54.95. The US may be lacking in Internet speeds, but I can attest to the fact that Canada is worse.

The fact that Charter can afford the upgrade, given its financial situation, is a reminder that these DOCSIS upgrades are relatively inexpensive. While Verizon has to drop $20 billion digging trenches, boring under sidewalks, and laying fiber optic cabling and ductwork, the hybrid fiber coax (HFC) systems in place at the major cable operators need only compatible modems and CMTS gear in the cable company headend to enable faster speeds.

Source: Ars Technica
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[Merlin]

Comcast is doing the same, but has to go to Docsis 3.0 before the speeds come.
Docsis 3.0 has a broader bandwidth with higher compression, thus higher speeds.
But, modems have to be Docsis 3.0 compliant, not many are in the field at this point today.
One example is the Motorola 5100 ( docsis 1.0 ) and Motorola 5120 ( docsis 3.0 ) diffrent firmware
Our telephony modems are 3.0 compliant for internet.
What's driving the techs crazy, is that they are going from 1.0 to 3.0 in a jump. That means modems installed with a good upstream transmit below 50db will see an additional 4 to 5 db's of transmit, so, if you are on the border of a good signal then, will now go into a reset diagnostic cycle with the extra db of transmit
Most modems will give the diagnostic using 192.168.100.1 and you can check to see if you are at a good connection. Downstream should be + or - 9 , Upstream S/B below 49/50 db and SNR ( signal to noise ratio ) above 30 db
So if you have connection problems, you can check your connection.

babbling Merlin

 

[Kougar]

Huh, I'll be.... I picked up a new modem capable of RoadRunner Turbo, and it never occured to me to try and log in. Time Warner has made it a longstanding policy to lock users completely out of their modems and the last two would only display a page informing you access was denied. This new one let me right in though... and states it is only DOCSIS 1.0/1.1/2.0 compliant. This is still the highest speed modem TimeWarner offers customers as far as I know.

My current package is 10Mbps/1Mbps, same bandwidth cap, and it costs $54.95.

We do not have a bandwidth cap (if monthly then 95GB doesn't sound too bad), otherwise the cost and speed is identical for the package I am using right now. RR "Turbo" also gives 15Mbps for the first 100MB of a file if you download from recognized sites. But otherwise, the price and base speeds are identical to what we pay here. The only way to get a lower price is to sign a 2 year contract for this bandwidth bracket.

Edit: Hm, I found the setting that locks anyone on the network out of the modem. I wonder what they would do if I created an administrative account and put a password on it...

Edit 2: For all the talk of DOCSIS versions, I can confirm my cable modem is using DOCSIS 1.1. TimeWarner is not even using 2.0 although the modem supports it.

 

[moon111]

Charter will be using the Cisco/Scientific Atlantic DPC3000 and the Motorola Surfboard. Both are DOCSIS 3.0 Modems.

It would be interesting to see a Killer NIC by Bigfoot review with the higher speed service, since they didn't seem to offer much benefit at slower speeds.

For every Charter customer, they're $5000 in debt. $21billion in total. They could of bought Canada for that amount.

 

[Rob Williams]

We do not have a bandwidth cap (if monthly then 95GB doesn't sound too bad)

I thought the same thing, but I've managed to go over every single month for the past while. Last month, I went over 2GB, and a few months ago, I went over 20GB. At $1.50 per extra gigabyte, it sucks to go over too far, haha. Sometimes I'm not even sure how I hit the limit, but I do a lot of bandwidth-heavy tasks throughout the month. The site alone might steal ~15GB a month for backups and the like. It just all adds up fast. At 95GB, that's a little over 3GB a day, and when you are on the PC all the time, it's not difficult to hit that with ease.

What you have sounds good though. I'd easily drop to a smaller bandwidth package if it meant I could upload and download as much as I want (which is how it should be anyway). I'm most envious of the FiOS packages though. I upload a lot, so 20Mbit/s up sounds incredible.

As for getting into the modem, that's one thing I've also tried once, but for some reason I just couldn't connect to it. What IP address are modems generally?

For every Charter customer, they're $5000 in debt. $21billion in total. They could of bought Canada for that amount.

Haha!

 

[Merlin]

192.168.100.1

As for getting into the modem, that's one thing I've also tried once, but for some reason I just couldn't connect to it. What IP address are modems generally?

Haha![/quote]

 

[Rob Williams]

192.168.100.1

That's what I thought. I just get some blank page. I'm not even sure that's supposed to happen, because when I called for support once, they told me to go to that IP, and still nothing showed. The way he was talking, I should have seen something. Oh well... net works, so that's all I can about.

 

[Merlin]

That's what I thought. I just get some blank page. I'm not even sure that's supposed to happen, because when I called for support once, they told me to go to that IP, and still nothing showed. The way he was talking, I should have seen something. Oh well... net works, so that's all I can about.

Well, then you must have a router in the mix and not letting the IP come through, what modem do you use?
Try and go straight to the modem and you can see all the info

 

[Rob Williams]

Well, then you must have a router in the mix and not letting the IP come through, what modem do you use?
Try and go straight to the modem and you can see all the info

I have too much connected to the router right now to have any desire to unhook it all. This PC is on a DMZ though, isn't that supposed to allow unrestricted access to whatever? Or is that just for traffic alone? As for the cable box, it's a Toshiba PCX2600, and the router is an ASUS WL-700gE.

 

[Kougar]

As for getting into the modem, that's one thing I've also tried once, but for some reason I just couldn't connect to it. What IP address are modems generally?

Haha!

Hey, I didn't say that! That's Moon's quote you used

I have too much connected to the router right now to have any desire to unhook it all. This PC is on a DMZ though, isn't that supposed to allow unrestricted access to whatever? Or is that just for traffic alone? As for the cable box, it's a Toshiba PCX2600, and the router is an ASUS WL-700gE.

Wow... I think that exact model was my last modem, believe it or not. Either that or I had the PCX2500. It looks identical as well. I found this thread http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8829913 which seems to confirm most ISPs lock out access by LAN computers on your modem. RoadRunner did this with mine, although it did display an access is denied page for me.

Somewhat interesting as the modem I had wasn't rated by RR for their Turbo service, and is why I have a different one today. I have no idea if I was using the PCX2500 or 2600 though.... might have been the 2500.

 

[moon111]

192.168.2.1 is for Bell Sympatico modems.