
Time Warner Cable: Demand Not There for Google Fiber - mtgx
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Says-Demands-Not-There-for-Google-Fiber-122337
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jordan0day
Kansas City resident here.

Based on the amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth surrounding Google's
initially small fiber roll-out, I would say that demand is, in fact, there.

That said, by being a virtual monopoly in many of their markets, Time Warner's
management might live in some sort of echo chamber. They very well might not
recognize "demand" if it was staring them in the face. I'd also argue that the
limited consumption of Time Warner's higher-speed offerings might have more to
do with their overall QoS than lack of demand. How many people would buy a $50
steak at McDonald's, given their experience with McDonald's $5 hamburgers?

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chimeracoder
> That said, by being a virtual monopoly in many of their markets, Time
> Warner's

Not virtual. _Actual_. I, like 80% of the US, have no choice in my
cable/Internet provider.

> I'd also argue that the limited consumption of Time Warner's higher-speed
> offerings might have more to do with their overall QoS than lack of demand.

When you choose the speed for your Internet package on Time Warner, you're
literally choosing how much you want to donate to them each month in exchange
for whatever speed they feel like giving you. In fact, when you go log into
your account online, they make it almost impossible to see what speed you're
paying for (and they certainly don't tell you in your bill).

Amusingly, they also implement DNS-based throttling, as my roommate and I
found out one evening. The solution is obvious, though not for non-techies.

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function_seven
> Amusingly, they also implement DNS-based throttling, as my roommate and I
> found out one evening. The solution is obvious, though not for non-techies.

Just to be clear, they're delaying the response time of their own DNS servers
as a method of throttling?? If that's what you mean, it fails on several
levels (use a different DNS, only works on first lookup, does nothing for
large file downloads, etc.)

Please tell me I'm reading this wrong.

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chimeracoder
> If that's what you mean, it fails on several levels

Yes, it's really pointless.

> use a different DNS

That's how we first realized that this is what was happening (we spent some
time testing this out to confirm it). It's impossible to say for sure on our
end, but it seemed that was the case (as opposed to their DNS servers simply
being overloaded, for example).

Amusingly, the trigger _is_ downloading large files - we were downloading an
Ubuntu ISO at the time (> 1 GB) that we first noticed this happening.

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byoung2
_This is a company that has consistently insisted that the demand just isn't
there for even 50 Mbps speeds_

Sadly, I have to agree with Time Warner. While gearheads like myself (a
sometime work-from-home software engineer) have a constant craving for the
fastest internet speed, the general population cares more about keeping costs
low. So for a typical family with a laptop or two, and maybe an XBox and a
tablet, 6Mbps might suffice. In our house, we have 4 Android tablets, 3
Android phones, 1 iPad, 2 laptops, 2 desktops, 1 media player, 1 Skype video
phone, and a security camera DVR that streams over IP all using the same
internet connection.

I live in an area where Time Warner offers 50Mbps internet, so I took
advantage of it. I previously had 24/3Mpbs AT&T U-Verse, which was the fastest
internet available in my old neighborhood. But even among techies, I think
we're atypical...a simple poll of 6 of my coworkers revealed that most had
6Mbps or slower connections, and these are all software engineers. One was
considering getting 18Mpbs U-Verse, but he hasn't yet.

So it looks like the demand just isn't there yet.

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revelation
There is a limit above which downstream becomes somewhat useless, and 50Mbps
or even 25Mbps is probably that point.

But at least offer decent upstream to match it. The simple fact is that you
often get barely enough upstream to transfer the TCP ACKs needed to utilize
your downstream. It's the television model translated to the Internet, where
consumers are just that: people consuming data and content. Not creating them.

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ktsmith
25Mbit can get chewed through if you have multiple HD streams going at the
same time. It depends on your usage habits and number of people in your house
from my experience. If I had to guess 50Mbit is probably the point even heavy
usage households won't go over right now.

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uptown
The SECOND FiOS or Google Fiber is available in my building - I'm dropping
TimeWarner.

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georgemcbay
Ditto. Lack of a viable alternative is the only reason I use Time Warner. As
soon as this changes I'm switching and throwing a party.

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marknutter
Online gaming and video drove demand for the high speed internet we have
today, so "the next big thing" needs to drive even higher bandwidths. What
that is, I'm not sure (HD videoconferencing?) but without it fiber will remain
a mere curiosity to most people.

(I have a gigabit fiber connection myself and it hasn't made all that much of
a difference in my day-to-day life)

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ktsmith
I have 100Mbit down 5Mbit up from Charter. The asynchronous nature of the
connection is very irritating and the slow uplink are very irritating. There
aren't any services that currently make even 100Mbit necessary though.

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lurkinggrue
Cloud storage.

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cbhl
The first step in using cloud storage is uploading the data in the first
place; a connection which is that asymmetrical won't get you there.

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zdgman
What data is Time Warner evaluating to determine that there is low demand for
Fiber connections. I was also hoping that google would release the number of
people they are seeing request that google fiber come to their city next (via
the sign up page they have posted).

I am sitting at 50 Mbps and when I have two Netflix streams going + background
downloading of something on steam you could see how my connection would slow
down. Obviously I am an edge case but remember more consumers are going to
turn what seems like an edge case now into the norm.

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ChuckMcM
This is funny and sad. Its funny like someone who just had their bicycle
stolen is telling everyone it was an old bike anyway they are sure the thief
is going to break their neck on it, and its sad because you know they are
hurting inside because their bike got stolen.

In these situations folks who can't compete should just be quiet and figure
out a plan. But they aren't, and often they don't. Sales folks are
particularly hard pressed to say "Yup, that is a much better product than I've
got to sell here." in part because their salary depends on them not saying it.

Prior to Google Fiber, I would not have seriously considered moving to Kansas
City, even though my sister lives there. That goes from non-starter to
'hmmm....' which means a lot more to Kansas City than it does to Comcast. And
ultimately, it is towns and cities that Comcast has to worry about, not the
'lack of demand' they profess to observe.

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angrydev
If you build it, they will come. Without a 1 Gbps pipe available obviously
developers aren't going to build 1 Gbps applications. TWC along with just
about every other big ISP in the US have never been forward thinkers, which is
what Google stands for.

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wmf
50-100 Mbps is pretty widely available; where are the apps for that?

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tomkin
Henry Ford - "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said
faster horses."

I know this is a played out quote, but this is essentially the same
circumstance. You could go further and even say that there wasn't any demand
for the Internet at all. Until we had it.

True be told, Internet infrastructure is probably more important than
transportation infrastructure. Having said that, a 16 year old with high speed
Internet access bares more fruit than a beginners permit, in my experience.
Fast Internet transcends a community.

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stevencorona
People love hate on Time Warner and Comcast (I do too), but I have used both
of their services and they do offer more mbps than other providers.

At my old apartment I had 50mbps Time Warner (Rochester, NY). At my new
apartment I, I have 105mbps Comcast (Charleston, SC).

Whether they'll ever offer 1gbps, I don't know, but 105mbps isn't exactly the
5mbps average that the rest of the country has either.

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AUmrysh
Interesting, I assume they've done their market research with this. They never
asked me, maybe it was some of you other TWC customers.

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wmf
Are you already on the fastest Time Warner plan? It's probably safe to assume
that the demand for gigabit is even less than the demand for 50 Mbps, which is
already fairly low.

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aes256
I'm inclined to agree the demand for 1Gbps residential connections isn't there
at the moment.

I have a 120Mbps residential connection. I's more than sufficient for me, and
I'm probably in the 99th percentile in terms of residential bandwidth use.

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idupree
As a developer, I need to upload things.

Is there a technical reason that modern cable-Internet bandwidth is
asymmetric? My download rates are acceptable for me, and if the upload rates
were the same I'd be happy.

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rwg
Many reasons (very incomplete list):

\- There is _significantly_ less spectrum available for upstream channel use
than downstream channel use. (Something like 37 MHz vs. 500-800 MHz.) This
means cable operators have to be very frugal with upstream channel allocations
and can't reasonably bond together enough upstream channels w/ DOCSIS 3.0 to
give everyone symmetric up/down speeds.

\- Upstream channels are a shared medium using TDMA (time division), which
introduces overhead to prevent multiple transmitters (cable modems) from
transmitting on top of one another. However, even if your cable modem was the
only device on the network, it wouldn't get all of the available upstream
timeslots for sending data.

\- Upstream channels use a less spectrally efficient modulation scheme than
downstream channels in order to keep bit error rates low. (The upstream
channels are noisier than the downstream channels.) Given identical channel
widths, worse spectral efficiency means fewer bits per symbol means less data
sent per time unit.

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Nrsolis
You're right about the spectrum allocations, but given the way things are
going, that might not last.

First, the spectrum allocations were originally driven by the need to deliver
video signals that were compatible with analog TVs. Now that TV's are going
digital, this might change the requirement for the traditional frequency split
for upstream/downstream.

There is no "physical" reason why you couldn't have a 400Mhz upstream range
that matches a 400Mhz downstream frequency range. There isn't anything special
about coax. It's just RF in a constrained medium.

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quahada
"Our infrastructure has the ability to provide much faster speeds today."

But they don't.

I think that comment pretty much sums up the mentality of the teleco
monopolies. They are artificially constraining the supply of bandwidth.

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dangerboysteve
Time Warner logic: We'll provide 1GB Fiber but we'll have a 50GB transfer cap.

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notdrunkatall
We shall see Time Warner, we shall see.

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jfb
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH EASTASIA.

