Cable Internet Speed of 25X Today's Standard is coming this Year

If you think cable internet is fast, it's going to get faster, a lot faster, real soon according to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. He dazzled a cable industry audience yesterday at The Cable Show in Las Vegas, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.

The cost of modems that would support the technology, called "channel bonding," is "not that dissimilar to modems today," he told The Associated Press. It could be available "within less than a couple years," he said.

The new cable technology is crucial because the industry is competing with a speedy new offering called FiOS, a TV and Internet service that Verizon is selling over a new fiber-optic network. The top speed currently available through FiOS is 50 megabits per second, but the network is already capable of providing 100 Mbps and the fiber lines offer nearly unlimited potential.

The super fast cable technology, called DOCSIS 3.0, was developed by the cable industry's research arm, Cable Television Laboratories. It bonds together four cable lines but is capable of allowing much more capacity. The laboratory said last month it expected manufacturers to begin submitting modems for certification under the standard by the end of the year.

In the presentation, ARRIS Group Inc. chief executive Robert Stanzione downloaded a 30-second, 300-megabyte television commercial in a few seconds and watched it long before a standard modem worked through an estimated download time of 16 minutes. Stanzione also downloaded the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary in under four minutes when it would have taken a standard modem three hours and 12 minutes. Downloading iTunes movies in HD will be a snap. [Dana Baggett]