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Arris WBM760 DOCSIS 3 Cable Modem
Time Warner Cable is demonstrating 290Mbps downstream coupled with 90Mbps upstream broadband in its booth at the 2010 Cable Show in Los Angeles. A Time Warner Cable insider told CED magazine it was the first public showing of the company’s ability to provide faster service outside of a lab environment.
The new high speeds are achieved using DOCSIS 3 technology which can bond multiple “channels” on a cable system together to create additional bandwidth.
The demonstration relies on an Arris CMTS and cable modems manufactured by both Arris and Motorola, which are connected to Time Warner’s Los Angeles cable headend.
CED notes Time Warner Cable has plenty of room for broadband speed growth.
The company is achieving the speeds using 8 x 4 channel bonding
. With TWC’s top tier rated at 50/5 Mbps, the demo shows speed increases of greater than fivefold on the downstream and 18-fold on the upstream.
The TWC engineer compared the MSO’s achievement with the 300 Mbps that Bell Labs demonstrated on DSL recently.
“What they’ve got is something in the lab that goes 10 feet, and what we’re showing is live from our headend 22 miles away. We can compete (using) DOCSIS,” he observed.
Such developments are all part of a larger company plan to develop and market additional services the nation’s second largest cable operator can upsell to its customers. For now, 290Mbps service is more theoretical than practical at Time Warner Cable’s likely pricing. But it illustrates cable remains technologically ahead of what most phone companies can deliver over non-fiber-to-the-home networks.
MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews reports Time Warner Cable is about to begin market testing a new super-deluxe package that moves beyond the “Triple Play” packages common in the cable industry today. Targeting wealthy, premium cable customers, Time Warner’s new “Homesuite” service would include all the bells and whistles:
- Multiple DVRs for several rooms in the house, with can eventually be connected together to let you start a recorded show in one room and finish it in another;
- A full range of premium channels at a bundled discount price;
- Faster DOCSIS-3 broadband with free Wi-Fi in and outside the home;
- Enhanced digital phone service, perhaps with more calling features;
- Concierge-like customer service, which could allow Homesuite customers to jump to the front of the queue for everything from service installation, repair and customer service.
Other options might include access to Time Warner’s wireless mobile broadband (rebranded Clearwire service), extended hours for service calls, discounts on pay per view, more deluxe set top boxes, and in some areas, even home security systems.
For Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs, the idea of selling $100 a month Triple Play package promotions just isn’t good enough anymore. Time Warner Cable, MediaPost speculates, is now looking at $250 a month as a potential target price for Homesuite clients.
Time Warner Cable customers in Charlotte, North Carolina will be the first guinea pigs for super premium cable. Are there enough customers around in Charlotte to pony up $250 a month for service?
TWC has conducted a customer “segmentation” study allowing it to identify opportunities for up-selling. “Our analysis indicates that certain of our large and profitable customer segments continue to hold substantial untapped opportunity,” Hobbs said earlier this year.
TWC says in a recent government filing that it’s likely to continue to lose video subscribers, but is expecting to make up for it by persuading customers to take DVR service, premium channels and other add-ons.
Charlotte is a key market for TWC — a Time Warner Cable Arena is located in the city center. After launching there, “Homesuite” would presumably then roll out in other TWC principal areas, which include Ohio, New York, Southern California and Texas. The working “Homesuite” moniker could be altered.
$250/month!!! Whew, that is substantial to say the least!! That is like having a car payment. Are they really smoking something offering that service in this kind of economy? Really, really, getting ridiculous. I would love to have 290Mb/s down and 90Mb/s up but I am not going to pay that. Time Warner Homesuite = Fail
Thats *only* 3000 dollars a year (heh i crack me up). Never mind 90% of the websites you end up on will not have anywhere near the BW to serve you up at that rate. The bigger sites do (hulu yahoo google etc…) but even then it is hit or miss if you get the max rate. *THEN* you better have a gig Ethernet or 802.11 N (in the 5ghz band) router to serve that to your local computer(s). Your 100megabit Ethernet will not cut it. NOW however, that its coming is cool. But sounds pricey for what it will… Read more »
Whoi are the idiots in these surveys and focus groups saying they’re willing to pay $250/mo, that’s just insane.
They must have been using their own executives and board members for the focus group, at least with their 3mil+/yr salaries they can afford to pay double the going cable package rate.
$250 while it might be a little high, is not all that outrageous when you add up the services. Let’s look at this: DirectTV for 3 dvrs and all the premium stations is about $130 a month. RoadRunner standard is about $45 a month – $99 on their DOCSIS 3 5/50 (is that right?) Vonage phone service is about $35 a month. Looks like about $210 (about $264 with DOCSIS 3 speed) a month right there for all those services. Doesn’t look like much if a bundle price though. The bundling savings would put it back down to their competitors… Read more »
Considering the fact that I pay $179+tax for 10mbp/s down and 1/2 a meg up(on a good day), with 1 DVR, HBO and Digital Cable, with digital phone service…an extra 70 dollars a month for 50/5 and all the other services doesn’t seem like a huge jump to me. That being said, Hong Kong Broadband offers 100mbp/s for $13/month and 1gbp/s for $26/month…so it’s all relative. None of what Time Warner Cable offers is going to make a difference until they can actually offer services that say don’t tile and freeze(like all of their switch digital channels). I have been… Read more »