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That information is quite outdated. It's more than possible to get symmetric speed on (EURO)DOCSIS 3.1. The main reason it does not happen is because there is

That information is quite outdated. It's more than possible to get symmetric speed on (EURO)DOCSIS 3.1. The main reason it does not happen is because there is no consumer demand for it.

techntoke 7y ago
And Comcast has the seventh largest lobbying budget of any individual company or organization in the United States. ISPs should be regulated like public utilities.
- seganddr 7y ago
  Makes you wonder about the origin of the OP.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    the_mitsuhiko is from Austria (according to his keybase linked in his profile). But it shouldn't matter, if there's no consumer demand then lobbying is irrelevant.
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't post insinuations of astroturfing to HN unless you have some sort of objective evidence to point to. This is one of the most common and most poisonous internet tropes around, so we have an explicit rule against it in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. More explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if interested. Edit: looks like you've done it at least twice before. That's too much. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.
zamalek 7y ago
> there is no consumer demand for it. The most demanding thing more than, probably, 0.01% of customers do is livestreaming. If your line can actually sustain 10mbps (vs advertised/claimed), you're good. The only other real scenario is someone learning that they have to back their data up, for the first time, which is really a once in a lifetime usecase for fast upload. What would likely improve the experience of 99%+ users is latency, where fiber has consistently proven to be king (for me at least).
supercanuck 7y ago
There is and the government had provided resources to provide the supply, but the market is a duopoly.
lawnchair_larry 7y ago
The reply was actually pretty spot on. It’s not a demand issue. It’s true that there is not overwhelming demand for higher upload, but that’s pretty far down the list of what prevents it from being offered. DOCSIS 3.1 allows it on paper, yes. But in the real world, bandwidth is a huge constraint, especially if you’re also serving digital cable. No cable ISP in North America today on D3.1 has a network that can support it even if they wanted to. For example, Comcast has 4 upstream 6mhz sc-qam channels (which is basically using none of the advantages offered by 3.1) and 32 downstream, and their video service is 720p across the board and overly compressed. They are constantly trying to free up data channels and migrate to newer codecs, and eventually go to IPTV, but that requires changing hardware both in their network in the customer’s home, or the customer’s TV goes black and their internet goes out and you get to hear their rage when you tell them they have to spend a few hundred dollars on new cable boxes/modems so that Comcast can build out their network. It’s a massive infrastructure upgrade to use DOCSIS 3.1 to its full potential that is further complicated by a need to support all of the legacy hardware during a transition. Add to the mix that upstream channels are far more susceptible to unwanted ingress, most homes are full of amateur RG59 coax cable, and it becomes a support/troubleshooting nightmare as well. When you get into higher upstream speeds, these deficiencies become a much bigger problem. I have observed speed tests on an uncapped docsis 3.1 modem on the comcast network getting full bandwidth on all channels, and it was still way below 100mbps upstream (around 80mbps).
- mercora 7y ago
  in Germany Vodafone deployed DOCSIS 3.1 partially and while still not symmetric i get 100Mbit/s down and 50Mbit/s up more or less consistently with DOCSIS 3.0 where i live unless something goes wrong (it does sometimes interfere with LTE here). DOCSIS 3.1 is also available with lots of [0]channels using the newer 1024QAM. they offer up to 1Gbit downstream and 50Mbit upstream for about 70€ a month. i also made a [1]screenshot of the channel usage and stats page of the modems web interface. [0] https://helpdesk.vodafonekabelforum.de/sendb/belegung-11.html https://helpdesk.vodafonekabelforum.de/sendb/belegung-11.htm... [1] https://gist.github.com/mercora/ef66f5bcd95b060ac25269b17cc66b75 https://gist.github.com/mercora/ef66f5bcd95b060ac25269b17cc6...

That information is quite outdated. It's more than possible to get symmetric speed on (EURO)DOCSIS 3.1. The main reason it does not happen is because there is no consumer demand for it.

techntoke 7y ago

And Comcast has the seventh largest lobbying budget of any individual company or organization in the United States. ISPs should be regulated like public utilities.

seganddr 7y ago
Makes you wonder about the origin of the OP.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  the_mitsuhiko is from Austria (according to his keybase linked in his profile). But it shouldn't matter, if there's no consumer demand then lobbying is irrelevant.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post insinuations of astroturfing to HN unless you have some sort of objective evidence to point to. This is one of the most common and most poisonous internet tropes around, so we have an explicit rule against it in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. More explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if interested. Edit: looks like you've done it at least twice before. That's too much. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

zamalek 7y ago

> there is no consumer demand for it. The most demanding thing more than, probably, 0.01% of customers do is livestreaming. If your line can actually sustain 10mbps (vs advertised/claimed), you're good. The only other real scenario is someone learning that they have to back their data up, for the first time, which is really a once in a lifetime usecase for fast upload. What would likely improve the experience of 99%+ users is latency, where fiber has consistently proven to be king (for me at least).

supercanuck 7y ago

There is and the government had provided resources to provide the supply, but the market is a duopoly.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago

The reply was actually pretty spot on. It’s not a demand issue. It’s true that there is not overwhelming demand for higher upload, but that’s pretty far down the list of what prevents it from being offered. DOCSIS 3.1 allows it on paper, yes. But in the real world, bandwidth is a huge constraint, especially if you’re also serving digital cable. No cable ISP in North America today on D3.1 has a network that can support it even if they wanted to. For example, Comcast has 4 upstream 6mhz sc-qam channels (which is basically using none of the advantages offered by 3.1) and 32 downstream, and their video service is 720p across the board and overly compressed. They are constantly trying to free up data channels and migrate to newer codecs, and eventually go to IPTV, but that requires changing hardware both in their network in the customer’s home, or the customer’s TV goes black and their internet goes out and you get to hear their rage when you tell them they have to spend a few hundred dollars on new cable boxes/modems so that Comcast can build out their network. It’s a massive infrastructure upgrade to use DOCSIS 3.1 to its full potential that is further complicated by a need to support all of the legacy hardware during a transition. Add to the mix that upstream channels are far more susceptible to unwanted ingress, most homes are full of amateur RG59 coax cable, and it becomes a support/troubleshooting nightmare as well. When you get into higher upstream speeds, these deficiencies become a much bigger problem. I have observed speed tests on an uncapped docsis 3.1 modem on the comcast network getting full bandwidth on all channels, and it was still way below 100mbps upstream (around 80mbps).

mercora 7y ago
in Germany Vodafone deployed DOCSIS 3.1 partially and while still not symmetric i get 100Mbit/s down and 50Mbit/s up more or less consistently with DOCSIS 3.0 where i live unless something goes wrong (it does sometimes interfere with LTE here). DOCSIS 3.1 is also available with lots of [0]channels using the newer 1024QAM. they offer up to 1Gbit downstream and 50Mbit upstream for about 70€ a month. i also made a [1]screenshot of the channel usage and stats page of the modems web interface. [0] https://helpdesk.vodafonekabelforum.de/sendb/belegung-11.html https://helpdesk.vodafonekabelforum.de/sendb/belegung-11.htm... [1] https://gist.github.com/mercora/ef66f5bcd95b060ac25269b17cc66b75 https://gist.github.com/mercora/ef66f5bcd95b060ac25269b17cc6...