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I get 300 Mbps down from Xfinity, fine by me. But the paltry 5-6 Mbps I get up with it is BS. Sure, I don’t need 300 up, but for what I’m paying it would be nic

I get 300 Mbps down from Xfinity, fine by me. But the paltry 5-6 Mbps I get up with it is BS. Sure, I don’t need 300 up, but for what I’m paying it would be nice to get at least 50.

snazz 6y ago
15 or 20 mbps up is about the theoretical maximum on cable because of how the spectrum is allocated by cable companies. Cable TVs didn't need much upload compared to download.
- kortilla 6y ago
  No, that’s just cable companies allocating significantly more to download spectrum than upload. There isn’t anything fundamental in docsis preventing you from giving more spectrum to upload to have way less contention on the upload slots.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  While no DOCSIS revision has symmetric theoretical caps, DOCSIS 3.1 which is currently in use is capable of up to 2Gbps upstream, while the upcoming (for the most part) DOCSIS 4.0 standard is capable of up to 6Gbps upstream, and was developed largely to response to increasing demands for upstream bandwidth. While these are obviously best-case speeds, gigabit symmetric is quite achievable with DOCSIS3.1 and available in some markets. However, it is unfortunately true that many cable carriers are constrained in their channel planning by legacy devices with fixed channel requirements. For example, Comcast has at least historically struggled with planning DOCSIS channels around legacy Motorola STBs that require their on-screen guide information on a specific channel. Essentially, in order for Comcast to switch to full DOCSIS3.1 upstream channel allocations they will need to first get every customer with a legacy STB to swap it out for a new one. This is a formidable task and not one they have so far completed, so in my area upstream remains limited to 35Mbps even with 1Gbps downstream.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  Nah, there are cable companies that offer 50 mbps upstream, and the DOCSIS 3.1 standard that's currently in use supports much more. They're just stingy.
leesalminen 6y ago
Funny, I live in a rural area with a small WISP. I get a solid 20dl/10ul all the time. Hard to imagine that I'm uploading more quickly than city folks.
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  I, too, live in a rural area, but the local WISP cannot provider service due to the geography of the area, so I have 12Mbps/768kbps via DSL, while a friend up the road is getting a symmetric 80Mbps connection from the WISP.
musicale 6y ago
Sounds kind of like a network designed and configured for selling cable television rather than internet access, right? ;-/ I believe most cable channels are reserved for broadcast TV, with just a few for internet data, and most of those for downstream rather than upstream, since DOCSIS 3.1 is half duplex. Things will hopefully get much better with DOCSIS 4 though which supports full duplex! Comcast claims that they are going to roll it out DOCSIS 4 and FDX (as it is apparently called) next year, so who knows? You might have 1 Gb/s upload or better. And it will make it a lot easier to quickly reach your monthly data cap.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  This would be a game changer for various decentralized things.
  - voxadam 6y ago
    Maybe, but only if they don't include uplink bandwidth in their cap calculations.
    - flyingfences 6y ago
      Unfortunately, they do.
      - whoopdedo 6y ago
        And the residential plan TOS still forbids "servers". Specifically: > use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, email, web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers; Funny thing is this seemingly contradictory clause has been added at some point: > use or run programs from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN, except for personal and non-commercial residential use; So "dedicated, stand-alone equipment" is prohibited, but if it's just a "program" you can use it for personal non-commercial purposes. What does that mean for a program running on a RaspberryPi?

I get 300 Mbps down from Xfinity, fine by me. But the paltry 5-6 Mbps I get up with it is BS. Sure, I don’t need 300 up, but for what I’m paying it would be nice to get at least 50.

snazz 6y ago

15 or 20 mbps up is about the theoretical maximum on cable because of how the spectrum is allocated by cable companies. Cable TVs didn't need much upload compared to download.

kortilla 6y ago
No, that’s just cable companies allocating significantly more to download spectrum than upload. There isn’t anything fundamental in docsis preventing you from giving more spectrum to upload to have way less contention on the upload slots.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
While no DOCSIS revision has symmetric theoretical caps, DOCSIS 3.1 which is currently in use is capable of up to 2Gbps upstream, while the upcoming (for the most part) DOCSIS 4.0 standard is capable of up to 6Gbps upstream, and was developed largely to response to increasing demands for upstream bandwidth. While these are obviously best-case speeds, gigabit symmetric is quite achievable with DOCSIS3.1 and available in some markets. However, it is unfortunately true that many cable carriers are constrained in their channel planning by legacy devices with fixed channel requirements. For example, Comcast has at least historically struggled with planning DOCSIS channels around legacy Motorola STBs that require their on-screen guide information on a specific channel. Essentially, in order for Comcast to switch to full DOCSIS3.1 upstream channel allocations they will need to first get every customer with a legacy STB to swap it out for a new one. This is a formidable task and not one they have so far completed, so in my area upstream remains limited to 35Mbps even with 1Gbps downstream.
lorenzhs 6y ago
Nah, there are cable companies that offer 50 mbps upstream, and the DOCSIS 3.1 standard that's currently in use supports much more. They're just stingy.

leesalminen 6y ago

Funny, I live in a rural area with a small WISP. I get a solid 20dl/10ul all the time. Hard to imagine that I'm uploading more quickly than city folks.

daniellarusso 6y ago
I, too, live in a rural area, but the local WISP cannot provider service due to the geography of the area, so I have 12Mbps/768kbps via DSL, while a friend up the road is getting a symmetric 80Mbps connection from the WISP.

musicale 6y ago

Sounds kind of like a network designed and configured for selling cable television rather than internet access, right? ;-/ I believe most cable channels are reserved for broadcast TV, with just a few for internet data, and most of those for downstream rather than upstream, since DOCSIS 3.1 is half duplex. Things will hopefully get much better with DOCSIS 4 though which supports full duplex! Comcast claims that they are going to roll it out DOCSIS 4 and FDX (as it is apparently called) next year, so who knows? You might have 1 Gb/s upload or better. And it will make it a lot easier to quickly reach your monthly data cap.

Ericson2314 6y ago
This would be a game changer for various decentralized things.
- voxadam 6y ago
  Maybe, but only if they don't include uplink bandwidth in their cap calculations.
  - flyingfences 6y ago
    Unfortunately, they do.
    - whoopdedo 6y ago
      And the residential plan TOS still forbids "servers". Specifically: > use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, email, web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers; Funny thing is this seemingly contradictory clause has been added at some point: > use or run programs from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN, except for personal and non-commercial residential use; So "dedicated, stand-alone equipment" is prohibited, but if it's just a "program" you can use it for personal non-commercial purposes. What does that mean for a program running on a RaspberryPi?