German Cable ISP First To Deliver 4700Mbps Internet Connection

Mark.JUK writes "It's enough to make grown IT workers cry. German cable operator Kabel Deutschland claims to have become the first provider to successfully achieve a real-world internet connection speed of 4700Mbps (Megabits per second) after they hooked up to a local school's test account in the city of Schwerin. The ISP, which usually delivers more modest speeds of up to 100Mbps to home subscribers, used its upgraded 862MHz network, channel bonding, and the EuroDocsis 3.0 standard to achieve the stated performance. But don't expect to get this kind of speed tomorrow; right now there's no demand for it among home users, and you probably couldn't afford the bandwidth anyway." ("No demand at its current price," at least.)

Wait, what?

[Kjella]

4700 Mbit/s = 4.7 Gbit/s, how's that a record? The Gathering here in Norway had a 200 Gbit/s Internet Connection, topping Dreamhack in Sweden's 120 Gbit/s. Maybe it's some silly 4.7 Gbit over cable, but that's like the wold's fastest subcompact. And for all of us that have fiber to the home, yeah we know it's just what equipment you put on both ends. The cable itself could probably pull 100 Gbit/s with the right equipment.

Re:Wow, I'm amazed... not.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

These 'ISP record' attempts are doubly pointless(in addition to the fact that they never indicate the slightest enthusiasm to actually offer something even approaching that speed, at any reasonable price, to any of their customers) because they typically are markedly slower than the already-standard high-speed interconnects that tie more central sites together.

If you are going to play pure speed-racer games, it really makes more sense to just have a set of categories based on medium(eg. 1km legacy POTS copper, 1km legacy coax, 1km single-mode fiber, 10km of each, etc.) There are real engineering challenges, and nontrivial advances, in the ability to shove more data over a link of a given nastiness; but 'records' based on unrealistic location stunts are just pointless(Telco B could just pull some fiber to a convenient school tomorrow and pull off a 'first-to-deliver 10,000mbps internet connection! and Telco C could just pull a few more strands and deliver twice that, and so on).

If you want to boast about how cool an ISP you are, you need speed, breadth, and price. If you want to boast about your super-sneaky transmission methods, just tell us about the medium, the distance, and the bitrate; but this nonsense is a pure stunt.

Re:Wow, I'm amazed... not.

[Bengie]

subscribers' bandwith is often shared

All ISPs are shared at some level. I'm assuming you mean the node bandwidth is shared/over-subscribed?

They used 12 modems and thus 12 seperate channels

Many modems can bond up to 8 virtual channels on the down stream. As far as we know, it could have been anywhere from 1-8 8mhz channels per modem. Even with a single 8mhz channel, DOCSIS3 can bond 8 virtual CDMA channels for a combined bandwidth of 8X50Mb/s=~400Mb/s (EuroDocsis). DOCSIS3 has no limitation on how many channels may be bonded, but I'm not sure of any modem that supports more than 8 right now.

Still cheaper/simpler to use fiber, but cable can manage some crazy high speeds if you throw enough tech/money at it.

Re:40,960 Mbps has already been done.

[Rainbowdash]

Yup, we Swedes will always be strong in the "internet scene." A friend of mine just got his 1GBPS connection :( And he pays half my price :