With download speeds approaching 25x what is nominally available to hi-speed cable customers, you could download a 300 megabyte file (like a 30 second commercial) in just seconds. Welcome to DOCSIS 3.0.
That is precisely what occurred at The Cable Show yesterday when Comcast president & CEO Brian Roberts provided a peek at the new technology.

Why the move toward a faster cable modem?  You gotta love competition.

It seems that Verizon has been offering in select markets a service called FiOS that offers download speeds of 50 megabits per second with capacity right now for over 100 Mbps BUT it has the capacity to deliver speeds up to 622 mbps down and 155 mbps up.  Holy-moly!

With a decent latency, you could frag any game player’s socks off, take his rifle, and cap his flag before his body hit the ground.  Gaming nirvana.

But what about pricing?  Arrrrr, there’s the rub.

Checking the Verizon website, they list a top service of 30 mbps (max) down and 5 mbps(up presumably) for $179 per month.  But hey, installation is free!

Of course the disclaimers apply too such as these:

• Condition of wiring inside and outside your home
• The configuration of your computer
• The number of home computers and other networked equipment using the service at the same time
• Network or Internet congestion
• The server speeds of the Web sites you are accessing
• Other factors

Those came right from their pop up page on the Verizon site.  So basically, we’ll suck money out of you like a Hoover and when your ‘speeds vary’ off of what we have been ramming down your throat via marketing we point to this handy list and say ‘it must be your (fill in the blank)’ and it ain’t us.  Sorry.  But keep sending us the contents of your wallet.