Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge 107 Mbps (down), can this be so?

I stopped and chatted with a Sudden Link cable installer in my neighborhood today and asked what kind of cable he was laying (I am currently on Verizon DSL and can only get 3 Mbps down).

The gent replied that they (SL) had just completed laying fiber optic to all the nodes and he was now laying the cable from the nodes to the drop for each home.

When I asked if the cable he was presently laying could carry the fiber optic signal, he replied that it could, and that my community would be one of the fastest in the US: 107 MBps down.

I then asked if a fiber optic card was required for my computer and he replied in the negative, but added that the cable in to my home must be connected to a modem and from there to my computer ethernet port.

Does this make sense, do you think the cable guy knew what he was talking about?

The physical arrangement sounds right. Just like cable internet service, you will need to have a "fiber transceiver" (they will probably just call it a "modem") just like a cable modem, and then ethernet to your computer.

The basic technology arrangement is very similar between DSL, cable, and fiber internet service. Drops to neighborhood, drops to house, modem, to computer. The only difference is that DSL often rides on a dedicated drop all the way to your local switch, whereas more native digital things like cable and fiber can take a single high speed trunk to your local demark and split up from there.

The CNET speed test only lists 30 Mbps as the fastest. My TimeWarner cable gets from 1.9 to 2.4 Mbps. His number seems a bit odd, but fiber optics can do wonders these days if one has enough money:
http://boingboing.net/2009/02/17/japan-internet-connection.html

And oh yeah,

The tech with whom I spoke assiduously avoided mentioning costs.

I wonder why...

'Tis my guess that even if such speeds were available, the costs would necessitate opting for a slower and less pricy plan.

This story about Eastlink Cable's 100 service might be of interest.

Thanks for the link Dermot.

No doubt similar prices were prevail here 'bouts.

I do very file sharing, no movie downloading (as yet), and the largest files I DL are the Mac OSs. So much of blazing speed will be wasted (as will my money), thus I am likely to opt for the 20 down and 5 up plan, or one similar to that (depending on price points).

And I doubt my surfing will be faster (except theoretically). And for sure my typing speed won't increase.

Perhaps iChatting/Skyping will be a bit better, but even so, will the marginal improvement warrant the increased costs? I doubt it.

Bear in mind, I remember 300 baud acoustic couplers, ZTerm, & Hayes modems.