Comcast CEO shows off super quick modem
LAS VEGAS - Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems.
Context & Ripple Effects
Comcast is using the cable industry's Las Vegas stage to convert network engineering into a public commitment: CEO Brian Roberts demonstrated a modem running at 150 Mbps, roughly 25 times standard cable speeds, and the pickup was broad for a single demo — AP, GigaOM ('Broadband's Tomorrow Man'), and Multichannel News all carried it, with Multichannel framing the 'wideband' technology explicitly as a weapon against telcos.
The demo lands days after Comcast confirmed two quieter moves on the services side: rebuilding its consumer email as SmartZone on Zimbra's open-source collaboration suite — replacing what Comcast itself called an 'uninspired' service — and, per reporting it has not denied, dissatisfaction with its Google search deal alongside unconfirmed talk of MSN as an alternative portal partner. Speed is the visible layer of a broader bid to own the whole subscriber experience.
First-order effects
- The 150 Mbps demonstration sets a public speed benchmark that competing cable operators and telco DSL providers now have to answer at their own industry appearances, with Multichannel News reading it directly as Comcast's play to out-position the telephone companies.
- For Comcast's own portal strategy, the fast pipe arrives just as it relaunches consumer email on Zimbra-based SmartZone, giving the company both the bandwidth and the refreshed front door to keep subscribers inside its properties.
Second-order effects
- Telco incumbents face pressure to respond on throughput rather than price alone, since a 25x speed claim reframes the cable-versus-DSL comparison around raw capacity — exactly the contest Multichannel News says wideband is meant to win.
- A stronger owned portal raises the stakes in Comcast's distribution negotiations: with its Google search deal reportedly unsatisfying and MSN talks unconfirmed, control over faster pipes and more pageviews strengthens its hand over who pays for portal placement.
Third-order effects
- If the demo-to-deployment pattern holds, US broadband competition shifts from availability — where cable and telcos already divide territory — to escalating speed tiers, making marketing claims and modem generations the battleground in markets with little actual choice of provider.
The trend: Cable operators are turning headend technology roadmaps into headline speed claims, pushing broadband toward a throughput arms race with telco networks.