Rogers to offer gigabit download speeds to Internet customers

[Datalink]

Monday, Oct. 05, 2015

Kind of interesting:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rogers-to-offer-gigabit-download-speeds-to-interne...

"  Rogers Communications Inc. is preparing to roll out “gigabit” download speeds to its broadband Internet customers.

The Toronto-based cable and wireless company is set to announce its plans at a midday press event on Monday and will begin offering download speeds of up to 1 GB per second in parts of Toronto as well as Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Ajax, Pickering and Whitby later this year. It will make the higher speeds available to its entire footprint – which covers four million customers – in 2016.  "

See article for remaining text......

***Edit Label****

[RogersAliciaG]

@Datalink

Thanks for sharing this article.

We will have to watch the midday press event.  

Thanks, 

RogersAliciaG

[Datalink]

Pretty interesting.  4K TV + gigbit internet.  If you think people have problems now trying to run 250 mb/s, wait till gigabit service arrives.  Personal opinion, gigabit data rates on LANs is going to be a challenge for the vast majority of people who order it.  Homework and preparation are going to be really important when it comes to successful implementation.

On the Rogers side, that would indicate that the next generation Docsis 3.1 modems, "Rocket_TM Gigabit Wi-Fi modem" should be ready to go, as well as all of the required backend support thru the nodes and beyond.  Guess we'll have to see. 

http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/rogers-announces-gigabit-internet-and-worlds-largest-commitment...

[timlocke]

I think that this will be great. I will probably have to wait until mid 2016 here in Guelph but I can live with that.

BUT.

A whole pile of the goodness of this will be lost if Rogers do not add native IPV6 to the service at the same time ( or sooner!)

I am sure there will be a temptation to use Carrier Grade Nat  but as they will have to replace a zillion older DOCSIS modems anyway to support Gigabit and undoubtedly upgrade some headend and backhaul kit they may as well add IPV6.  

Most customers won't notice as OS's since Vista will just use V6 as soon as they see an RA packet from the router.  That is, most customers will not suddenly call Rogers support!

All decent modern home routers support V6 and again, those that don't , the customers won't notice.

I believe the CGN3 supports V6 but it is turned off.

So Rogers, please add native IPV6 to the project.

 By the way. I am one of the few who  use the 6RD service that is totally non-supported but works rather well.

[hiho]

Why bother they cant provide what they say they are now pushing out so how do they expect to do this espically  peeps like me that have been waiting a year now for them to supply a new node so that i am now sharing with 21 others, would rather they get the 250 wrking the way its supposed to then push out something new that from past experince they wont be able to supply as promised like they cant suplly now as promised

[RyzenFX]

So excited to hear this. After hearing Bell announce their gigabit plan, I'm happy to see the competition in full swing. I've heard it's going to be the same price as Bell ($149). Can't it be lowered to $139 to be competetive? 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-internet-1.3256745

Also, speaking about Docsis 3.1 modems Hitron has yet to announce a Docsis 3.1 modem. The highest speed that their modems could handle as of now is 1.2Gbps. As Datalink metioned, we should expect a new modem capable of atleast 10Gbps (which is the Docsis 3.1 Standard). 1.2Gbps is just not enough to handle LAN, and wireless.  

[RyzenFX]

When upgrading to gigbit internet speeds, people need to do their homework. Most computers & devices should be able to handle atleast 1GBPS. As of now, mobile devices aren't capable to hand that speed. However newer phones, tablets, and streaming sticks should be capable. To support the speed of 1 gigbit/second it is important for people to update their network drivers so they can maintain the best performance and speed. Realistically, you'd be only seeing 1GBPS speeds mainly on your desktop. To take advantage of this speed, people have to upgrade their routers to those such as AC1750 AND AC1900 to atleast get close to 1gbit internet speed. However, as I mentioned earlier it depends on the device you have. New devices are able to support faster internet speeds.

[VivienM]

---

@eddiethefunnyon wrote:

When upgrading to gigbit internet speeds, people need to do their homework. Most computers & devices should be able to handle atleast 1GBPS. As of now, mobile devices aren't capable to hand that speed. However newer phones, tablets, and streaming sticks should be capable. To support the speed of 1 gigbit/second it is important for people to update their network drivers so they can maintain the best performance and speed. Realistically, you'd be only seeing 1GBPS speeds mainly on your desktop. To take advantage of this speed, people have to upgrade their routers to those such as AC1750 AND AC1900 to atleast get close to 1gbit internet speed. However, as I mentioned earlier it depends on the device you have. New devices are able to support faster internet speeds.

---

I agree with most of this, but I think 'new devices = faster speeds' is a very dangerous assumption.

There are still TONS of computers being sold with single-band 802.11n cards. Lots of Android/Windows single-band 802.11n tablets on the market too. Even when you see '802.11ac' on most consumer-grade Windows machines, it's the single-stream Intel 3160 card (max speed 433 megabits/sec)... 

Meanwhile, there are 5-6 year old business Windows laptops floating around with 3-stream dual-band 802.11n cards (mostly Intel 6300). 

[VivienM]

---

@eddiethefunnyon wrote:

So excited to hear this. After hearing Bell announce their gigabit plan, I'm happy to see the competition in full swing. I've heard it's going to be the same price as Bell ($149). Can't it be lowered to $139 to be competetive? 

---

What I'd like to see is the pricing for the slower plans, and whether they will change as a result of this...

I have difficulty understanding why someone who can get unlimited 250/20 for $100 would pay $50 more per month for gigabit/50. The extra upload, I can understand the appeal of (but really, if you care about upstream speeds, competing technologies are a much better bet than DOCSIS), but... what can you do with a gigabit download speed you can't do with 250?

[RyzenFX]

I agree, the slower plans do need to be repriced when Rogers releases their gigbit internet package.

[wayner92]

I have Rogers Ignite 250u (before that I had Hybrid Fibe 250 and Ultimate 250) and I have my Hitron CGN3 in Bridge mode connected to an Asus router.  I value having a router that can run OpenVPN and that has more flexility for mapping ports, etc.

But when we get to gigabit internet what options where there be for routers?  Can consumer grade routers handle that much WAN speed?

Would we be better off setting up a PC with two good NICs and run pfSense on it?

[wayner92]

These are probably unanswerable for now, but I have a few questions on this that might be interesting to discuss:

What technology will this use?  DOCSIS 3.1?  DOCSIS 3.0?  Fiber?

How many downstream channels?  32?  24? More?

What gateway will be used?  A new Hitron device of some sort?  (Hopefully the QC is much better than the CGN3.)

Will this gateway be able to be put into bridge mode?  If so what external routers can handle that much WAN speed? (see my other thread on this)

Why is the upstream speed limited to only 50Mbps giving an extraordinarily high 20:1 down:up ratio?

[Datalink]

Educated guess: 

Docsis 3.1 ?

channels:  24 ?  Docsis 3.1 uses OFDM which essentially means that a number of sub-carriers are used to carry the data at low rates.  Collectively, you end up with 1 gig rates.  Have a look at the following links, which are a little interesting.  Maybe there will be a 32 channel modem; 

OFDM:  http://www.keysight.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/25June2014Webcast.pdf?&cc=CA&lc=eng

http://www.lightreading.com/cable-video/docsis/hitron-picks-maxlinear-for-16gbit-s-docsis-30/d/d-id/...

http://www.maxlinear.com/hitron-deploys-industrys-first-gigabit-docsis-3-0-cable-modems/

http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/hitron-unveils-gigabit-docsis-30-modem/392688

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hitron-gigabit-docsis-3-0-120000061.html

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2015/09/14/8245558.htm

http://www.hitron-americas.com/product-category/cable/

The interesting part is that Hitron has a 32 channel Docsis 3.0 modem available. which will be used by Videotron.  Maybe Rogers will make that available, who knows?

Gateway:  most likely a new gateway, but not necessarily.  I think the current modem can run 960 Mb/s

Speed Limitation;  Most likely due to the asymmetric design of cable systems.  Large pipe down, much smaller pipe infrastructure up.  Plus, although the newer modems will support 8 channels up, that might mean that Rogers or any other ISP would have to use the extended frequencies in the lower frequency band which are available under Docsis 3.0    Perhaps Rogers will choose not to do that at this time, which will limit the theoretical upstream data rates.

Its all speculation of course .....

As for routers, I think the current generation of Netgrear R7000, Asus RT-AC68U routers will handle those data rates, however, don't expect to use QOS, Traffic Monitoring or any other CPU intensive function.  I recall reading a post regarding google fibre and an R7000 / AC68U generation router.  Speeds through the router were low until QOS was disabled.  Then it ran at 900+ Mb/s.

[VivienM]

---

@wayner92 wrote:

Would we be better off setting up a PC with two good NICs and run pfSense on it?

---

As someone who has run PC-based routers for close to 15 years, I worry the opposite will be true... and that there can be limitations that cause slower performance than on [good] dedicated hardware. Clearly some providers (e.g. Google Fiber) and their vendors have figured out how to get gigabit-speed NAT performance out of affordable haardware.

One thing I will say: my old PC-based router, a 600Mhz Celeron IIRC, could not handle more than about 25 megabits/sec, IIRC, which seems low. I don't know what the bottleneck was... perhaps something to do with the PCI bus? 

[VivienM]

---

@wayner92 wrote:

These are probably unanswerable for now, but I have a few questions on this that might be interesting to discuss:

What technology will this use?  DOCSIS 3.1?  DOCSIS 3.0?  Fiber?

How many downstream channels?  32?  24? More?

What gateway will be used?  A new Hitron device of some sort?  (Hopefully the QC is much better than the CGN3.)

Will this gateway be able to be put into bridge mode?  If so what external routers can handle that much WAN speed? (see my other thread on this)

Why is the upstream speed limited to only 50Mbps giving an extraordinarily high 20:1 down:up ratio?

---

I think @Datalink covered most of this, but in my view, the low upstream speed is the answer to most of these questions. The reason the upload speed is low is because DOCSIS has always been starved for upstream capacity... and I doubt DOCSIS 3.1 measurably changes that. (Sure, they're upping upstream from 20 to 50 megabits, so clearly DOCSIS 3.1 must allow for some improvements... but still...)

I'm certainly presuming that the new gateway will have a bridge mode - every Rogers D3 gateway has had one, and given the questionable reliability/quality of most of those gateways' NAT and wifi features, I don't think Rogers would dare offer the gigabit service without a bridge mode. 

Plus the availability of bridge mode is a selling point for technically-proficient customers (and their families and friends). I'm going to be moving in about 6 weeks to a condo that has some interesting competing Internet options, but one reason (other than the chance to hang out with you guys!) I am leaning towards staying with Rogers and DOCSIS is because of bridge mode - the competitors require the use of their NAT boxes, and I don't like that... 

[timlocke]

As one of those customers I'd certainly want bridge mode. I don't know if my current router would support a 1Gb service but new routers are cheap.      My main interest in this service is less the speed than if Rogers will offer IPV6 .   I would not put it past them to find that CGN would be cheaper.

[wayner92]

There is a trade show going on this week and it looks like (at least) Hitron and Arris are demoing DOCSIS 3.1 devices that Rogers could deploy.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/data-and-telecom/docsis-3.1-cable-modems-are-here.html

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151013005477/en/Hitron-Demo-Intel-Based-DOCSIS-3.1-Cable-Mod...

[wayner92]

---

@timlocke wrote:

As one of those customers I'd certainly want bridge mode. I don't know if my current router would support a 1Gb service but new routers are cheap.      My main interest in this service is less the speed than if Rogers will offer IPV6 .   I would not put it past them to find that CGN would be cheaper.

---

New routers are cheap but the fastest new routers are not so cheap.  You would need one of the highest end routers currently available and they are around $200.

I don't want to hijack the discussion, but what are the advantages to an end user of IPV6.  Is it mainly because we won'thave to use NAT as all of our devices can have "real" external IP addresses?

[timlocke]

IPV6 is coming like it or not as the IPV4 addresses have finally run out.

Note that a lot of the big sites. Google, YouTube, Facebook are already on V6 as well as V4 and as soon as Canada's big ISPs offer V6 more and more sites will use it.  If the ISPs are clever the use of V6 will be transparent to home users.

Yes it does mean that NAT will be unnecessary although it will be years before people will stop using it on home networks and corporate networks.

I agree that the high end home routers are in the $200 range now but regardless of IPV6 a true Gigabit Internet connection to a Gigabit ethernet home network will tax even some of the better routers available now especially if more than one fast PC is in use.   I am sure the price of faster routers will drop  and if the quoted price of $149/month is correct then a one time hit of $200  will just be a small part of the annual cost.

[roxandtreez]

I'm not sufficiently skilled to evaluate their methodology, but this page from Small Net Builders shows only 6 routers that achieve more than .9 Gbps on the WAN to LAN performance.  Can anyone comment on whether this is reasonable and whether their testing method makes sense?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view

[timlocke]

My router is a DL 868L running the same software.   My modem is a cgn3 bridged and my Rogers access is nominally 70Mbs. My main PC is on 1Gbs wired , 2 other devices are 100Mbs wired and the rest are connected via a 1Gbs switch and a mix of n and 1ac wireless.  I am not using the USB 3 port. I tried it and the connection to the CGN3 kept cutting out.

So if Rogers offer true 1Gbs at the modem I will be prepared to replace my router but probably won't need to.  We do use Netflix via Roku sticks now but presumably that will come in via the TV set top boxes.