www.swisscom.com/GHQ/content/Media/Medienmitteilungen/2007/20070508_01_Mehr_VDSL-Bandbreite.htm?lang=en

but to the consumer:

also note, no publication of prices.... which I can assure you will be chunky for that sort of speed.

on the 50% coverage note, that is due to the fact that they have no hispeed infrastructure for the bumpkins, at present they are running a Fixed Wireless Broadband (WiMax) trial up in the boondocks here in Kanton Bern.

all I see is Swisscom up the ante and Cablecom ups it again.

So bring it on

there are some others such as : www.metrozone.ch they are doing carrier grade metro-wifi across Switzerland right now, we have an antenna on our roof here in Bern.

89 CHF / month according to heute.

Believe it or not, Starhub isp from singapore is offering 100Mbps service.
(http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/O...00464114acRCRD)
Just S$121.80 for a month. I wonder when will ISPs from canada offer that kind of service.

I had a driving lesson today, the instructor told me that a lot of the roadworks is in fact Cablecom performing some kind of upgrade.

Isn't that normal? Didn't Cablecom dig up the roads about 10 years ago (maybe somebody could tell us)? In the US they had to do this in order to install our modern digital cable infrastructure. However, I have read that the Cablecom's infrastructure is not entirely "modern," which is why they claim that they need to cut channels from "analog" cable.

Well you are close to the truth but not quite there.

Cablecom are only responsible for major digging in the Luzern area where they are upgrading the network. The cablecom network suffers from not being homogeneous given that it has "organically" acquired small Gemeinde networks and integrated these into its scheme. This is fine when they are like the network in Basel built only 10-15 years ago. But not when it is like Bern built 40 years ago!

Furthermore, cablecom relies on a coax network and does not use the error protection offered by IP for all the connections. As a result TV channels are not perfect, good but not perfect and the only way to improve them is to switch them to digital which allows more data to be thrown down the same pipe.

Did cablecom dig up the roads about 10 years ago well that depends where you live as they are always needing to do that somewhere.

Actually I do not think so. There is a limit to what you can throw down a network and I think cablecom are more or less at their limit. It will be the end of the year before they can respond and then you will see a two state world for cablecom Zurich, Basel and the rest... And they will move the goalpost to 30 or 40 Mbps but only where they can offer it which will be to only a very few locations...

It would have been about 12 years ago that Cablecom replaced the copper cables in the road where I was living in Kilchberg (ZH) with glass fibre.

This was about the time BBC World Service TV was carried by CC. Before glass fibre it was almost impossible to watch as the signal was so weak.

DOCSIS (all versions) support a download rate maximum of 42.88Mbit/s

Assuming the infrastructure is somewhere near certified levels of quality, you'll see them raise the bar again.

It might be that we need new cable modems to support DOCSIS 3.0 and really let rip

Hi Lob, as you increase the speed you increase the need for higher Db signals (coax world). IF you do not have the reserve ie plenty of amplifiers or a fibre deep infrastructure then you are limited in what you can do. Gain and line extenders do not help you that much here as they increase the noise and thus increase the errors... You also need to have plenty of clean 75ohm cables and a return path. The problem with cablecom is their history. They were a tv signal distributor. TV requires no return path and only a wire down which to push the signal - point to multi-point infrastructure. With the decision to be a multiplay company they needed to upgrade the network to ensure all connections had a return path - I am sure you can remember around Y2K the change in the sockets and the introduction of a data socket to the standard radio and tv. This was the introduction of a return path allowing internet and other future technologies such as interactive tv.

When this work was done there was not the thought of throwing multiple 10s of Mbits down a cable just to allow internet. Now speed is king and in order for cablecom to match the pure IP world of Swisscom they need to get rid of old cable thereby reducing impedance and go fibre deep. If they do not do this then you have to question the business case ie how much longer can they face off against the now multiplay Swisscom?

Upgrading to 30-40Mbps will give them some time but and this is a big but only in some locations where the connection is clean. Go out to the half sticks ie not bumpkin country or to locations where they have not invested for a long time (say 25+ years) and they cannot deliver the service.

Fact is IF cablecom are not smart and do not act quickly their network will reduce to just Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Luzern and then they will lose much of the revenue and the monopoly they have. And then it is just a matter of time...

Cablecom actually own a FWB license here in Switzerland (non-Wimax), they ran an interesting project for a while (I did some work on it) but due to the takeover by Liberty/UPC the project was dropped, which is a shame. Business case looked really good for both customer & cc.

Bluewin are offering this now

15000K/b d/l
1000K/b up

Cost is 89CHF per month

Also cost 149CHF for the engineer to install it

How can they still justify prices like that !!

It just seems like they are gonna milk the consumers for all they can get until somene actually stops them from doing it ......

If only i could lay a cable over the border into France !!!