Comcast CEO Brian Roberts unveiled the new cable modem during a demonstration at The Cable Show. He said that the new modems, enabled with a technology called channel bonding, would cost roughly the same as ones currently on the market and would be available in less than two years.
Channel bonding utilizes four TV channels to transmit data instead of one, effectively quadrupling its download speed. The cable industry’s research division, Cable Television Laboratories, developed the technology and said that it expects cable modem manufacturers to begin submitting specs for new hardware by the end of the year.
During the demonstration, a 30-second, 300-megabyte video clip was downloaded and playing within seconds. The standard cable modem would have taken 16 minutes to download the same clip.
The new cable modem also downloaded the 32-volume 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster’s visual dictionary in less than four minutes. The standard cable modem clocked in at three hours and 12 minutes.
“If you look at what just happened, 55 million words, 100,000 articles, more than 22,000 pictures, maps and more than 400 video clips,” Roberts said. “The same download on dialup would have taken two weeks.”
A spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association called the demonstration a groundbreaking event for the future of technological advancement.
“It’s an exponential step forward and we're very excited,” Roberts said. “What consumers actually do with all this speed is up to the imagination of the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”