qdog, your math is a bit flawed.
Cox, at least, is using a 26Mbit/sec rate. It is limited to 10Mbit/sec at the computer interface (10baseT) but the speed "on the wire" is 26Mbit/sec, and of course it is collision-free. (So typical Ethernet degredation doesn't apply).
Cox has said that they will go to 500 homes passed per node (currently at 1000) as subscriptions pick up. Let's say you get 50% penetration (I am being VERY generous) and 50% of users are on at peak time. That's 208kbits/sec per user IF they are all pulling down stuff continuously.
But that is very unlikely - most of them are NOT going to be pulling down 384K/sec videos, but surfing the web, doing e-mail, and other low-bandwidth or low-duty-cycle things. So, at 500 homes/node, I think that the bandwidth will be more than adequate. In practice, I think that everyone who WANTS to pull-down 384k/sec video is going to be able to. (Though I'm very skeptical that that's what people really want to do with their Internet connections most of the time.)
In practice, in a heavily-subscribed system, I think that individuals will see no worse than 500kbit/sec to 1Mbit/sec throughput at peak hours, and many times that at other times. Keep in mind that there is nothing stopping operators from decreasing the homes/node to maintain quality of service, and I suspect that they will have to as they build out of they are to remain competitive. |
