Comcast advertising “10G” in hopes to confuse consumers to accept slower speeds
Don't be fooled: Comcast's ‘10G’ doesn't mean what you think it does
Comcast advertising “10G” in hopes to confuse consumers to accept slower speeds::Comcast says Xfinity offers 10G home internet, but the term "10G" is hazy and potentially misleading—especially because it has no relation to 5G for cell phones.
Xfinity’s 10G network is technically slower than 5G. Peak theoretical throughput on an uncongested 5G network offers up to 20Gbps download and 10Gbps upload. Xfinity caps out at 10Gbps down and up.
In what world are people getting that kind of speed on 5G? In like a lab with perfect conditions and non-consumer equipment? Is this article written by T-Mobile home internet or something? I'll take Comcast 10G over 5G wireless any day and I hate Comcast.
I automatically assumed 10G was short for 10Gb/s, so I guess I found nothing confusing about the name? They literally are advertising the speed in the name, I think that's great compared to when they called shit "Blast" and other weird names.
In what world are people getting that kind of speed on 5G? In like a lab with perfect conditions and non-consumer equipment?
It's right in your quote: "Peak theoretical throughput on an uncongested 5G network"
It's the theoretical limit of the technology, not real-world numbers.
Theoretical limit is actually 70 Gbps which is even more laughable.
Honestly this article is for the less tech savvy, which I doubt much, if any, of the current Lemmy user base qualify as. It's not a horrible one as far as that goes.
The author of this article is a grade A dumbass, or it's a paid smear piece. Honestly I can't tell.
If he's comparing theoreticals, why not include the theoretical 44000Gbps of a fiber optic connection? If the author is somehow reading this: 44000 is more than 20!
The network is capable of 10Gbps, but are those speeds being offered? That bit might be a bit disingenuous, if you called the network by its max capable speeds, confusing people on lower tiers? I don't know. Easier to talk about fibre to the home and its impact on ubiquity and reliability without getting into the names that imply speeds, to my tastes. Hear you on the rest and the name's meaning too.
Yeah if Comcast wants to refer to their asymmetrical 1.2Gbps connection using its theoretical maximum, why can't others compare it to other network's theoretical maximums?
Their network isn't 10Gbps either. I just had them send me a message last week saying our internet will be out for a day because they're upgrading their 10G network. Guess what the max speed available is? 1.2Gbps. I was severely disappointed as I desperately need better upload speeds.
It wasn't until a lot of googling later that I realized their "10G" means nothing and is just a marketing term a la AT&Ts "5Ge" they added to people's phones to make them think they were getting faster speeds. They state they have future plans to upgrade which means I could get it in a year or 50 years from now.
It's all that Millimeter Wave 5G garbage that drops coverage like a fart in the wind, hardly ever works, requires more expensive phone plans, and requires a special radio on your phone in addition to the normal 5g one.
That hasn’t been my experience with it at all. I quite enjoy the >500Mbps and 19 ms ping, and reliability is fine now.
Oh man, this sounds like a repeat of the whole debacle with AT&T and their "5Ge" bullshit. As soon as the whole 5G hype started, AT&T decided to claim that their entire network was now "5Ge" and capable of faster speeds. When in reality the "5Ge" label simply meant that the network in that area was flagged to be upgraded to 5G sometime in the near future, there was zero increase in network bandwidth or performance, just a little "5GE" symbol on your phone. IIRC they were taken to court over it and ordered to stop using the "5Ge" label, but they figured out a way to weasel out of it and never followed thru.
Many years ago, when even smartphones were relatively rare, I learned that AT&T was offering a little USB dongle that would give your computer internet access via their cell phone network for a monthly fee. I thought it was a fantastic idea and I wanted exactly that, so I went in to buy one.
I asked the lady how much data per month was included. She said it was unlimited. I said that it's definitely not. I just want to know what the limit is. We want back and forth a little bit, and after a while I just asked to see the written agreement, dug through it a little bit, and found the part where it said that I was limited to 5 gigabytes of internet per month. I pointed it out to her, reiterating that 5 gigs is fine, I just had wanted to know what the limit was.
She said, "Oh that's what comes with the unlimited plan." She argued that no human being would realistically use 5 gigabytes in a single month, so the plan was unlimited.
I gave up and just bought the thing and left, but it was such a frustrating interaction that it still comes to mind almost 20 years later when someone says "AT&T" and "bullshit" in the same sentence.
You have an unlimited amount of water in that glass, assuming you don't drink it all.
So confidently incorrect, and so deep into false advertising territory.
Reminds me of that guy who repeatedly asked Verizon to confirm their price was X cents per byte, but ultimately was charged X dollars per byte.
Found it: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html
I’m pretty sure they just decided 4G/LTE = 5G. And now have a 5G+ icon for actual 5G. I noticed that when I moved back to an att MVNO last month after decades away from them.
Also, they deploy a wifi SSID profile called att-passwport that auto connects you to some boingo branded wifi towers in select places (like Home Depot). Can’t be disabled permanently and is pretty fucking annoying. Like “may find alternatives” annoying.
See also: AT&T marketing HSPA+ as 4G LTE.
More things that could never fly if there was honest, real competition in the internet provider market.
Yes, go after Comcast for their confusing marketing and shitty business practices, but nothing would fix the situation faster and better than having them have to actually compete for customers because there were a few other internet providers out there that customers could choose from.
I did i.t. work at a Comcast and asked about it, I kept asking what the 10g memt, they said it's basically like a new brand. They already rebranded off Comcast to Xfinity because of all the negative connotation against them, now they're doing it again. I've met so many people that didn't know Xfinity is Comcast
They just changed their company logo/trucks from red to green too as if that'll change people's experiences with this shithole of a company.
Holy shit, if people thought 5G causes cancer what will they think of 10G?
Double cancer!
Are you sure it isn't exponential? If 5G gives you 1 cancer then clearly 10G gives you 5 cancers!
I don't think it's intent is to confuse people with 5G. It's that they finally have actual competition.
https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/10-gig/
EPB in Chattanooga announced the rollout of 10 Gbps service. Within a time span best measured in weeks I start seeing Billboards and Ads for Comcast's own 10G network.
This is exactly how Comcast's 1 Gig rolled out for my area. EPB announced 1 Gbps to residential and whaddya know? Comcast now offers 800 Mpbs followed later by 1000 and 1200.
This is the new DOCSIS4.0 network. I really don’t understand how it is as contentious as everyone makes it out to be. It’s a new standard allowing for faster speeds.
It’s contentious because it is intentionally confusing and doesn’t need to be.
They can just call it DOCSIS 4.0 and tell their actual speeds. It’s not like they need to hide it. Comcast and other cable providers are finally getting multi gig speeds and their piss poor upload speeds are being raised. Meanwhile fiber providers like Verizon FIOS have yet to roll out consumer multgig outside of NYC and still don’t have IPV6 available everywhere.
What are the “actual speeds?” They’re selling 10gbps circuits so I don’t really see a problem with this.
This article talks about low upload speeds on existing infra and completely ignores the fact that the limitations they spell out are a factor of extremely limited upload spectra on traditional DOCSIS networks. This is a problem with the technical standard, not the carriers (which have their own problems)
The funniest part is that the DOCSIS4.0 spec is addressing this limitation yet here we are.
Is node over subscription a problem? Absolutely. But I don’t think the root of that problem is the marketing department.
I would not put much stock in this article because they are either uninformed on what they’re reporting on, or intentionally telling half truths. There are enough reasons to hate cable companies, we don’t need to invent new ones.
How is it intentionally confusing?
Providers have been using G for speeds for a long time. Just because the media became obsessed with 5G for some reason, which uses G for Gen, doesn't mean the other use of G became intentionally confusing.
They can just call it DOCSIS 4.0
And nobody, including myself will know what it means without searching. The actual speed is 10G. As in 10gbps.
Because it's not 10G. Not in Gigs or Generations. Docsis 3.1 is 10G/2G. They're not handing out those speeds. It doesn't matter that they have 10G/6G capable hardware when they're still selling people 800/300 at best.
Agreed. My area already has 100mpbs and 200mpbs uploads too.
Cable companies are garbage but this is a rare unneeded self own on Comcast’s part. They’re cashing in on the 5G hype even though their offerings are better. 5G is barely faster than LTE outside of UWB in the US which is extremely limited in coverage.
They’re rolling out multi gig when even my fiber FIOS connection is limited to just under 1Gbps DL. Cable companies like Comcast are even increasing their piss poor upload speeds. There is no need to try to confuse people with this 10G marketing nonsense.
They’re scared shitless of wireless / 5G/LTE providers offering service. I’ve never seen so many scare ads about how three old ladies watching YouTube will yank your home wifi or that you’ll have to cut down every tree so you can see the cell tower to get service.
The only places they were installing faster service is where they have competition from fiber and with viable wireless competitors they’re running scared.
And that’s where Comcast and other ISPs should be focusing their energy. Not in places where there is currently good wired competition. But in the rural and underserved areas where even when you have a wired cable option, the service is terrible and you have no other options but cellular and satellite which have their own challenges and problems.
I never cared so much about internet experience as I have now when I have both a cable and fiber option. The only thing that would make it better would be if I had a municipal ISP that would compete with them both.
I honestly think it was in response to EPB. I noticed EPB advertising 10 Gig and then weeks later noticed Comcast advertising 10G.
Checking EPB's site they claim to be the first 10 Gig residential provider in the U.S. and I don't doubt it. It's on their back alone Chattanooga got deemed Gig city. Which I might add suddenly meant that Comcast began offering near (and later actual and higher) 1 Gbps speeds not on business accounts.
Sonic on the West Coast probably has that distinction when it comes to 10Gb. But yeah, I think city run ISPs have also caught Comcast’s attention. Which is why there is so much legislative pressure against municipal ISPs.
Yeah it's total marketing nonsense, always have to be informed as a customer and not fall into that trap. Always chose fiber if available, if you have to suck it up with cable, check the actual speed you're getting.
WiFi hotstpot through your phone provider can be a solution, however many providers have a cap on hotspot data in fine print even with unlimited data plans. Check that.
The day I moved to my current place and had the choice of fiber or cable, I felt so free. It’s so nice to have real competition.
I am so thankful to have fiber. I am paying $50 a month for 300 mbps up and down. It's nice.
I live in a small city with municipal fiber. 1 Gbps symmetrical is glorious and I would happily pay more than the $70 they're charging.
I moved from the Bay Area, the tech capital of the world, where Comcast had a monopoly. I was paying $70 a month for 100 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up.with a 1TB per month data cap. I moved to another state where there is competition for internet service, and was able to for $70 per month get 1 Gbps up and down with no data cap. It's crazy how that works, huh?
The 5G cancer thing is laughable, C-band and Ka-band have been in use for years. I have been around them (plus X/Ku/L/S bands) for decades I'm still here. I have been exposed accidentally over 1000x times the FCC limits for more than a short time in the 90's and am still here. Non ionizing radiation isnt that bad.
You know (other than the accidental breaches) is the worst leaking device onsite. The microwave oven.
Whenever I hear people freaking out about 5g I just point at the angry fucker in the sky and ask how much radiation they think that releases and how dangerous they think it is. I have gotten a surprisingly diverse amount of answers. From "Thats why I want to live underground" to "But its natural" I wanted to punch the second one.
The sun is a giant radioactive ball of hydrogen that blasts the Earth every day. We have "Sun Outages" 2x a year on every antenna. Power levels that are amazing to measured on a spectrum analyzer, and some tower miles away is gonna kill me. Put in the inverse square law, LOS, atmospheric and structural attenuation and I bet I can barely detect it. No chance its going to anywhere the FCC limit of 10 mW/cm
Oh and they can go underground, enjoy the radon gas emissions. Way worse than non-ionizing radiation.
The 5G cancer paranoia isn't even based on any specific frequency that they think is causing cancer, because they think 5G itself is a frequency. They're just opposed to anything new and so they search for arguments that justify their feelings. I guarantee this whole thing will pop up again when we get around to 6G, even if the frequencies are all exactly the same as 5G. It's just the way idiots are
I never thought of it that way, how people really have no understanding of RF. Thank you for the new perspective, hopefully I can use that info to talk people off the ledge.
I didn't need that last part bro I'm just tryna eat a burrito
I mean. Our microwave is one of those cheap countertop versions in our walk in pantry. I always leave the pantry if I run it. And tell my kids the same.
Probably paranoia but their head is like, perfect height for the door on that thing.
well obviously it means 10gbit, like some other places advertise 1gbit as 1g
They have had a 100Gbps network for years now. No one is getting 10Gbps to the house
I'll give up 5g and a middle toe if I could just have 3g back. I live in the middle of no where and 3g worked great, we got rid of that and now phone loves to say it has 5g while fucking off and not loading anything.
I'm going to assume that 4g works decently enough where you are at this point. Much the same thing happened during the 4g rollout - it was too sparse, the phone spent too many resources hunting for a 4g signal when 3g was right there. You end up with a less stable connection because it's constantly bouncing back and forth.
I think if you look up how to disable 5g on whatever phone you have (which is possible on any phone) and stick to 4g for now you'll find the performance is as good as ever - if not better, with some of the load from other users being pushed to 5g.
I worked for "a major phone company" when 4g was rolling out. It's unfortunate during this period, but I don't know how you prevent it. 5g will objectively be better for 99.9% of users at some point - it might not be now, but everyone has to sell a 5g phone to "future proof" and have another selling feature. I wish the companies would educate people a little more on the rollout but then you're basically telling them "this thing we're selling you isn't really ready yet". And I mean, if you live in a major city, it's working just fine... but not everybody does.
This is what I do when I'm at busy events and the service is degraded.
Just keep cutting off levels until I get to one that works well.
I have heard that before and have tried to do that a few times but my phone ( moto 5g ace) doesn't give me the option. I have googled it many times and mine has no option for prefered network type. It's supposed to, but the option is just not there on mine. Some other people have said it may be carrier locked but I really don't have any idea.
Fuck it, why not 100G?
Hey don't skip ahead. We haven't gotten to that part of the movie yet.
GWay 2000
Mine is 11.
Actually mine is .007, because I live 120 miles away from silicon valley, which may as well be a 3rd world country the way we let service "providers" only cater to markets they choose.
Should possibly also touch on the issue of 5G not really being 5G. Same as 4G not really being 4G:
https://www.thetechedvocate.org/not-all-5g-is-the-same-all-the-flavors-and-names-explained/
Marketers kind of backed themselves into a corner when they named 4G LTE. It was supposed to be an intermediate step between 3G and 4G, but when they rolled out actual 4G, people thought going from "4G LTE" to "4G" sounded like a downgrade, so they called 4G proper "5G" at around the same time actual 5G was rolling out, creating a massive clusterfuck.
4G not being 4G was different though, because 4G had absurd speed requirements that it had to hit before it could be classified as true 4G. That's why everyone had to use "lte", even though they were using the 4G standard, they didn't have fast enough service. Thankfully, 5G dropped those silly requirements, so other than AT&T's 5Ge debacle, all of the phones saying they're 5G are actually 5G. It is important to know that there's different types of 5G that are good for different situations, low band 5G is great for rural areas because it has better range than 4G and high band 5G is great for cities because it has better speed than 4G, but it's all still 5G
Imagine how crazy it would be if ISPs just… actually… upgrades infrastructure with their billions in profits+government subsidies/handouts? Like, damn, imagine. US might actually have internet on par with the countries it considers shitholes
... That's exactly what's happening here?
They are offering 10gbps residential speeds. That's the highest consumer hardware is capable of. And even then, you would need a $100 network card to make use of it.
And even then, this is faster than sata3 ssds. You'd need an nvme ssd if you want to download a file at that speed.
Futhermore, unless you have a personal server somewhere, or paying a huge premium, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone serving you anything at 10gbps. Your best bet would be steam or an expensive plan from a file hosting service.
If everybody followed that logic in the 90s we’d still be on dialup. The root of the point though is “we” gave them billions of dollars like 20 years ago which they immediately did the absolute bare-ass minimum to claim “well, we did do that one thing over there in 2005…” and the rest of the money just kinda went poof along with all those profits stolen from the workers. Not reinvested into infrastructure, just shat out their asses to “investors” and executive officers.
We should’ve all had symmetrical (which is another thing Comcast sucks at) 1gig up/down a decade ago at least.
I’ve personally had gigabit fiber for years now, but that’s only because I specifically shopped for houses with multiple ISPs available and gigabit ready to go. That shouldn’t be necessary. Everyone should have it available with some very few exceptions for very rural people.
This very specific article is silly though if it’s any consolation to the reaming I’m giving Comcast. Yeah they should make this stuff more obvious I guess, but it seems like such a niche boomer grandma thing to fall for. I’d prefer an article ripping into the specific corruptions of officers and big investors at the telecomms and their regulators. Name and shame and provide addresses too. These people don’t deserve any semblance of peace
I can't wait for the new Comcast I like your cut-g network
I absolutely abhor when they say "gig speed network" like they want to say gigabit but they know it isn't and make up some bullshit term that sounds similar. Every time I hear a commercial for it I get irrationally angry.
10 Gold coins for our shitty internet please, hand it over 😐✋
Where's the 6 and 7Gs? How much is one G?
Comcast is the real bottom feeder of the internet service provider industry so it stands to reason that they hope they can fool enough people to "buy" into their crap. As someone that works professionally in IT for a living, I can only laugh at the crap the sales rep tries to sell me on. When I point out the fallacies of their knowledge, I think it goes over like a lead balloon and they just quit while they're not ahead.
Dude we barely have 5G. The 5G that we currently have in some areas of the world isn't even the full spectrum
Shouldn't that be illegal?
AT&T's 4GE is rolling over in its grave.
Yeah I'm seeing this stupid 10G thing advertised by Mediacom, too in my area. Like, we're just entering 5G era here and there's this...10G? So, you're meaning to tell me that we've been duped into believing 5G all along as being the next best thing but oh wait, did they dig this 10G shit out from some governmental secret program that was hidden for years to provide us this speed to browse with?
It's twice as fast as the government tracking provided by 5G!
(...or whatever it is the nut jobs say about 5G...)
300 up and down for $25 a month checking in.
Where is that? I get 300 down and 10 up for ~50
Northern Virginia with Verizon and every provider in the area for some competition. I also own my router and have Verizon for my cell phone service so they discount me $10 to get to that $25. (Normally $35)
Strange days in Cable Town.
It’s comcastic!
Even when they use industry-standard terms, like Mbps, they don't even advertise their upload speed (because it is piss-poor).
Can confirm.
I use Xfinity since they have a monopoly on our area and we don't really have any other choice. It costs $70/month for 100mbps DOWNLOAD. and it's about 8mbps upload.
American ISPs are literally the devil
Holy moly that is horrid :/ sorry to hear it.
I don't know how it is for Xfinity, but I work for Spectrum and the low upload is because there is not enough room for it on coaxial cable running at 750MHz or whatever it actually is. A big majority of the bandwidth of the cable, for my company at least, is taken by television and download, which we currently run a docsis 3.0 and a docsis 3.1 segment for download. The upload is a shrimpy part of the band. I know in some areas we are upgrading to support 1.2 or 1.4 GHz, lots more room, so we're able to increase upload in those areas. This is all rolling out now, I imagine other providers using copper will be doing similar eventually to compete with each other. Lets us run more upload plus double the docsis 3.1 segment so we can go into higher speeds for download (like 2Gbps). One consequence of this is we're screwing older TV customers, old cable boxes and also TiVo/cable card shit are gonna stop working.
Not trying to astroturf it advertise it whatever, just sharing what they have been telling us. Upload has always been dogshit because they wanted big download numbers to advertise. I literally get free cable from work but have AT&T fiber installed at my house because I can't handle the instability of the up pipe on coax for some of the shit I do. (Stream to twitch, run a Plex server, etc) it also makes you lag worse in games. Not the overall low speed, just the instability.
Here in Alaska you can have a cell line, 500mbps, and unlimited data for $125.
Yeah it’s the places where they have a monopoly where they get shitty.
I have them where I am but there’s other competition. So I get 1200Mbps down and up for $95 a month. But that includes the extra like $15 a month to have unlimited data which is bullshit.
That's awful. For a long time they were the only ones offering over 100m in my area, I hated the asymmetrical speeds but at least the service was reliable. Jumped ship as soon as fiber came to the area.
I wish you the same thing that happened to me… I accidentally opened the door to a doorknocker and they asked, “Would you like to save money on your internet connection?”
I told them, “No thank you, I’d actually pay more for faster internet and no cap, since I download a lot…”
They inform me that they’ve just rolled out gigabit fibre on our block. AND IT WAS LESS EXPENSIVE THAN MY 70mbps!
The only time I’ve bitten on doorknocker offer. It was the best computer decision I’ve made since going SSD-only for all games and applications. It’s gigabit up AND down.
This will happen to you. This will happen to you next week. I’m, uhhh… manifesting it as the kids would say.
Im with comcast but in UK, nowtv broadband and i pay £21 a month for 70mbps, no issues so far. You guy are gettin ripped off something awful
We have isp competition that they show roll upgrades on (we don’t get the fastest stuff but a few years later it starts trickling in) but at least we’re not that bad off, I have 900down for 70
That ain’t right
You should look into starlink!
I'm at up to 250mbps down and 10mbps up for $90 usd a month. In fairness though I do see that max speed, and even a bit over it regularly.
There is a local Power company around here that started running fiber to their service area, but sadly I am not in it so I am stuck with ComCrap
I will say I think I'm till in an intro price. But I'm at $60 for 800 down and I think 20 up
I just left their service. I was at 1000 Mbps / 20 Mbps (typically around 850 Mbps / 18 Mbps due to equipment) with unlimited data for $120 a month. Such a waste.
I had someone come to me and ask why they were struggling to upload videos to YouTube despite having a slew of expensive gaming and recording equipment. I had to tell them their only option was to hope that Comcast actually honors their advertised up speed for their business lines and to pay for that.
Most people don't even understand mbps. People get the most expensive plans when it won't even make a difference for what they do, they just believe it will work better.