Ron Hurtibise | (TNS) South Florida Sun Sentinel
Just if you lastly traded as much as a 5G telephone, Comcast’s latest advertising marketing campaign guarantees to hook you as much as its 10G Network.
TV commercials debuted in the course of the Super Bowl, boasting, “The next generation 10G Network. Only from Xfinity. One giant leap for mankind!”
Sounds like Comcast is providing a service that’s twice pretty much as good as 5G, proper?
That is likely to be what the cable and web large desires you to suppose is going on. But don’t throw that 5G telephone out simply but.
There’s actually no comparability between 5G and 10G.
Despite having the letter G in widespread, the 2 phrases confer with utterly distinct expertise, and a few tech-oriented web sites are criticizing firms that depart the mistaken impression in shoppers’ minds.
Let’s make clear what the 2 phrases imply: 5G refers back to the fifth technology of mobile expertise, whereas 10G refers back to the pace by which information can enter houses by way of cable and fiber connections.
5G is the newest iteration in an evolution of mobile connectivity that began with the very first analog cellphones.
5G permits better pace and decrease latency (the period of time it takes for information to journey) whereas permitting extra gadgets on a community to assist new enterprise fashions and a greater person expertise, in accordance with a July 2022 story on the tech-focused web site fiercewireless.com.
Over the previous 5 to 6 years, 5G has been heralded because the holy grail of wi-fi web service.
When absolutely carried out all through neighborhoods and all over the world, 5G will allow owners to disconnect from the cable system and rely solely on 5G service from current mobile carriers equivalent to Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T, proponents have touted.
Promised 5G functions embody doctor specialists conducting intricate surgical procedures by directing robotic arms in actual time, and super-immersive digital actuality functions that may let sports activities followers really feel like they’re sitting on the Super Bowl.
Yet these forms of functions are a number of years away from changing into commonplace, specialists say.
5G received’t take over 4G LTE as probably the most dominant type of connectivity for voice calls, textual content messages and every part else that makes use of mobile expertise till at the least 2028, in accordance with a report from Counterpoint Research.
10G, as utilized by Comcast and different wired web service suppliers, refers to an web service supply pace — 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) — not but out there to shoppers.
Illustrated by a photograph of apples and oranges, Fierce Wireless’ story states that “the two technologies have little to do with each other.” In truth, aggressive advertising across the two is “counterproductive” as a result of “it introduces irrelevant issues that do not contribute to consumers’ better understanding of either technology,” Fierce Wireless says.
In an opinion article posted Sunday, the consumer-oriented web site The Street (thestreet.com), which covers a wide selection of private finance matters, together with expertise, insurance coverage, investing, retail and crypto, needled Comcast for selling a 10G Network when the corporate doesn’t supply plans with 10 Gigabits-per-second pace.
“Comcast’s Xfinity has taken on the Xfinity 10G name, but it’s not delivering anything close to 10 Gigabits-per-second speed,” the story says.
Logging on to Comcast’s web site Xfinity.com reveals that in Margate, the quickest out there service is “Gigabit Extra,” which is 1.2 Gigabits per second.
That’s quick sufficient for many customers proper now. Comcast’s 1 Gbps plan, the positioning says, helps downloading a full HD film in a couple of minutes, updating a smartphone’s working system in seconds, and becoming a member of video conferences with ultra-high definition video.
Only in “select markets” can clients purchase plans with speeds of as much as 6,000 Mbps (6 Gbps), Comcast’s website says.
On its web site, Comcast says its 10G Network “delivers a powerful connection to our customers that will continue to get smarter, faster, more reliable, and secure.” It provides, “It is the network that our customers use today and the network that will power their connectivity experience in the future.”
All of Comcast’s web plans, together with the lowest-speed 50 Mbps Internet Essentials plan supplied free of charge to qualifying poverty-level households, are on the Xfinity 10G Network, the positioning says.
Mindy Kramer, Comcast’s spokeswoman for its Florida market, shared a put up from CableLabs, an innovation hub that develops expertise shared by the worldwide cable trade.
It predicts that “10G will provide a myriad of new immersive digital experiences and other emerging technologies that will revolutionize the way we live, work, learn and play.”
When 10G turns into out there, CableLabs says, “internet data will travel 10 times faster than the 1 gigabit speeds we’re enabling today.”
When will that occur? “The industry is working closely together on a new generation of 10G-ready gateway platforms, silicon and other technologies that will support the rollout in the next few years,” CableLabs says.
Dan Friedman, Comcast’s senior vp of company communications, declined in an interview to mission when 10 Gigabit-per-second speeds can be out there to shoppers.
Conceding that Comcast’s web site doesn’t particularly promise 10 Gbps speeds, the article on The Street continues, “Comcast isn’t exactly intentionally misleading customers to think they’re getting 10-Gigabit speed, but it’s also not doing anything to make it clear that it’s not.”
Friedman countered that Comcast’s Xfinity web site “is very clear about the speeds we’re offering.” Comcast developed the 10G Network model identify, he mentioned, “to recognize what we’ve done and where we’re going in the future.”
The 10G Network identify is supposed to signify not simply pace however the firm’s full providing of companies, together with WiFi gateway developments that increase sign protection all through houses, and, coming quickly, a modem with a backup battery that may preserve the web on throughout energy outages.
The Street’s article acknowledges that Comcast’s Xfinity web service is “actually a pretty good, maybe even very good (customer service aside) product,” and notes that “for most people, Xfinity, Xfinity 10G or Xfinity Gigabit all deliver more than enough speed for gaming, streaming, downloading, video meetings, and whatever else people might be doing.”
Unnecessarily, the product’s new identify does extra hurt than good to Comcast, the article states, suggesting, it “might as well call it Xfinity 20G Hologram Teleport because that’s not really more far-fetched than the Xfinity 10G name.”
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