Adelphia Plans Two "Extreme" Data Tiers

Despite its pending breakup, Adelphia Communications is planning to launch two new superfast broadband service tiers later this year. Speaking at a CableLabs media briefing in New York earlier this week, Marwan Fawaz, chief technology officer and senior vice president of engineering and technology for Adelphia, said the MSO will roll out the two "extreme" data tiers in select markets sometime this summer. The two tiers will offer transmission speeds of 10 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream and 15 Mbps downstream/2 Mbps upstream, respectively. Fawaz didn't disclose the prices for the tiers or Adelphia's initial markets. Adelphia intends to make the move while CableLabs continues to craft its much anticipated DOCSIS 3.0 spec, which will enable cable operators to send data at speeds of 100 Mbps or more through the use of 'channel-bonding.' While welcoming the move, Fawaz said MSOs need not wait for the expected adoption of the 3.0 spec early next year to boost their cable modem speeds now. "We can do higher speeds with [DOCSIS] 2.0," he said. "There's still a lot of juice left with 2.0 that'll take us till [CableLabs] gets 3.0 ready."