Comcast Cranking Up The Speeds

21 Oct 2008

Image via CrunchBase

GigaOm and DSL Reports are both reporting on new and improved speeds for people with Comcast cable internet. They are essentially doubling their Performance and Performance Plus tiers from 6Mbps down/1Mbps up and 8/2 to 12Mbps down/2Mbps up and 16/2 respectively–without a price increase. They will also be offering a 22Mbps/5Mbps and 50Mbps/10Mbps tiers, which will require a new DOCSIS 3.0 modem to take advantage of.

The speeds are not available yet, but may start being available in select markets in a few weeks time. Based on my conversations with local Comcast folks, we’ll probably get them here in my neck of the woods fairly quickly.

I read the comments to both posts. I see people get all bent out of shape about the 250GB “usage limit” that Comcast has put into their new terms of service. Om Malik even suggests in a comment to his post that overage charges are forthcoming.

While I know it’s subject to change, Comcast has been pretty consistently saying how they really aren’t changing any of their previous practices except they are now being explicit about what the limits are. Using more than 250gb in a month doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get a letter from them about too much usage. It will only matter if you’re in the top percentile of bandwidth users.

Meanwhile, if Comcast hoses me too badly, CenturyTel is working to increase speeds. I talked with the local technicians here in Gig Harbor and they said that fiber was already rolling out to new developments in the area. Not sure how they are going to upgrade the existing developments, but it is in the plans. When they do, it’s going to be at least 30mb–bare minimum needed for proper video support.

The PhoneBoy Blog

Comcast Cranking Up The Speeds

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