Comcast launches 50Mbps broadband

[lovekeiiy]

Comcast launches 50Mbps broadband... for $150 per month

By Eric Bangeman | Published: April 02, 2008 - 05:00PM CT

Comcast has been promising that DOCSIS 3.0 goodness would be coming to its customers this year, and the cable giant is about to make good. Starting tomorrow, Comcast's new "extreme high-speed" Internet tier will be available to subscribers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, including Hudson, Wisconsin. Download speeds will top out at 50Mbps while uploads will be capped at 5Mbps. But all of that speed comes at a price: $149.95 per month for consumers, and $199.95 per month for business class service.
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Comcast spokesperson Charlie Douglas characterized the price as "competitive," saying that it's roughly the same as what Verizon charges for similar speeds on its FiOS network. That's more or less accurate, but there's a wide gap between the 50/5 tier and the next one down, 8/2, which costs $52.95 per month for video customers. Still, if you're willing to pay for it, the superfast Internet is there.

"This announcement marks the beginning of the evolution from broadband to wideband," said Comcast High-Speed Internet SVP Mitch Bowling. "We believe wideband will usher-in a new era of speed and Internet innovation for today’s digital consumers. Wideband is the future, and it's coming fast."

How fast? Douglas said that the company intends to have DOCSIS 3.0 and the accompanying 50Mbps tier available to 20 percent of its customers by the end of 2008. It should be available nationwide by the middle of 2010. And 50Mbps is only the beginning; Comcast plans to up the speeds to at least 100Mbps in the next couple of years. DOCSIS 3.0 is theoretically capable of 160Mbps speeds, which gives the company some headroom to increase speeds.

There's something for the rest of Comcast's Twin Cities' subscribers as well. Those on the lowest, 6Mbps/384Kbps tier will see their upload speeds jump to 1Mbps. 8Mbps Performance Plus customers will see 1Mbps upload speeds double to 2Mbps.

Since Comcast made its DOCSIS 3.0 intentions official at CES this year, there has been a lot of speculation about where the first deployment would show up. Some analysts believed that those with access to Verizon's FiOS or possibly AT&T's U-Verse networks would be first to see Comcast's "extreme high-speed" offerings. Instead, Comcast is rolling it out in the Twin Cities first, an area served by Qwest and with no superfast broadband competition. "We chose the Twin Cities because they have done an excellent job operationally on other rollouts we have done," Douglas told Ars.

When asked if Comcast would manage its DOCSIS 3.0 network any differently, Douglas reiterated the company's decision to alter its traffic management practices that are currently under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. "We're committed to changing our network management process from what they are today by the end of the year, and we just need time to work that all out," Douglas said. "We're going to work not just with BitTorrent, but a lot of other P2P companies, the Internet Engineering Task Force, academics, and others to get together and come up with a better way to manage the network."

Geeks around the country have been salivating at the thought of 50Mbps downloads, and it's great to see such high speeds finally spreading beyond Verizon's FiOS network. The price is likely to be a deal-breaker for a lot of people—$149 is a lot to pay for broadband, even if it's blazing fast. It sounds as though Comcast is open to the possibility of dropping the price if the new offering is widely ignored. "It's too early to talk about future price drops," said Douglas. "A lot of this is going to be about consumer demand and the response that we see. We'll adjust based on consumer demand." The company may have to if it expects to get more than a small handful of subscribers to sign up for 50Mbps speeds.

link to site: ARS

[JParker0105]

two words.

Holy Crap.

[Spzombie]

That's cool and all but at 150 I'll think I'll stick with regular Comcast.

[lovekeiiy]

I like the speeds, especially upload. But $150? I don't think so. I was thinking like maybe $65 or $70 would be cool. Heck, I'm getting upto 34mb down (just not consistent, it's usually more around 13 to 16), and a constant 1.5mb up. Granted, if you go by the numbers, and the fact I pay $55/mn, it's not a bad deal, since the speeds are close to four times faster, then using my bill as a standard, it would be about $171.86/mn to match speeds. If one is at the lower, 6mb down, 1mb up at $45 a month, to match speeds would cost 187.50/mn.

And cable said FIOS is similar priced. May be true, but their package for 30mb down and 5mb up is only $42/mn, at least the first year. They didn't have anything what price it is after that year or what faster speeds may cost.

I just can't justify speeding that kind of money for internet service to browse the web, download a few files and watch movies from service like Netfix and hulu.com.

[Prophet0ne]

It burns us!!! We hates it.

[ZoomZoom71]

1mbps down / 256k up @ $24.95 for me. Seems to be working just fine for me.

[Peench]

Dayum, I can see them trying to compete with FIOS, but $150 a month? That's a bit hefty.

[lovekeiiy]

I know what you mean. FIOS has a lot of different plans, but it didn't really list what the prices were for the various "wideband" offerings. Maybe Worm can enlighten us, but I think Comcast, at face value, is more expensive, especially at the core package.

I would love to get some faster speeds, especially upload for hosting. Could host some since co-op campaigns on GRAW and so forth.

What's nice, not that it will happen soon, is that people will have those speeds, so hopefully games like R6 can expand the T-hunt to more than for people or have larger multiplayer rooms.

[dmiller68]

Verizon FIOS Pricing in Washington:

5 Mbps download, 2 Mbps upload $42.99
15 Mbps download, 2 Mbps upload $52.99
15 Mbps download, 15 Mbps upload $64.99
30 Mbps download, 15 Mbps upload $139.95

These are the contract prices... Add $8-$20 a month for month to month.

[lovekeiiy]

Well, if those prices are consistent throughout where FIOS is available, then Comcast's statement about being competively priced seems to be accurate. But we don't have a apple to apple comparison since FIOS is not offering a 50/5 package.

[dmiller68]

It isn't apples to apples anyway since Comcast is shared bandwidth where FIOS is dedicated.

[lovekeiiy]

Well, thus may be true, but when talking about the general public, most don't consider things like that.

Of course, with the 50mb and comcast, I wonder if they're still doing the speed boost thing. If so, is the 50 with it, which would put it at a base of 25, or is 50mb the base, which means one could possibly get 100mb down. I have the 8mb package, and I generally hit 14 to 16mb down with the speedboost from the unused broadband. I have hit 34mb down here and there.

Personally, I think for Comcast to really sell that service at the price to more people, they either neither to get cut the price; I'm think somewhere in the 60 to 80 dollar range, or include some kind of internet television serivce, or whatever television service M$ was talking about providing through the computer. Picture how much one would shell out if they got the all premium package on TV, VOIP, and internet from comcast. It would be over $300 a month!!! Talk about taking it with no vasoline.