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Comcast to double download speeds

Started by Guest_thecableguy_* , Mar 28 2006 10:01 AM

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Posted 28 March 2006 - 10:01 AM

Fort Wayne chosen for upgrade in response to Verizon offerings

By Jenni Glenn

The Journal GazetteComcast Corp. is cranking up the speed of its Internet service in northeast Indiana to keep pace with competing telecommunications giant Verizon.
The cable company is doubling download speeds for its fastest residential broadband package to 16 megabits a second, Indianapolis-based spokesman Mark Apple said Monday. Customers who subscribe to a lower-tier service will be able to send information out over the Internet at twice the previous speed. The prices for the two packages will remain the same.

Comcast is rolling out the higher speeds in three markets nationwide, including Fort Wayne. Apple said the company decided to introduce the service locally because the northeast Indiana market�s size was ideal for a controlled launch. Comcast has to compete with Verizon�s fiber-optic Internet service, FiOS, for customers in northeast Indiana, and that also played a role in the decision.

�We�re going to learn the most by launching it first in competitive markets like Fort Wayne,� Apple said.

Subscribers who previously could download information at up to 8 megabits a second will be able to download files at twice that speed, Apple said. With the faster speeds, Web surfers will be able to download an MP3 music file of 3.7 megabytes in 3 seconds, half the time it used to take. The service will continue to cost $52.95 a month for customers who have either Comcast cable or digital phone service.

The majority of Comcast Internet subscribers in Fort Wayne have a lower-tier package, which will download files at 6 megabits a second, Apple said. The upload speed of that service will double to 768 kilobits a second, up from 384 kilobits. That package costs $42.95 a month for Comcast cable or phone customers.

Verizon�s FiOS service offers three different packages, which download files at speeds up to 30 megabits a second. The packages range in cost from $34.95 to $199.95 a month, depending on the speed and the other Verizon services subscribers use. The mid-tier has a speed of 15 megabits a second, close to Comcast�s new speed, and costs $49.95 a month as a standalone product, Verizon spokesman Bill Kula said. The service costs $44.95 as part of a bundle with other Verizon services.

Comcast�s fastest broadband package can download a 90-minute movie in a 457 megabyte file in a little more than nine minutes, Apple said.
Verizon�s top-tier fiber service will download a 500 megabyte television show in 2.2 minutes, Kula said. FiOS customers do not share their bandwidth with other customers, unlike cable modem users, so that speed is consistent at any time of day, he said.
Cable companies are reducing prices and increasing bandwidth to compete with Verizon�s FiOS service wherever it is being introduced, Kula said.

�Despite cable�s best efforts, our customer response to FiOS continues to outpace any other service our company has ever introduced, period,� he said.

Courtesy of the Journal Gazette