Comcast to Double Speed by End of Year

fasteddie

Mastermind Talker
PF Member
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA - news), the largest U.S. cable operator, on Monday said it planned to double the downloading capability of its high-speed Internet service by the end of this year to distinguish its product from competitors.

"Our job No. 1 is increasing speed -- increasing from 1.5 megabits (per second) downstream to 3 megabits (per second) downstream," said Steve Burke, president of Comcast's cable division, at a Morgan Stanley media conference in Boston.

Burke's comments mark the first time the Philadelphia-based company has placed a time frame on the plans.

Comcast has been quietly testing such a service in several of its markets, including Pittsburgh, Knoxville, and Atlanta since June.

"We're doing that probably for the whole company by later this year," Burke said.

The service nearly halves the time it takes to download web pages, video and audio, a Comcast spokeswoman said. But uploading, or the ability to send data, will remain the same at 256 kilobits per second.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030909/wr_nm/media_comcast_morganstanley_dc_6
 
Wow, and to think I'm already getting more than triple their proposed downstream bandwidth from my provider for less money than what they're charging.

Amazing how something like this can put a good spin on an otherwise horrible provider.
 
Dan, what provider do you use, im starting to try to convince my parents to get high speed, but for now they are unconvinced, probably since im the only one who really uses the internet
 
Prox> Like fasteddie said, it's Optimum Online. They're exceptional, and not many ISPs give the kind of bandwidth they give out, which is 10Mb down/1Mb up.

It's hard to explain to people who have never used broadband how good it is. It's one of those things, like Tivo, that you think you have absolutely no use for it, but once you use it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

I look at it this way... around here, 56k dial-up is typically $20 per month for a real ISP (not AOL, MSN, NetZero, etc.). Cable is $40 if you are a cable TV subscriber, $50 if you're not.
Now, $40 might seem like a lot of money each month, but really, it's only $20, since you're already probably shelling out $20 for access.

Now, factor in that I can now get done in 5 seconds what would have previously taken me 2 minutes, and I'm just talking about downloading email every day. Personally, that 1:55, everyday, is alone worth $20/month for me. Add on the fact that everything I do now saves me additional time, whether it's viewing a web site, or downloading a binary file. So, I'm more than getting my money's worth just in the time I'm saving, since my time is of great value to me, since I don't have a lot of it to spare.

Then, go ahead and factor in that having that speed will allow you to do much more with your connection than you could with the slow connection just in practical terms.
If you wanted to check a high-bandwidth video stream of a news clip, it's prohibitively slow to do so on dial-up, but would be no problem on a broadband connection. Or, you can simultaneously be online with other computers in the house, AND have a free phone line... that was a HUGE plus for us, since in the last apartment, where we couldn't get any type of broadband, we were paying for an additional phone line on top of the dial-up fees.

So, not only are you saving massive amounts of time, but you're getting added functionality for what amounts to an extra $20 per month.

Try selling your parents with that. If nothing else, put up the extra $20 yourself.
 
broadband access needs to get more widely available. Beginning of this year there was a good amount of new exposure but little in the last few months
 
Dan, I would galdly shell out the other 20 a month if i could afford it, but im jobless so . . . bleh . . . and the other problem with my parents is that I am probably only going to be living here for another month, so this curse is temporary, hopefully
 
Back
Top