Comcast cranks up bandwidth speed
By Jeff Bertolucci
,
PC World
, 11/18/2008
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Comcast high-speed Internet customers in parts of Oregon and Southwest Washington will have a much-faster option starting
in December. The cable provider is rolling out its Extreme 50 service, which has download speeds of up to 50Mbps.
Called "wideband" by Comcast, but officially known as DOCSIS 3.0, the high-speed service seems like a bandwidth hog's dream. That is, until you realize that Comcast's 250GB monthly download
cap remains in place. Keep to the cap, however, and the benefits are obvious. Extreme 50 customers should be able to download a high-def movie
(6GB) in about 16 minutes, Comcast says.
Aside from Verizon's FiOS, it'll be hard for home users to find Net service with comparable speed. Wideband won't come cheap,
though. Extreme 50, which offers up to 50Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream, costs a whopping $139.95 a month. Ultra, a relatively
slower offering with 22Mbps downstream, 5Mbps upstream, is $62.95 a month.
In a prepared statement, Curt Henninger, senior vice president of Comcast Oregon and SW Washington, called wideband a "preview
of what's to come," adding that in the future Comcast will be able to " deliver even faster speeds in excess of 160Mbps."
No timetable was given for future rollouts, however.
For more PC news, visit PC World. Story copyright PC World Communications, Inc.
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Comments (6)
yeah rightBy Anonymous on November 18, 2008, 5:00 pmThis is total phony baloney. Internet will never be that fast! 56K all the way.
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Until it gets throttled.By Anonymous on November 19, 2008, 12:52 pmComcast ALSO just started rolling out a number of things that make this useless. First, you get the mentioned 250GB per month cap. So, you can use all of your bandwidth...
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FUDBy Anon on November 21, 2008, 9:04 pmThat comment is FUD. Torrents work fine for me. The only people using 250G / month are the real abusers that have 10TB disk arrays in their basement sharing tons...
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torrents work fine, but i hit 250g this month easily, its calledBy Anonymous on December 7, 2008, 6:11 pmtorrents work fine, but i hit 250g this month easily, its called seeding. 250g is easy to hit if your actually returning to the community. dont be a leacher.
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March Madness On DemandBy NathanielL on March 27, 2009, 6:52 amMarch Madness On Demand is also a great way to spend with your college / friends to watch the everlasting basketball games. It’s funny that most people that are...
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It's goodBy NathanielL on March 27, 2009, 6:55 amHaving a speed internet is truly a must
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