With all the talk of broadband this week, the timing is fishy for Comcast to start talking about how it believes it will be able to double the households it reaches with 100 Mb/s Internet service this year. The bump up in speed comes as the MSO continues to roll out DOCSIS 3.0-compatible gear across its network and will ultimately result in a new, high-bandwidth service tier, the company said. For the telco industry, the timing is even worse as Verizon this week seemed to confirm its fiber-fed FiOS deployments may be slowing, especially in smaller regions where it doesn’t already have a video franchise.
Multi-Channel news has the 100 Mb/s details:
Currently, Comcast has deployed DOCSIS 3.0, the next-generation cable modem technology, to more than 75% of its nationwide footprint representing some 38 million homes and business premises. The MSO’s Extreme 50 tier offers up to 50 Mbps downstream in those markets. In the next 12 to 18 months, Comcast anticipates being able to offer 100-Mbps Internet service to many, if not all, of those customers, said Cathy Avgiris, senior vice president and general manager of communications and data services. The company is the biggest broadband provider in the U.S., with 15.9 million high-speed subscribers as of the end of 2009.
Comcast is proceeding with its 100-Mbps plans as the Federal Communications Commission, as part of the National Broadband Plan released this week, has set a target for the industry to provide 100 million consumers “affordable access” to 100 Mbps downloads and 50 Mbps uploads by 2020.
The Connected Planet Take, Joan Engebretson:
As FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell pointed out in the FCC meeting to announce the National Broadband Plan this week, the U.S. should soon be well on its way to achieving the plan’s 100 Meg-to-100 household goal thanks to DOCSIS 3.0. Not just Comcast, but most of the major cable companies are poised to support 100 Mb/s service-and McDowell estimated that more than 104 million American homes will soon have 100 Mb/s service available to them. It doesn’t look like McDowell factored in whether all of today’s cable systems can support DOCSIS 3.0, but even if the number isn’t as high as 104 million, it’s still a lot. How “affordable” people will consider the 100 Mb/s service to be remains to be seen, however.
That’s our take on this, let us know what you think in the comments below: