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Comcast introduces the nation's capital to 50Mbps "wideband" service
Back in the 1980s, cable television systems in suburban Washington, DC and northern Virginia often showcased all that was possible for that era of cable operators. When legislators and other movers and shakers were done for the day, they found some amazing cable services waiting for them when they got home. Media General’s cable system in Fairfax County had an unprecented two coaxial cables going into each home, with up to 60 channels on each cable, and this was in the early 1980s, when most cable systems provided no more than 40 channels. Up to 120 channels at prices often cheaper than cable systems with 30 channels, Media General received a lot of praise.
Providing a high level of service with robust competition in the nation’s capital is a great way to diffuse complaints about poor quality monopoly service at high prices reaching members of Congress from constituents back home. More than a few elected officials opposing pro-consumer legislation in the 1980s and early 1990s used to rave about cable service they received in Washington, forgetting things were hardly as rosy back home.
Now Comcast, which provides cable service through large parts of the metro Washington, DC area, has announced the arrival of 50Mbps cable modem service, made possible with DOCSIS 3 upgrades. Comcast will reap the profit potential of offering consumers and businesses higher tiers of broadband speed, making customers happy and reporting higher broadband revenue, which will also keep investors pleased.
Unlike Time Warner Cable, Comcast is bullish on deploying DOCSIS upgrades across all of their cable systems. Comcast COO Steve Burke said, “We are hardcore on DOCSIS 3.0. We want to have two-thirds of our footprint by end of year.”
Comcast is also positioning itself to compete with Verizon FiOS, now being wired in parts of DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
The company announced the new “wideband” service was now available in the Anacostia area east of the river. Over the course of the summer into fall, it will become available in parts of Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, Montgomery County and Prince George’s County.
Comcast promises to have 100% coverage by the end of the year.
New Speed Tier Pricing (assumes customer has at least one other Comcast service)
Extreme 50 — 50 Mbps down/10 Mbps up — $99.95 per month
Ultra — 22 Mbps down/5 Mbps up — $62.95 per month.
Deluxe (Business Class) — 50 Mbps down/10 Mbps up — $189.95/month (includes business class extra features)
Existing broadband services at slower speeds will also remain available at current prices, but customers may find reduced congestion made possible by DOCSIS 3 upgrades.
Where is the downside? Comcast is keeping a strict limit of 250GB of consumption on these new residential tiers, which reduces their value, particularly on the higher priced plans.
Personally, upstream speed is more important to me and Verizon kicks Comcast’s rear end in that area. Even on the top of the line Extreme 50, the upstream speed is only 10Mb compared to Verizons 20Mb. Also, that 20Mb comes at a price almost the same as Comcast’s Ultra service which offers even more inferior upstream speed. Throw in Verizon doesn’t cap and it is a easy choice for me if I lived in that service area. Eventually, I think these cable companies will have to go all fiber or get left behind.
I have twc see i ‘m not sure how comcast really deals with the caps . The 250 gb. cap is that a hard limit in all markets? I would assume that it varies by market to market but they have too state a cap by fcc.
It is a hard limit in all markets, however if you take a look at it this way, even with 50Mbps speeds, 250GB is still pretty good compared to what has been proposed by other companies or what is in effect. Sure, once Comcast is done with rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 and they see how things take shape, they’ll probably scrap the cap to compete with FiOS a bit more.
Just a reminder that STC is here not to be amenable to a one-size-fits-all cap like Comcast’s 250GB limit that most of us can live with. STC is here to oppose caps, not only on their inconvenience due to their jarringly low limits, but on principle. Setting a number now and setting a preceident for ISPs to charge on consumption is going to be a huge disservice to consumers at large, especially in the future. Just look at Canada (as STC did recently).
Agreed. I think any usage cap hardened into Subscriber Agreements is a bad idea because it can become difficult to get that amount changed as traffic levels and capacity changes. Yes, 250GB in the Internet Overcharging Scheme of things isn’t a war crime when compared to what Frontier defines as “appropriate,” namely 5GB, but it’s beside the point.
The only reason Comcast introduced the cap was in a hissyfit response to the FCC spanking them for their interference with traffic on their network (throttling peer to peer applications).
Particularly egregious consumption (terabytes in a month) by that tiny fraction of consumers doing it on residential accounts can be approached privately about their usage and offered an upgrade to commercial level service plans or have the option of cutting back their usage to something within the atmosphere of earth, at least for 2009.