Expect a faster internet service this coming Thursday on all Comcast Customers across the Twin Cities. The company is working on a way to make cable internet speeds as fast as Google Fiber, or even faster, as reported in CBS. Google Fiber has a speed that starts at 1 gigabyte per second.
The new technology that Comcast is testing is expected to connect people to the web at more than 1 gigabyte per second. "Performance" tier customers will see a change of speed from 25 megabytes per second to 50, "Blast" customers will go to 105 from 50 and lastly "Extreme" customers will go to 150 megabytes from 105.
Under ideal circumstances using the right modem, this new technology is actually able to speed up the internet up to 10 gigabyte per second. This is at least 50 times faster than what is typically offered by most cable companies.
According to FierceCable, the upgrade should be completed within the next two years. According to the interview, Robert Howald, Comcast's VP for network architecture said, "We're testing it this year. Our intent is to scale it through our footprint through 2016."
"We want to get it across the footprint very quickly," Howald added, noting that the company hopes to have the technology deployed across its entire U.S. network footprint in the next 2-3 years. "We're shooting for two years," he added.
Emmet Coleman, Comcast's VP for External Affairs in Twin Cities also stated, "We're not kind of rolling this out, you know, parts-of-the city by parts-of-the-city. We're actually, when we turn this on on Thursday, anybody as soon as they go in and unplug or hit the button on their app, they will be able to take advantage of these speeds".
According to a marketing professor in the University of Minnesota, he is not surprised with Comcast's decision to upgrade. George John said "Internet speed is where all the growth is. Cable TV is kind of dormant." Given that companies like CenturyLinkare ready to compete, Comcast is just expected to make a move to retain its customers by offering faster service for free. Programs like skype is expected to run more smoothly.
