In the United States, internet speed have been seen as driving in the slow lane to some. According to NetIndex, average speed in the United States through 2011 is only 10.89 Mbit. Due to the low speed average, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has recently suggested that they want 100 Mbit connections to 100 million American households by 2020. Today, BizJournals is reporting that Comcast has launched across the board a new speed tier reaching its entire DOCSIS 3 capable market. Comcast has set the bar at 105 Mbit (known as the Extreme 105 tier), which is immediately available to over 40 million houses in the country. This upgrade puts Comcast in direct competition with Verizon FiOS markets, which offer a similar 150 Mbit downstream / 35 Mbit upstream tier in a few select regions.
Recent improvements in the cable providers network has allowed speeds to get as high as 105 Mbit. Comcast, for the past three years, has been diligently working on deploying DOCSIS 3 technology to all of its cable modem termination systems (CMTS). This upgrade allows for up to 8 bonded 6MHz channels to provide up to a maximum of 343 Mbits of download bandwidth to cable modem users.
The price tag for the first year is reasonable for the speed, at $105 dollars. After the first year however, the price jumps up $95 to $200 per month. The price, however, does not include increases to bandwidth usage per month. Comcast confirms that the standard residential user will remain at 250 Gigabytes per month in a soft cap form.
This move makes the FCC's goal of 100 million households by 2020 appear to be within reach.
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