dslreports logo
A Few More Exclusive Upcoming Comcast Changes
20 & 100 tiers confirmed, economy tier gets a bump, new WiMax options...

Yesterday we noted that Comcast had started sending notifications to some users in their bills informing them that the company would soon be offering 105 Mbps downstream 10 Mbps upstream service. The service will launch for some users starting on June 1, and will cost $200 a month -- plus a $250 installation fee. One Comcast insider says the tier is part of Comcast's standard new Xfinity tier line up that will hit all markets eventually. We asked Comcast for more details (will the cap apply at that price tag? launch markets?), but the company stated they "don’t have an announcement to make at this time."

Fortunately, a second contact inside Comcast has confirmed to Broadband Reports that there are a number of changes coming with staggered market-by-market deployment starting June 1. In addition to the launch of the new residential 100 Mbps tier, we've obtained a document confirming that Comcast's 16 Mbps service will be bumped to 20 Mbps -- solidifying our previous reports that Comcast's new lineup will be 1/384kbps, 12/2, 20/4, 50/10 and 100/15. The 20 Mbps tier has supposedly gone live in Indianapolis, with additional markets coming.

Click for full size
With Powerboost, the speed for that new 20 Mbps tier should jump close to 25 Mbps. Interestingly, the document we obtained indicates (see right) that Comcast will be leaving the upstream speed for this 20 Mbps tier at 2 Mbps in uncompetitive markets -- but bumping it to 4 Mbps in more competitive areas (read: places where Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-Verse or municipal fiber are deployed).

We've also learned of a few other changes (it's apparently a busy June at Comcast). The company will be bumping the downstream speed for their "economy" tier to 1.5 Mbps from 1 Mbps, though the 384 kbps upstream speed will remain the same. Pricing for the Economy tier is $24.95 -- except for markets that have rolled out the most recent rate increases - in which case the tier has jumped to $26.95. Starting on June 1 in some High Speed 2 Go WiMax markets Comcast will also begin supporting laptops with embedded Mobile WiMax chipsets.
view:
topics flat nest 

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

1 edit

w0g

Member

16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

I have the 16/2 tier and it hits 50/10 when powerboost is in effect. This is with a DOCSIS 3 modem of course, the DOCSIS 2 modem I had before maxed out at 25/2 on the same tier.



To say the least, I'm very happy with Comcast, and if you're in the Northwest I think you will be, too.

spike010101
Premium Member
join:2003-11-28
Austin, TX

spike010101

Premium Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

Definitely. I live in Olympia, Washington and I have always had great service. On almost every speedtest I get an average of 24/4. (This is on blast 16/2)

It also seems that we get HD channels before the majority of other areas too. We had 102 HD channels a year ago..

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

w0g

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

Northwest region was always TCI, and AT&T Broadband's bread and butter zone, they deploy earliest and test things here, and their performance has always been stellar (another ex: we were the first systems running on AT&T's own broadband network when @Home shut everyone off back in 2002). Comcast has kept the same traditions. We're lucky.
PerfectCode
join:2009-06-12
Portland, OR

1 edit

PerfectCode to w0g

Member

to w0g
Nope, I live in P, OR and the service isnt anywhere near as good as you guys are reporting. I just happen to live in the part of town where Comcast service is the worst.
PerfectCode

2 edits

PerfectCode

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

w0g, would you mind posting a speedtest.net result to the Portland, OR server for me? I can't get above 19Mbps down and lower then 40ms ping. This is with "Extreme 50". I have tried the server with other ISPs and gotten much better results. I have also talked to the owners of the server (OI) and they agreed that Comcast is at fault for the low/limited download speeds.

Example: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 1166.png

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

1 edit

w0g

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

I usually can't get higher download than this on the Portland server, but upload and latency is always really good with that site for me.
PerfectCode
join:2009-06-12
Portland, OR

PerfectCode

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

Thanks! Even more proof of Comcast's crap in my 'hood.

EnasYorl
Thieves World
join:2001-12-02
West

EnasYorl

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

I never trust speed test sites.

I open multiple downloads and sum the total rates.

8 bits to a Byte.
EnasYorl

EnasYorl to PerfectCode

Member

to PerfectCode
Have you tried »speedtest.comcast.net/
said by PerfectCode:

w0g, would you mind posting a speedtest.net result to the Portland, OR server for me? I can't get above 19Mbps down and lower then 40ms ping. This is with "Extreme 50". I have tried the server with other ISPs and gotten much better results. I have also talked to the owners of the server (OI) and they agreed that Comcast is at fault for the low/limited download speeds.

Example: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 1166.png
PerfectCode
join:2009-06-12
Portland, OR

PerfectCode

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

Yes...

Even on their local server the download speeds often drop below 30Mbps. Only in the morning the speeds are where they should be (usually). I noticed Comcasts Portland, OR server often goes offline too. =/

I have never achieved my advertised download speeds when downloading a large file. Such as a game from Steam (and I have tried many times). The highest I have gotten during a time when few would be online was 5.2MB/s. 6.25MB/s being my advertised download speeds.

EnasYorl
Thieves World
join:2001-12-02
West
·Ziply Fiber
Motorola MB8600
Netgear RAX15
Asus RT-AC66

EnasYorl

Member

Re: 16/2 with powerboost hits 50/10 for me

said by PerfectCode:

Yes...

Even on their local server the download speeds often drop below 30Mbps. Only in the morning the speeds are where they should be (usually). I noticed Comcasts Portland, OR server often goes offline too. =/

I have never achieved my advertised download speeds when downloading a large file. Such as a game from Steam (and I have tried many times). The highest I have gotten during a time when few would be online was 5.2MB/s. 6.25MB/s being my advertised download speeds.
The far end server can traffic shape/rate limit so you need to do Steam + maybe two other large downloads from other sites

Then SUM the total downloads.

50Mbps= 6.25MB/s so if you get 2MB/s on 3 downloads at the same time you are getting your advertised rate.

Also make sure you RWIN is in spec.

BigDaddyChud
join:2002-11-16
Gladstone, OR

1 edit

BigDaddyChud to w0g

Member

to w0g
16/2 for me and I get reliable service, never the real fast speeds others show (not complaining just sayin).



Weird using a Seattle server,

MysticGogeta
The Robot Devil
Premium Member
join:2005-03-14
Katy, TX

1 edit

MysticGogeta to w0g

Premium Member

to w0g


I'm on the 16/2 also this is pretty average what I pull with power boost going. This is with a surfboard 5101 also.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

1 recommendation

iansltx

Member

So which will it be? 105/10 or 100/15?

They *are* two different speed tiers, ya know.

Also, this sucks for uncompetitive markets since you'll now have to shell out some major dough to get a tier with more than 2 Mbps up. Really hope that Denver is labeled "competitive" because I don't want to have to pay $100 to get more than 2M up when I need it. OTOH if 20/4 comes out here (which it should...Qwest *does* serve parts of Denver with VDSL2 that hits 5M or 20M on uploads) then I'll probably pay the $10 extra per month over my current 12/2 service.

Also, Econoy is starting to look halfway decent, though it would've been nice if Comcast had bumped uploads to 512k.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

Re: So which will it be? 105/10 or 100/15?

said by iansltx:

They *are* two different speed tiers, ya know.

Also, this sucks for uncompetitive markets since you'll now have to shell out some major dough to get a tier with more than 2 Mbps up. Really hope that Denver is labeled "competitive" because I don't want to have to pay $100 to get more than 2M up when I need it. OTOH if 20/4 comes out here (which it should...Qwest *does* serve parts of Denver with VDSL2 that hits 5M or 20M on uploads) then I'll probably pay the $10 extra per month over my current 12/2 service.

Also, Econoy is starting to look halfway decent, though it would've been nice if Comcast had bumped uploads to 512k.
Charge more and widen the asymmetrical ratio to about 10:1, nice move. Charging $250 installation/activation fee is nice to... what will companies think of next?

Will that encouage at&t to step up it's bandwidth? Nope. Competition averted for another day... S**T laden "X"-opolies hard at work.

You have the federal, state and your local muni governments to blame!
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: So which will it be? 105/10 or 100/15?

So you're saying that AT&T won't compete with a higer-end bonded VDSL tier even though Comcast is running circles around them at this point?

perki
join:2008-12-01
Santa Maria, CA

perki

Member

What about the 22/5 tier?

What happens to us?
jacour
Premium Member
join:2001-12-11
Matthews, NC

jacour

Premium Member

Re: What about the 22/5 tier?

The other news on Comcast (down about four message on the home page) says that 22/5 will be grandfathered.
alfnoid
MVM
join:2002-02-18

alfnoid to perki

MVM

to perki
said by perki:

What about the 22/5 tier?
What happens to us?
Earlier reports say grandfathered.

perki
join:2008-12-01
Santa Maria, CA

perki

Member

Re: What about the 22/5 tier?

said by alfnoid:

said by perki:

What about the 22/5 tier?
What happens to us?
Earlier reports say grandfathered.
Oh so in other words... ripped off I was hoping they'd lower the 50 meg pricing once the 100 tier was announced. Oh well guess i gotta settle with 160 kilobytes a second less

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

w0g

Member

Re: What about the 22/5 tier?

It might not be true, there was talk of 22/5 being upgraded to 30/7 back in February.
alfnoid
MVM
join:2002-02-18

alfnoid

MVM

Re: What about the 22/5 tier?

said by w0g:

It might not be true, there was talk of 22/5 being upgraded to 30/7 back in February.
I forgot about this...30/7 is actually what I get most times, but I don't do a lot of huge file transfers where I actually watch the sustained speeds so it could just be powerboost.

asdfdfsse3
@apexcovantage.com

asdfdfsse3

Anon

100/10 or 100/15?

"the company would soon be offering 105 Mbps downstream 10 Mbps upstream service"

so some users have been getting notices of this new 100/10 service.

but according to your insider:

"Comcast's new lineup will be 1/384kbps, 12/2, 20/4, 50/10 and 100/15."

and then your document says upstream bandwidth will vary depending on region cometitiveness

"Interestingly, the document we obtained indicates that Comcast will be leaving the upstream speed for this 20 Mbps tier at 2 Mbps in uncompetitive markets -- but bumping it to 4 Mbps in more competitive areas"

so is it say to assume that with the 100mbs service, the upload bandwidth can vary between 10 and 15 mbs depending on region as well?
zed2608
Premium Member
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN

zed2608

Premium Member

caps are what i am wondering about

the 250 gigabyte cap can hit relly quickly with 100 meg they need to raise the cap for it to be worth it exspecily at 200 per month price tag

C_Chipperson
Monster Rain
Premium Member
join:2009-01-17
00000

C_Chipperson

Premium Member

Re: caps are what i am wondering about

It would be nice to hear what will be done about this, because we are getting to a point where Comcast NEEDS to address this. As others have said, there is virtually no use for a 100mbps tier that has a 250GB cap.

Either we will all be happy and Comcast will raise the caps, or we will not be happy and they will begin charging per usage. I'm not optomistic...

Personally, I use maybe 15GB per month, but this is getting a little rediculous when you could theoretically max out your connection and hit the cap in a few hours.

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

w0g to zed2608

Member

to zed2608
Comcast should address it, because as the price goes up the limitation on transfer should be lifted. Especially for $60+ plans.
ViRGE
join:2002-10-25

ViRGE

Member

Re: caps are what i am wondering about

It needs to go up regardless of price, in my opinion. 250GB was very good in 2008, but now in 2010 I'm starting to run in to the cap. Game downloads, Netflix/Hulu, MLB, etc are quickly eating in to my bandwidth - I didn't use to have to watch my cap, now I'm getting within 5% of it.

Chris 313
Because It's Geekier
Premium Member
join:2004-07-18
Houma, LA
·AT&T FTTP
·Comcast XFINITY

Chris 313

Premium Member

Comcast will be leaving the upstream speed alone?

"Comcast will be leaving the upstream speed for this 20 Mbps tier at 2 Mbps in uncompetitive markets -- but bumping it to 4 Mbps in more competitive areas (read: places where Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-Verse or municipal fiber are deployed)."

What? If that's true, that completely sucks. I've been at 2 upload for the last 3 years. I don't even have Blast! here yet and now the possibility of this? Unfair. Comcast needs a kick in the shorts on that one. Things like that infuriate me to no end and make me wanna go right to 50/10 just for the upload.

Though, I do have U-Verse here, so I'll wait and see. Especially since I've heard D3 for my area probably won't be here until Xmas or into 2011. Hopefully something changes between now and then.
Bytezboy
join:2001-05-17
New York, NY

1 edit

Bytezboy

Member

10Mbps upload is weak

It should be minimum 20Mbps. Fios has them beat badly.

Chris 313
Because It's Geekier
Premium Member
join:2004-07-18
Houma, LA
·AT&T FTTP
·Comcast XFINITY

Chris 313

Premium Member

Re: 10Mbps upload is weak

said by Bytezboy:

It should be minimum 20Mbps. Fios has them beat badly.
Sure, it's getting old since we've seen 50/10 for about 2 years now, but we've still got a little over 6 months left in the year and upload channel bonding is in the works has been seen here in the last few months.

With testing of 75 upload in both the lab and field, 20 would be doable. So relax, and you'll see it within the year or definitely 2011.

Canezoid
End of line
join:2001-02-16
Powder Springs, GA

Canezoid

Member

Ok, sooooo

Good news I guess, but I'm on Blast 16/2 here and have always been around the 25M range with powerboost, this was w/ my 5101 and now w/ my 6120, UL varies more depending on busyness I guess.

Just got an Xfinity notice thing in my email today and was flashed some messages on the receiver notifying of coming upgrades here to.

Would be nice to see powerboost to maybe 30M on the 20/4 upgrade, who knows. Wonder if that means a new config file on the way for it?

Dont see need here for any change 16/2 has run great. Bundle ends in Aug, we'll see then.






mustang50
Premium Member
join:2005-05-06
Roseville, MI

3 edits

mustang50

Premium Member

Price?

So I wonder, will the new Blast! 20/4 tier be priced @ $52.95 as some (most) people pay now. Or will it be priced @$62.95 that I have been paying for a year now..yes BLAST! 16/2 is $62.95 here.
DOCSIS 3.0 isn't available here yet.
Comcast needs to be a little more consistant on pricing.

My gut feeling is everyone will be paying $62.95 for this *free* upgrade.

EDIT: I just read the other thread on this. So I guess Blast will be 52.95 for most (at least for a while). Still sux that it's been 62.95 for over a year here.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

6/1

Still on 6/1 here, with a total of 26 HD's including locals and premium. I could care less about D3, but 12/2 on the SB5100 would be great.
El Gaupo
Premium Member
join:2006-07-15
Buckhorn, NM

El Gaupo

Premium Member

Smoke and mirrors

My 12/2 package runs the same speed as my 3 meg dsl backup line.Contacting the help forum here resulted in getting bumped to 16/2 and charged extra $10 a month without being told or asked.And guess what the new speed profile changed nothing except my monthly bill.
Jasonfn22
join:2009-11-20
Bethlehem, GA

Jasonfn22

Member

curious

I am just wondering how reliable these speed test from speedtest.net mainly when you go to command prompt and ping them you will be pinging seattle washington.If you go to the comcast speed test you get a much diffrent result and it seems that comcast should be more reliable you know since they are the ISP.I tend to have questions about any speed test that starts advertising as soon as the test is done.The only sites and I have looked really hard is measurementlab.com and Ispgeeks.com that don't have advertisemments oh and my connection server by visualware.I tend to think that the measurementlab.com should be more reliable since they are tied in with the FCC.The FCC recommends to test there .
Gumbo80
join:2008-06-07
Orland Park, IL

Gumbo80

Member

30/7 Disappearing?

Does this mean that Comcast is getting rid of the Ultra package with downloads up to 30Mbps, uploads up to 7Mbps with PowerBoost?

I was thinking of changing from Blast to Ultra but I didn't see it listed in the post.

perfidy47
join:2006-06-05
Beaverton, OR

perfidy47

Member

Re: 22/5

I just ordered 22/5 today and here are my results from speedtest.comcast.net
czb3
join:2002-05-29
West Jordan, UT

czb3

Member

Speed Test

Here is my test from West Jordan Utah

failures11
join:2010-05-06
Caldwell, NJ

failures11

Member

Com cast cannot deliver on 16Mbps

Comcast has been trying to repair my 16/25 Mbps link for over a year. They are now blaming it on the power company again - same as last year when this started. I have been waiting since May 6 for the result of the power company meeting that was supposed to fix this.

I have asked repeatedly for escalation. I have had calls from agents claiming to have direct executive access. No significant changes have happened.

Comcast may have fast access but I have never had the speeds that Comcast claims. I also have many business customers who wanted to use Comcast because it seemed cheaper but most have now switched back to SDSL (Covad) or to Verizon because Comcast cannot seem to keep a link stable and the speeds are not anywhere close to what is advertised.

I have one new Comcast Business Broadband client who has moved all telephone to Comcast. I told him to leave the AT&T fax line in place for emergencies. We repeatedly have only the fax line. Calling Comcast results in an apology "due to an outage in your area. We are currently working to restore service..." - or similar messages.

To be fair - when the Comcast line works it is extremely fast. If it worked correctly even only 90% of the time I would bemuch happier but it is out or slow almost 90% of the time. I jknow this because I keep a ping log that records outages and durations between my PC and the gateway. I also run periodic packet loss tests. When the link is working correctly there is zero packet loss and only 6ms latency with as little as 2ms at times. When the link is unstable the packet loss exceeds 10% to an internal Comcast site. Intervalsof instability occur midday mostly and can last for days. Periodically I will have one or two days of near perfect connectivity.

Comcast insists the problem is due to a bad PSE&G transformer. I have seen the noise on the spectrum analyzer but it doesn't appear to be enough noise to cause this problem unless there is also a piece of damaged or sensitive Comcast equipment such as a distribution amplifier port. No one has replaced the amplifer at this time although it would seem to be the easiest and fastest thing to do.

From the spectrum analyzer it appears the noise is within FCC Part 15 specs although ther eis noticeable broadband noise. The noise appears to be keyed whenbever a modem comes online (sends data) which may be an indication of a signal sensitive port failure. Changing out the amplifier would eliminate this most obvious issue.

This is where Comcast fails repeatedly. Comcast will keep putting off a repair the minute they can cubbyhole the issue. We are not hung because PSE&G does not believe it can be there problem. Comcast does. We wait for a tie breaker. I am sure this sounds familiar to anyone who has dealt with Comcast support.