Cablevision should be announcing new faster speeds very soon, according to company COO Tom Rutledge. The cable provider is spending $300 million to upgrade all of their markets with the speedier technology and deploy free Wi-Fi to a growing number of areas. Speaking on a conference call with investors and analysts, Rutledge stated they are "about a third of the way through" the Wi-Fi portion of the project, and nearly done with DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades.

Judging from comments made by Rutledge, the DOCSIS 3.0 portion of Cablevision's upgrade plan is moving along at a faster clip than the Wi-Fi installations. "We've nearly completed the DOCSIS 3.0 wideband deployment across our service area as part of Wi-Fi rollout," says Rutledge, "and we expect to make an announcement shortly related to a wideband product for both residential and business customers." The deployment should cost Cablevision between $70 and per customer, and Cablevision has more than 3.1 million cable customers.

Cablevision's current fastest speed offering is named "Boost", a 30Mbps/5Mbps DOCSIS 2.0 that's uncapped in the truest sense of the word. Still, faster speeds would help Cablevision in their marketing battle against Verizon FiOS, which is quickly ramping up their efforts to deploy FTTH across New York City. Still, Rutledge seems to think that DOCSIS 3.0 (aka wideband) will be more popular among small business customers at first.

"I don't think ultra-wideband will have a significant impact in the second half," says the COO. "I think it's a long-term strategy (and) I think the primary user is small business and not residential in the short run." Rutledge did note that the faster speeds would help them offer a higher quality product to existing customers while increasing user satisfaction. FiOS currently passes about 1.5 million homes in Cablevision's footprint, according to the company.