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Comcast Unveils Details About Its Gigabit Cable Service Launch

Comcast today unveiled new details about the company's launch of DOCSIS 3.1 -- aka the technology that will deliver gigabit speeds to traditional cable broadband customers. According to the full Comcast announcement, Atlanta and Nashville (both not-coincidentally Google Fiber build markets) will get the ultra-fast DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades in early 2016. Comcast says that Chicago, Detroit, and Miami will follow sometime in the second half of the year. Comcast is not revealing how much the service will cost, or whether Comcast's unpopular usage caps will make an appearance.

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Comcast is also offering a two gigabit product named Gigabit Pro to select locations. Gigabit Pro runs over a fiber to the home connection, and costs $300 a month (plus $1000 in installation and activation fees).

In contrast, Comcast's DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit cable service should reach significantly more of the 55 million homes Comcast's network passes. The company last month announced it had conducted the first field trial of DOCSIS 3.1-capable modems at a residence in Philadelphia. Comcast is also conducting trials in other parts of Pennsylvania, Northern California and Atlanta.

"DOCSIS 3.1 represents a tremendous step forward in our commitment to keeping customers at the technology forefront," the company said of the launch announcement. "Combined with all the upgrades we have already put into our advanced fiber optic-coax network, this technology will not only provide more gigabit speed choices for customers, it will also eventually make these ultra-fast speeds available to the most homes in our service areas."

While the DOCSIS 3.1 standard will ultimately be capable of 10 Gbps down, 1 Gbps up, the first wave of backward-compatible devices (you'll need a new modem, of course) will initially "only" support 5 Gbps down, 1 Gbps up. While speed is an important metric, most Comcast customers will be notably more interested in just how much Comcast's gigabit cable broadband service will cost, as the cutting edge is decidedly less sexy if it requires a second mortgage.

Most recommended from 59 comments


clocks11
join:2002-05-06
00000

6 recommendations

clocks11

Member

It's gonna be all about cost and caps

Speed will be great, but needs to be similar price to current plans, and be capless.

Devious
Premium Member
join:2002-08-22
Seattle, WA

6 recommendations

Devious

Premium Member

Can get DSL for way cheaper.

Gigabit in my area from Centurylink is 79.95 a month for three years but comcast wants 300...LOL

P Ness
You'Ve Forgotten 9-11 Already
Premium Member
join:2001-08-29
way way out

5 recommendations

P Ness

Premium Member

Can i have a 1% plan please...no not that 1%

i am a single user.
i dont need 2gb
i dont need 1gb. 300mb, 100mb.

can i get 20mb for 1% of the cost? Hell bump me up to 5% of the cost of this gigasilly service.

so 15 dollars a month?

crazy that i pay 39.99 for 25mb at this point and i have to bounce between frontier and comcast to avoid being bumped up to 60 dollars plus.

cypherstream
MVM
join:2004-12-02
Reading, PA
·PenTeleData
ARRIS SB8200

4 recommendations

cypherstream

MVM

What's the upload?

To fulfill a decent experience at 1gbps down, you need a decent return path for all of the tcp packet acknowledgements. What are they planning to provide for upstream since I do not see how these markets could have all of the diplex filters swapped out for a 65 MHz (or more) mid split.

I would think to get a gig down you need at least 50mbps up for acks. Upstream ack suppression can be turned on in the modem config but it only applies to same streams. So if you have a household of downloaders and streamers all hitting different content at the same time, modem ack suppression won't benefit.