Cox Communications gave us a nudge this morning to note that the private cable operator has now launched faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds in Rhode Island. That's the third market to see DOC 3.0 deployment, after the company offered the service earlier this year in Lafayette, Louisiana and portions of Northern Virginia. The price for the new 50Mbps downstream 5Mbps upstream "Ultimate" tier is $144.99 per month.

Prices for the service do vary by location. In Cox's initial launch market of Lafayette, Louisiana, the company is competing with a municipal fiber deployment that the company tried for years to derail. Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) offers standalone symmetrical 10Mbps for $28.95, 30Mbps for $44.95, and 50Mbps for $57.95. In turn, Cox is offering their 50Mbps/5Mbps tier in that market for just $90 per month.

In Northern Virginia, where Cox is responding to FiOS competition, the faster DOCSIS 3.0 service costs customers $139.99 per month bundled, or $109 per month if you sign a one-year contract. In all markets, the service comes with three unique IP addresses, 10 e-mail addresses, and 50 hours per month of remote dial access, an interesting perk we've seen a lot of carriers throw by the wayside in recent years.

According to Cox, the company hopes to offer the faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds in more than two-thirds of its systems across the country by the end of 2010. As always, our user opinions on Cox service can be found in our Cox review database, where, 1,328 reviews are currently listed, or in our Cox forum.