Comcast Rolls Out 105Mbps Internet Across the Nation
Comcast Rolls Out 105Mbps Internet Across the Nation
Posted 04/14/2011 at 12:00pm
| by Paul Lilly
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If you're a Comcast subscriber, go ahead and bust out your old Sammy Hagar cassette and start belting out "I Can't Drive 55." All you need is enough green, and you won't have to drive through cyberspace at a piddly 55Mbps. Comcast has been busy laying cable and now offers its newest and highest-tier Internet speed, "Extreme 105," to more than 40 million homes from coast to coast. What can you do with 105Mbps Internet?
According to Comcast, you can download a 4GB high-definition movie in 5 minutes, a 1.5GB standard definition flick in 2 minutes, a 300MB standard definition TV show in 20 seconds, and 10-song, 40MB music album in just 3 seconds.
"This speed tier continues to expand our portfolio of Internet service offerings and takes them up to a whole new level," said Cathy Avgiris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Data Services. "With it, we’re powering the digital home of the future, where entire families using multiple devices – laptops, gaming consoles, tablets, smartphones – can all take advantage of high-bandwidth applications simultaneously ensuring they each have a great online experience."
To enroll in Comcast's Extreme 105 service, you'll have to fork over $105 per month for 12 months as part of the company's Triple Play bundle. The service comes with a wireless home networking gateway, and if you're not down with the Triple Play bundle, you can still order the Extreme 105 tier on a standalone basis, though only if you don't mind parting with $199/month -- yikes!
Pricing bugaboo aside, Comcast's 250GB data cap still applies, which we find a little bogus. After all, if you're forking over a high premium for blistering fast Internet access, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a looser fitting cap, or remove it altogether.
What are your thoughts on Comcast's Extreme 105 service?
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JohnP
April 16, 2011 at 4:31pm
All I did was buy a new Docsis 3 modem from Amazon and hook it to my existing Cox Premium service. It jumped my cable speed from 30Mbps to 76Mbps without having to pay Cox for their Docsis 3 service which is twice what I am now paying...
bling581
April 15, 2011 at 9:52am
If you do some looking online you will see that our nations average broadband speed is pretty bad compared to the rest of the world. Netindex.com has the US ranked 31 for download index, and 39 for upload index. I remember reading an article from MPC a while back showing similar rankings for world wide speeds. Most areas have only one to two broadband providers to choose from which is a load of crap. There's absolutely no incentive for them to upgrade their networks and they can charge whatever they want.
Do you really need a connection that fast anyway? How many programs that you use would actually utilize a speed that fast? I have Time Warner and pay $50 a month for 7 mbps connection and rarely see the loading bar when watching Netflix or Hulu.
skirge01
April 15, 2011 at 6:18am
Is my math wrong here or could you theoretically blow through this cap in 317 minutes (~5.5 hours)?
105 Mb per second = 13.125 MB per second
250 GB cap = 250,000 MB cap
250,000 MB / 13.125 MB per second = 19,047.619 seconds
19,047.619 / 60 minutes = 317.46 minutes
317.46 / 60 minutes = 5.29 hours
128bitworm
April 14, 2011 at 10:39pm
I have an 80gig cap on a 25mbps line. I have Netflix which I use almost daily. I get all my tv series online since I don't have a tv. ALL my entertainment comes from the Internet. And somehow I am supposed to manage it all with 80gigs. I am amazed that people find 250gigs inadequate!! I would be able to rest easy and enjoy HD with that kind of bandwidth, but my ISP doesn't come within yelling distance of that. And it costs me $60 a month, not including the cost of Netflix and some other downloading services. Of course, I find my 25mbps frighteningly consistent, so at least I have that, eh!!
krash3x
April 14, 2011 at 7:06pm
They could offer 1gbps and I would still rather have fiber optic internet. Comcast is a big greedy cable company. What is the point of having internet that fast when you are capped and the fact that when you are watching netflix it slows down and has to rebuffer constantly lowering the video quality, that looks alot like throtteling to me. They took away most of the analog channels and encrypted them so I cant use my computer as a dvr.
HOYT
April 14, 2011 at 6:56pm
I had the 50mbps back a few months ago, never speed tested past 40Mbps and the upload was retardedly low like 4 mbps... I got the service to run a gaming server out of the house needless to say the upload bandwidth was hardly enough... Version VIOS had 20/20 Mbps service witch would have been great but No VIOS north of Boston... go figure...
CaptainFabulous
April 14, 2011 at 6:32pm
I know what I can do with the money I save by not having Comcast's 105... pay my truck payment.
Danthrax66
April 14, 2011 at 5:36pm
This isn't news worthy Korea is gonna have 1gbps by next year and we have have this shit? The government should start a work program to run fiber lines then let corporations take control like they did with the phone lines.
sepiid
April 14, 2011 at 4:56pm
i have there 50mb service, lets just say im an idiot. im constantly (at least daily having to reboot the router (extreme gamer router)
even swapped itout for my cisco 881w and it still has a shit connection.
dns keeps getting borked.
so if i cant even reliably stay connected with my current connection why would i want a faster one?
JohnP
April 16, 2011 at 4:27pm
Heh, had the same issue with Cox. Turns out that the line to my house was chewed up. It only showed up when I went to Docsis 3.0 as that is so bandwidth hungry. The cable company could actually see the attenuation on my line and the cable repairman had to run a new line from the utility pole to my house.
Don't be so quick to blame the cable company...
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
April 14, 2011 at 4:33pm
Yeah, since I get only a fraction of my existing "50Mbps" speed, I'm not falling for this one. Not paying through the nose just to get another little fraction faster than what I already have.
Computist
April 14, 2011 at 3:54pm
Never mind 105... I'd be happy if my 50 Mbps connection ever got faster than 8 Mbps.
EarthBoundMisfit
April 14, 2011 at 2:19pm
As docsis 3.0 becomes more and more common place, the prices for internet will come down.
I look ofrward to this from NEwwave Communications.
Righ now tho, they are only offering it in select areas in my state....with a 50 meg download package for like $99.
essjay22
April 15, 2011 at 9:24pm
Docsis 3 will make prices come down?? srysly are you on drugs? Greed is never satiated and the Telco's figure they have us by the gonads. Gas will get cheaper sooner than bandwidth.
mertox
April 14, 2011 at 2:05pm
Eh, if you aren't breaking the law you won't go over the 250 gig limit (with very few exceptions). And that is a fact.
But when do need to download something legally, you can do it faster. That too, is a fact.
I stream Netflix almost every night and all weekend and haven't even come 1/2 way to the line, so I know for a fact that you can do a ton of downloading and stay under 250 gigs.
NotYetRated
April 15, 2011 at 7:59am
I think you need to do a little more homework. I live in a 2 person home. Have a home server with all of my pictures and music on it. I have family who lives elsewhere, I did initial installs and backups of their systems at my place, and then weekly backups occur over the net. Granted, this is typically only 100 or so megs. But thats over 3 different users.
Add in me and my roomate both streaming netflix, hulu and pandora while at home. We do not have cable tv, as we get all of out entertainment over the web.
Throw in streaming music from the home server to my phone/pc while I am at work. Remoting in to my home when I am on the road. Online gaming. Web browsing. LEGAL file downloading such as high res pictures to play with in photoshop. Downloading games(GASP!) via steam. LEGALLY. Downloading updates for games LEGALLY.
My roomate and I EASILY blow through 650+ gigs a month of data. In fact, last month we hit a combined upload/download of 1.2 TB. He got a new computer, he had 400 gigs of games to redownload. BAM. Bye bye 250 gig cap.
I simply cannot imagine the usage in a technical family of 4 or more.
krash3x
April 14, 2011 at 7:12pm
How many people in your house is watching the same show at the same time you are? If you have more than one person watching something at a given time that would double it. Is that breaking they law? I think it just proves your statment to be false and you to be ignorant
compro01
April 14, 2011 at 2:32pm
Eh, if you aren't breaking the law you won't go over the 250 gig limit (with very few exceptions). And that is a fact.
You appear to be operating with a non-standard definition of "fact". or your "very few exceptions" includes people who decided they don't want cable TV and get all their entertainment online, something which is getting increasingly common.
Let's say a family of 4, with each member watching two hour-long TV show per night in HD on netflix.
According to netflix, their HD mode uses 3800kbps.
so that's 3800kbps*2 hours*4*30 days=390GB
Oh look, we just blew through the monthly cap in less than 3 weeks.
I stream Netflix almost every night and all weekend and haven't even come 1/2 way to the line, so I know for a fact that you can do a ton of downloading and stay under 250 gigs.
Let me guess, you're single with no children or you only have one device accessing netflix or you're not using HD.
ShockerX
April 14, 2011 at 1:27pm
So a super fast internet service that you can download stuff a lot quicker, yet you're still limited by the 250gig cap. *insert Sarek (spock's father) rants saying "Illogical" multiple of times*
Keith E. Whisman
April 14, 2011 at 1:20pm
Blazing fast, high speed, uninterupted, numerous porn streams. Awesome!
sweetjeebus
April 14, 2011 at 8:46pm
I have said it once and I will say it again. GO AWAY! Your comments are so lame. The caveman avatar still fits you perfectly though.
keithfreitag
April 14, 2011 at 1:13pm
speed is useless unless the cap goes away. Basically in just over 2 1/2 hours, your cap can be met if you consistently download 4gb movies non stop.
K
Kethsar
April 14, 2011 at 12:38pm
Cool as this is, there is no way my family needs those speeds, and I'm doubtful my parents would pay that much for internet anyway. I have a friend that goes to college in the Netherlands, and his school provides him with 100Mbps internet. Him and his downloading of games on Steam in less than 10 minutes. T_T
Ghok
April 14, 2011 at 12:55pm
Which is why it's important that our infrastructure is further developed.
Remember that one friend who still had dialup after everyone else got broadband? How he couldn't play games with anyone else, and sending him pictures or videos was a pain in the ass? That could be all of the US soon, while other countries will advance.
pendar
April 14, 2011 at 12:20pm
Wow you can donwload a 4 gigs movie in 5 mins, that's 48 gigs an hour, so you can reach your cap in under 6 hrs total, how pathetic is that, looks like netflix hd is out of the question, seem anti-competitive to me. Standard definition movies can still take up your cap pretty quick. Suck for those who like youtube hd content
Ghok
April 14, 2011 at 12:51pm
It is pretty stupid to advertise your ability to download huge amounts of data, but then limiting that data so it would only take 6 hours to reach your limit.
But that's still 62 movies a month. 62 movies is a lot of movies. I would have to try really hard to make that cap.
However, I live alone. If I lived with a couple more people, who all watched movies, and all downloaded a few Steam games each... yeah, okay, I could see that getting eaten up before the month ended.
Of course, most people fall into that boat, so it's a great way for already rich telecom companies to make a lot more money.
praetor_alpha
April 14, 2011 at 12:33pm
Comcast has had their 250 gig soft cap for over three years. If you happen to be on a mostly unused node, Comcast reportedly doesn't care about you going over.
tdk650
April 14, 2011 at 2:23pm
I have defentially gone over the cap a couple of times in the past 6 months, yet no extra fee on my bill. Glad I live in outskirts of town in the country area! I will downloading more stuff from now on and see what happens. Also the chart thats in your comcast.com account of how much data you have used is not functioning for me. Maybe because my DNS addresses are with Comodo's DNS when I installed there firewall software.
jelyman
April 14, 2011 at 1:46pm
I can agree to that.
I buy 95% of my games from Steam, have several iTunes TV subscriptions, I shoot a lot of photos and upload 10-20GB worth every few days, and we have four other computers doing God knows what. I know on my PC alonve I've crossed the 250gb line several times within the first 15 days of the billing cycle and we have not gotten an email, a letter, a phone call, etc.
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