New York (NY) - Comcast this week began offering a new tier of Internet speed, allowing users a 50 mbps connection, which is quick enough to download a full HD movie in 10 minutes.

Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota are the test cities for the new connection option, with a main initial target of professional subscribers like businesses.

Eventually, said Comcast, it hopes to also offer speeds of as high as 160 mbps.  By the end of the year, it said it plans for 20% of its consumer base to be covered by the new technology, which it calls a "wideband" connection.

It is a worthwhile announcement from Comcast, bringing a good piece of news to the forefront after its controversy with blocking Bittorrent file transfers.

In the last few months, reports began to surface that Comcast was methodically blocking Internet activity it deemed could be used for illegal content distribution.  For example, it made users unable to download BitTorrent files, a modern platform commonly used in video and music pirating.

Comcast came under rigorous fire for its decision, with consumer rights advocates and supporters of Net Neutrality crying foul.  In February, it went all the way to a hearing by the Federal Communications Commission.

That kind of pressure became too much for Comcast, despite its continuous claims that it was doing nothing wrong.  Comcast had contended that its move was actually to reduce the strain on local cable lines.  It decided to stop the questionable practice.

The new 50 mbps connection doesn't come cheaply.  It carries a monthly subscription rate of around $150, three times what other Comcast broadband customers are paying.

FIOS already has the capacity.

Apr 03, 2008 17:48     

So here's a company which blocks bittorrent users, only because they know most people they would assume they were doing illegal downloading. Now they are offering $150/ 50M/sec download. I already have a Fios Package with telephone and 20 Meg internet for $59.95 month. Not that I really need it. But it's available everywhere. I'm sure 50 meg or 200 meg for that matter is pretty easy for them to implement. They planned way ahead with their Fios Network. And they'll probably have it cheaper then cable. I haven't had a single outage since I've had it for nine months. The cable companies have been screwing us for years. Time to support a company with a union work force that delivers better faster service for less money.

J. Doe report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Is this at the expense of HD channel quality?

Apr 03, 2008 17:51     

It was reported earlier in the week that Comcast was squeezing three HD channels into the space of two. If they really have the bandwidth to do this - that sucks even more.
Adam Leggett report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

$150? Im envious.

Apr 03, 2008 17:52     

In Richmond, Virginia, Verizon offers a 30mb connection for a mere $350 a month. $400 if you want a static IP address. Filtered through that, I see $150 as a bargain. Verizon, however, garauntees this speed- whatever that means- and I suspect that comcast does not. Anybody know the deal on that?
Scott report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

but...

Apr 03, 2008 18:05     

What's the monthly bandwidth limit?
mike report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

$350 for 30mb?

Apr 03, 2008 18:18     

that's strange, because i live in loudoun county in northern virginia, and i have a 20mb package for $54.95/month.
Danny report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Speed

Apr 03, 2008 19:18     

From Comcast.com "Actual speeds may vary and are not guaranteed. Many factors affect speed." From Veriozn.com "Actual speed may vary. Actual throughput speed will vary based on network and Internet congestion among other factors." Nothing is absolutely guaranteed in practically every means available to the public. It's not at the expense of any other service offered, everything rides on a different frequency.

Duncan H report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Where the speed comes from

Apr 03, 2008 19:23     

Adam, Cable systems have up to 150 channels (6Mhz spacing). Each channel can carry 38Mbps to you (QAM256 modulation). HDTV is 19Mbps. The higher Internet speeds come from bonding/aggregating channels together. So theoretically, the coax cable coming to your house can carry roughly 295 HDTV channels (without squeezing bitrates) with 100Mbps Internet downloads.
anon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Unless you are feeding a bunch of computers at home...

Apr 03, 2008 19:41     

Unless you are feeding a bunch of computers at home or streaming multiple video streams to different media extenders this bandwidth goes to waste for a single user. The fast download for an HD movie is bull. You may be able to pull in that many bytes but just try to find a movie server that can send it to you that fast. If you load up that bandwidth it better be for stuff that just streams and falls on the floor when it's done. Otherwise you will be filling up a hard disk with content every couple of hours unless you have a real big disk or a disk farm at your location. Also compared to prices overseas for similar bandwidth , this is the usual bend over and spread them we get here in the US of A from the main bandwidth provider.

Watcherman report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@Scott

Apr 03, 2008 19:56     

The deal in the speed guarantee is that FIOS or any DSL type connection is (to abuse the terms probably) a star network and cable is a ring network. So, with cable, you're basically sharing capacity. They throttle individual users below full speed (i.e. you can't buy the actual max speed) so one person can't hog it all and to give you some idea on how much you can get, but the more people pile in, the more you can suffer. With DSL type technologies, the number of people in your area with the same service does not affect your speed. Anyway, that's my understanding of it.

Jim L report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

so that is what killed my vid card 1000 miles away...

Apr 03, 2008 20:11     

so that is what killed my vid card 1000 miles away...
anon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Fiber to the home in Sacraemento, CA

Apr 03, 2008 20:53     

There is a company SureWest Broadband that does fiber to to the home in Sacramento, CA. They have been offering 50 mbps for a year or more now. Will Comcast be able to sustain those speeds when more than two people on the block have it? Cable is showing it's age. Fiber to the home is where it's at and companies like Verizon and SureWest are ahead of the pack.
Sacramento report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Not if it's a torrent!

Apr 03, 2008 21:08     

See title.
Henrik report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

richmond is $60 for 30mb, dunno what scott on

Apr 03, 2008 23:12     

I have fios in Richmond, va with 30mb/5mb for $60 per month. It is fast with low latency and the prices were lower than Northern VA here for a while due to local government agreements. $350 is simply wrong, even for business accounts that is too high. Comcast is the same price but can barely muster 8mb/768k and is far less reliable in this area. I had more outages in one month with comcast at any location i have lived or worked at in richmond than an entire year with fios.

james report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Quota

Apr 04, 2008 00:10     

Would love to see the quota on that plan. I'd laugh my ass off if the quota was something like 2 gig.
ChOOkiE report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

no use for speed

Apr 04, 2008 00:58     

The speed could be high enough to download HD movie, but comcast is going to kill your accout if you download too much. so either way, you paid more and still can get cut.
andy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Very expensive and not so fast ...

Apr 04, 2008 04:42     

I have 100 Mb straight Ethernet connection to my home at 32 € (= 51 $) per month. Straight means I have a RJ-45 plug in my closet, and 2 to 4 RJ-45 plugs in all rooms. Everything was ready installed when I moved in two years ago. No up or download limits. I will be able to upgrade it to 1 Gigabyte connection in couple years.
Twice the speed report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@Twice the speed

Apr 04, 2008 08:02     

Who provides that service? The housing complex? You must be getting destroyed with HOA fees then, and you are probably sharing that with the rest of the neighborhood - i.e. wherever it's being routed from, so I would highly doubt you are getting 100 mbps
Nick B. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

I guess service where I live just sucks

Apr 04, 2008 08:10     

I have the 15 mbps with Road Runner in Cincy (of course they advertise 15 MB/s which is completely different) and my roommate and I seem to average between 300-400k for our downloads. Sure we can try and fire up multiple download streams, but they start gradually slowing the other downloads down to 100-200k, leaving us topping out at about 600-700k for each of our two systems, and that is only just briefly. Our ping rates are also horrible so I have to call my brother and have him host StarCraft games because we can't from our RR connection point. He also has RR but is closer to the city, and I guess a main server.

Nick B. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@ Twice The Speed

Apr 04, 2008 08:27     

What the hell does your home network have to do with Internet speeds? Believe me their is not a "straight Ethernet" connection coming off the pole to your house. Your home network being 100Mbps has nothing to do with your internet speed, which I doubt is 100Mbps, even if you have a fiber line.
crawlgsx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Teach them some math, please...

Apr 04, 2008 08:56     

50mbps = 6,25mBps x 60 sec = 375 mB/minute 10 minutes of full speed would mean ~= 3,6 gb Thats not even a single layer DVD... IF it has any kind of quota, its useless for most of people. Based on the the 375 mB/min, if you use it full speed, 1 hour a day everyday, that would be (375*60*30) ~= 675 GIGAS, well if you know any service that has a quota and it is this high.. let me know...
Rafael Fernandes report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

purches of instruments

Apr 04, 2008 09:45     

sir This is Sunil Thakur from HimachalPradesh(India).I am going to start a musical tv channel.That is why i need all information regarding Instruments which is the suitable for beter telecast. Thanking You Sunil Thakur Phone:-09318605000(INDIA)
sunil thakur report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

@ Nick B

Apr 04, 2008 09:56     

Take a look at the comment properly Mate. The currency is Euros => ie. Europe. Americans appear to love to pay a bunch for inferior products and services that the rest of the world will not tolerate. But, based on your general interest in selecting your elected officials it is clear why groups such as the RIAA and MPAA can so easily throttle technology in this great "land of the free, home of the brave".

Chris report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

In Canada

Apr 04, 2008 14:22     

In Canadian cities you can get 6 mb lines for $45 a month! woo.. go telus. I tell you what, if I could pay $150/mo for a 50 mb line .. sign me up.
wmcgritt report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Twice the speed - really ...

Apr 04, 2008 14:36     

Actually my home network is a gigabit network. But for the Internet connection. I have a 100 Mb Ethernet connection, not shared with neighbourhood to a Cisco switch, which is connected to service provider by Gigabit fiber. According to Speedtest.net my internet connection speed is, depending on time of date etc. between 85.000 kb/s and 87.000 kb/s, which is quite close to what you actually get from 100 Mb speed. Sorry, but is reality in Europe.

Twice the speed report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

in Romania

Apr 04, 2008 15:24     

I had spend several summers in states (NY area '05, '06, '07 and maybe '08) and I was disappointed about the network there, comcast was the ISP, they are behind the rest of western countries. (still using copper cables?) Here in Romania for $15 you have all in one package (TV, Phone - land and mobile 3G, and Fiberlink - internet). RDS is the ISP (RomaniaDataSystems) About Fiberlink the name says everything: the entire network it's comprised by fiber optic cables that means low really low latencies and huge bandwidth. There are no limitation what so ever, you get 50 Mb/s that's 6MB/s of data transfer. And they are going next year for the gigabit transfer. here is a link for those who want to see http://www.rdslink.ro/fiber/fiber_abonamente.htm I'm sorry for you guys, but that's the situation there, money first and people second.

Meio report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

no point of 50 mbps

Apr 04, 2008 17:30     

firstly, if there is a quota, why do you need the speed if it blows the quota in the first day? also, what to do with all the HD content that fills up your HD? blue ray burners aren't exactly cheap! I have unlimited 4 mbps and I don't even know what to download anymore, it's too fast and I can't keep up with burning to dvd's (no, I don't sit all day and burn dvd's)
sandman report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Quotas and bandwidth.

Apr 05, 2008 18:10     

High bandwidth is cool even with a quota. When you download malware on Bittorrent (Bottorrent?) you can spend your quota faster while sending out Viagra spam.
Ralf the Dog report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

US internet

Apr 06, 2008 13:16     

The US is way way behind the ROW in terms of internet connection speed (Thanks ATT, Verizon). If the telcos ever start laying fiber and opening up there back bones maybe we will catch up. It's sad when some 3rd world countries have faster connections for 10x less they what we pay here in the states.
marko report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

@Twice the speed

Apr 06, 2008 15:27     

Ok fine, but it's still not a "straight ethernet" connection, it's a Fiber optic connection. If you don't want to confuse people, you have to use the correct terms. There is no such thing as an Ethernet connection to the internet.
anonymous report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2