see article source here http://www.freep.com/money/tech/comcast13e_20050713.htm
MIKE WENDLAND: Comcast boosting Internet speeds
Some users will get upgrade free
July 13, 2005
BY MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
First they hooked us on all the things we could do online, like play games, download music and zip through Web sites like we were flipping pages in a magazine.
Now, to fuel our ever-increasing need for speed, Comcast said Tuesday we can have more -- lots more.
For some users, it will come at no extra cost.
You don't even have to do anything to get it. Like turning a spigot, Comcast will automatically make the Internet pipe it has into your home bigger sometime within the next 10 days.
Right now, most subscribers get download speeds of 4 megabits per second (mbps) as part of Comcast's normal $42.95-a-month Internet package if they also subscribe to cable television. Their Internet speed will soon be upgraded to 6mbps at no additional cost as the new standard.
Still not fast enough for all the digital music and games you want? There's more: Comcast announced plans to offer customers in Michigan download speeds up to 8mbps per second -- twice the speed of today's standard connections -- by July 20. Comcast customers elsewhere in the country will get it by the end of the summer.
How fast is 8mbps?
The 3-minute-long digital song that takes 9 seconds to download now at 4mbps will be done in 6 seconds at 8mbps. A movie that now takes 16 minutes at 4mbps will take only 10 minutes at the high-end speed.
That 8mbps speed will cost a bit more, depending on what else you buy from Comcast. If you also have cable, you can get the 8mbps speed for an additional $10 a month. Without a cable TV package, the faster service is $20 a month more.
But keep the price in context: Barely a year ago, Comcast charged $95 a month for a special connection called Comcast Pro that was nearly two-thirds slower than this.
"Speed is going up very fast and prices are holding steady," said Jerome Espy, Comcast's Michigan spokesman. "The network is expanding, and residential customers now will have speeds that even business users wouldn't have thought possible a year ago."
Those higher speeds will be most noticed by those who play online games, download music or watch streaming video from entertainment and news sites.
It's the third time in less than two years that Comcast has increased Internet access speeds for its 7.4 million subscribers across the country.
Comcast has 1.4 million cable subscribers in Michigan. It refuses to say how many are also broadband customers.
For those who don't have Comcast cable and currently pay $57.95 a month for broadband Internet, the automatic speed bump to 6mbps will raise their monthly bill by $10.
There also will be fast speeds for uploading, or sending, data.
Now, the standard upload speed is 384 kilobits per second (kbps). That means it takes about 15 seconds to send an average-quality digital picture. At the 8mbps download speed, the upload speed will be 768kbps, and it will take 9 seconds to transmit the picture.
Why the upgrades?
First, there's been a fierce price war with the rival Digital Subscriber Line broadband service offered by landline telephone companies like SBC.
In an effort to woo away cable subscribers or dial-up users, SBC and other DSL providers have offered service for as little as $14.95 a month for a year for new users.
Although cable companies like Comcast have engaged in aggressive price-cutting, the cable approach generally has been to offer customers speeds that DSL can't touch.
In theory, the maximum speeds that can be reached by DSL are about a third of what cable can reach.
The basic DSL speed offered by SBC is 1.5mbps. In terms of today's broadband standards, that's turtlelike.
A 3mbps DSL package is available for $24.95. But with the changes announced Tuesday, even 3mbps is way less than cable. With the new increase to a 6mbps entry level, Comcast is crowing about being "twice as fast as DSL."
That's not the only competitive urge behind the upgrades. Just over the horizon is a huge push by Comcast and other cable providers to steal telephone business away from traditional phone companies like SBC.
Comcast is reportedly only months away from a major marketing push for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone service, which uses the same cable that brings television and Internet into your home to deliver two-way telephone connections.
In making Tuesday's announcement about the speed increases, Comcast took great pains to note that it has "built a network that has virtually unlimited capacity to deliver higher speeds."
That's codespeak to the DSL industry: The gloves are coming off as speeds are going up
