What economic setback? Comcast wants to take advantage of any pullbacks by the telcos to increase its share of the broadband market.
Comcast, the largest US cableco, this week said it’s ramping up its schedule to deploy super high-speed DOCSIS 3.0 broadband services. It will double the speeds of existing plans and add two new tiers: 22 Mbps down and 50 Mbps down.
It expects to have the service available to 10 million homes by year-end. All Comcast subscribers will be able to get the higher speeds by the end of 2009, the company said.
Already available in Minneapolis/St Paul, the company is deploying the service next in Boston, Philadelphia, New Hampshire and New Jersey, all areas where Verizon offers its FiOS fiber to the home service. The next six areas will be announced in the next few months, according to Mitch Bowling, Comcast senior VP and general manager of online services.
Comcast wants to accelerate the momentum it’s had in broadband this year. In the second quarter the cablecos got 80% of new broadband subscribers.
AT&T this week said its third-quarter net broadband adds were 149,000, substantially down from the almost 500,000 in the same quarter of 2007.
Comcast is getting ready to fulfill its promise of upgrading 20% of its network to DOCSIS 3.0 by year-end and 100% of its markets by the end of 2010. Its initial market for DOCSIS 3.0 has been Minneapolis/St Paul.
Comcast is expected to announce two new DOCSIS 3.0 plans plus an increase in the speeds of its existing plans at no additional charge.
The lineup will reportedly look like this: The existing $42.95 Performance plan will increase from 6 Mbps/1 Mbps to 12 Mbps/2 Mbps; the existing $52.95 Performance Plus plan will increase from 8 Mbps/2 Mbps to 16 Mbps/2 Mbps; a new $62.95 Ultra plan offers 22 Mbps/5 Mbps; an a new Extreme 50 plan has 50 Mbps/10 Mbps for $139.95.
It’s expected that Comcast will vary pricing by market based on whether Verizon or AT&T are offering their faster broadband in that market as Comcast is already doing. DOCSIS 3.0 service requires a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, which will go for $3 a month. The existing $24.95 Economy plan will continue to be available. It has 0.768 Mbps/0.384 Mbps.
Comcast is expected to deploy a new Web site that’ll tell consumers when DOCSIS 3.0 will be available in their area. They can sign up for e-mail notification.