St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 25, 2013
Comcast is doubling the download speeds of some of its most popular Internet broadband services in the Twin Cities, the cable giant said Monday, March 25.
The faster speeds for its three most popular residential service tiers — Performance, Blast and Extreme 50 — became effective at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, March 26, and the increases won’t cost more, officials for the nation’s largest cable provider said.
However, to get the new speeds, customers will have to “power cycle” their broadband modems — meaning they must turn off the power to the device for 30 to 60 seconds before turning it back on, Comcast spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert said.
The faster speeds are part of a national campaign that Philadelphia-based Comcast has been introducing in select markets for several weeks, said David Tashjian, Comcast vice president of sales and marketing.
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Christopher Mitchell, an expert on telecom issues for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, said people generally want less expensive high-speed Internet, not faster.
But once they get a taste of the new Comcast services, they might change their minds, he said.
“There’s a saying: ‘The slowest connection you’ll ever accept is the fastest connection you’ve ever had,’ ” he said.
He credits Comcast for moving faster than other cable companies in adopting new broadband technologies that have sped up its services.
Mitchell, who is making a presentation before the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday, said he also believes Comcast is making this move in response to new competitors such as Google and old foes such as Verizon and AT&T, which have laid fiber optic cable with potential data speeds several times faster than Comcast’s fastest service to date.
