In a bid to compete with Verizon’s FIOS service, Comcast has just announced that it will begin the roll out of their DOCSIS 3.0 network starting with residential homes and businesses in parts of New England, including the Boston Metropolitan region and Southern New Hampshire. Also included in the roll out are areas of Philadelphia, New Jersey, and the Twin Cities where the wide-band service was launched earlier this year. Hey New Englanders, stop crying about the Bosox and go check your modem logs as it has reportedly gone live in some locations! Comcast has also introduced two new speed tiers for their high-speed service and doubled the speeds for current customers at no extra charge. The speeds and pricing of Comcast’s residential plans are now as follows:

• Extreme 50 : offering up to 50 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 10 Mbps of upstream speed at $139.95/month. (new)
• Ultra : offering up to 22 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 5 Mbps of upstream speed at $62.95/month. (new)
• Performance Plus : offering download speeds to up to 16 Mbps and up to 2 Mbps of upload speed at $52.95/month. (existing plan that was upgraded)
• Performance : offering download speeds to up to 12 Mbps and up to 2 Mbps of upload speed at $42.95/month. (existing plan that was upgraded)

Businesses will be eligible for similar wide-band plans (Deluxe 50/10 Mbps for $189.95/month and 22/5 Mbps for $99.95/month) and complimentary speed increases on existing plans as well. Comcast expects to expand the service to 10 major markets and nearly 10 million homes and businesses over the next several months. With faster speeds now available, we wonder what will happen to Comcast’s 250GB bandwidth cap and new network throttling plan. The press release says “With Extreme 50, Comcast customers, for example, will be able to download a high-def movie (6 GB) in about 16 minutes”. Hmm, one HD movie a day for month will use up about 180GB of the 250GB allotment. What about the online games, web browsing, you tube video watching, etc that also uses up some of the precious 250GB? Looks like there may be a lot more customers pushing that 250GB limit. Special honors will go to the first BGR reader to get an overlimit warning from Comcast. We’re rooting for you!

[via DSL Reports]

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