One wonders how such a thing would be useful to the average home user, but Engadget reports that Comcast may be preparing to offer cable speeds up to 105Mbps downstream 10Mbps upstream. According to information posted on a customer's recent bill, the service will be called Extreme 105, and will require the customer to purchase a special modem, the Arris WBM760, which, including installation, will cost you $249.00. The service itself will cost $199.95 per month, and will start June 1st. According to the Arris modem's product flyer, the device is specifically designed to compete with the residential VDSL and Fiber markets with the capability of providing up to 160Mbps download speeds.
Image courtesy of Engadget
The previous record holder for the fastest widely available cable service was Cablevision, at 101Mbps. It's possible that this is a move by Comcast against the risk of Verizon possibly doubling their FiOS speeds to 100Mbps, according to Electronista. However, even with this record-breaking residential-tier speed, residential Comcast customers are currently hobbled by a 250GB data cap. There has been no word about Comcast lifting this cap for future Extreme 105 customers, but it's pretty clear that properly utilizing a 105Mpbs connection would cause you to hit that cap pretty quickly.
Another threat that Comcast may be worrying about is Google's promised gigabit fiber per network. As of now, they are going through government and citizen submissions for service to try and pinpoint the ideal markets to start their trial. Their vision is a national gigabit broadband network, competitively prices, and universally available. If they can make this viable, it will be a huge hit to ISPs everywhere, and this sudden speed ramp-up by Comcast may be a preliminary round of damage control on the chance that Google's ISP actually comes to fruition.
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