How Fast is Your Comcast Internet Today?

In advance of Gigabit Squared’s Seattle broadband lighting up its fiber optic connections this fall, Comcast has hit hyperspeed on its residential broadband in Washington State (and selected locations nationally), announcing that it’s doubling the download speed of two its plans, while supercharging a third. The catch? It’s not what you think. The prices remain the same, except for the Extreme 105 class, which will see a discount. (Savor that moment.)

But you do have to reboot (or powercycle) your modem, and if you’ve had it for awhile, check that it’s new enough to run the faster speeds. You need a DOCSIS 3.0 modem to get the big zoom. Powercycling is, of course, just unplugging the modem for a minute and plugging it back in. Here are the new speeds, according to the Comcast release:

• The Blast! plan is increasing download speeds from up to 25 Mbps to speeds up to 50 Mbps and upload speeds from up to 4 Mbps to up to 10 Mbps
• Extreme 50 customers will receive download speeds up to 105 Mbps (formerly 50 Mbps) and upload speeds up to 20 Mbps (formerly 15 Mbps).
• The Performance plan is increasing to speeds up to 20 Mbps from 15 Mbps downstream and to 4 Mbps from 2 Mbps upstream.

A Comcast spokesperson tells us that Comcast Business Class customers will have to wait for a similar speed-up, despite running on the same network that the “residential class” uses. (Still the “weaker link.”) In fairness, The SunBreak HQ’s Business Class connection delivers speeds in excess of the promised 16/3 Mbps (even on a DOCSIS 2.0 modem). We currently see download speeds of 20-to-23 Mbps, and uploads in the 6-to-7 Mbps range on our Starter plan. It’s just that we’re paying $70 per month for that “business class” touch, as opposed to the $45 residential fee for now-similar speeds.