Comcast to offer 100 Mbps service to businesses
Comcast announced Tuesday it will offer 100 Mbps broadband service to businesses in the Twin Cities as the company increases speeds on its network as a result of network upgrades.
The company is offering the service over its newly upgraded Docsis 3.0 network. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul region was selected as the first area to get the service because it is one of the most mature Docsis 3.0 deployments that Comcast currently serves.
Comcast hasn't provided a schedule for when the service will be expanded. But a spokesman said the company will eventually introduce it in all its markets that have been upgraded to Docsis 3.0. These markets include Boston and parts of Southern New Hampshire, parts of Hartford, Philadelphia and surrounding areas, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, large parts of New Jersey, parts of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Ft. Wayne, Chattanooga, Portland, Seattle, City of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Comcast's goal is to reach 80 percent of its national footprint this year with the faster Docsis 3.0 technology. Currently, it covers about 65 percent of its footprint. By the end of the year, if Comcast reaches it goal, its faster broadband service will be available in more than 40 million homes and businesses.
Comcast already offers 50 Mbps service to businesses and residential customers in these markets today. But now the company is stepping up its efforts with the 100 Mbps service.
Comcast's rival Verizon Communications doesn't yet offer 100 Mbps service for any of its customers. The fastest service available from the company's all-fiber Fios network is 50 Mbps. Verizon's all fiber network is capable of delivering 100 Mbps speeds, but the company says it hasn't seen a big demand for it from either residential customers or business customers.
"We offer 50 Mbps in every market we serve," said Bobbi Henson, a spokeswoman for Verizon. "We haven't seen a tremendous amount of demand for 100Mbps service."
But Comcast's Kevin O'Toole says there is demand from small businesses. He said that businesses, such as those in healthcare or real estate, which send large files are in the most need of more bandwidth. What's more, Comcast offers several other services along with the broadband service to make the service more valuable to business customers.
For $369.95 per month these businesses get access to Microsoft services, such as Microsoft Exchange email, which provides shared corporate calendar and address functionality, and Microsoft Sharepoint, which allows businesses to have their own intranet. Comcast also will offer these 100 Mbps customers hardware firewall protection and 25 seats of McAfee security. It also offers free web hosting and domain support.
Comcast isn't competing against Verizon's Fios service with this 100 Mbps service. It is actually competing with Verizon's and other phone companies' T1 data services. This is the kind of service that most larger businesses subscribe to from a telephone provider. Not only are T1 services expensive, in some places costing close to $1,000 a month, but T1 lines are also slow, only providing downloads of 1.5 Mbps.
Comcast believes that small businesses with fewer than 20 employees is an underserved market. And in 2006 it started its business service unit. The strategy of going after these small businesses has paid off. And iIn the second quarter of 2009, the company reported that the business services unit grew revenue by 51 percent compared to the second quarter of 2008.
This is an underserved market that really needs the speed of 100 Mbps service," O'Toole said. "Plus we offer them a great value when you look at the entire package."
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
Not at your prices.
Japan has 160Mbps service at 6,000 yen per month (approx. US$65). The Netherlands has 120Mbps service at 80 euros per month (approx. US$116).
Your comparison is utterly irrelevant. It's like saying there's no demand for Amtrak's Acela train service in the U.S. because tickets for Maglev trains in Europe are half the price.
The fact of the matter is that you have a whole lot of subsidies and economies of scale at work. Those blazing speeds are available, but only if you're living in in a high rise in some mega-urban center, because that's where you have enough people stacked on top of each other to make it worthwhile.
And even then, while your bill may show an acceptable dollar amount per month, if you actually work for a living you're covering the rest of your costs with the 50 or 60% of your paycheck that gets forfeited to the half dozen layers of government on your back.
You can artificially force a price down, but the costs still exist.
It would be nice to have fast trains, but they too are expensive due to the size of the country. Most people are accustomed to driving or flying to distant points.
Sure, the US has the 'ability' and 'technology' to do it, but won't because of the stranglehold these companies have on the market. It is nice Comcast is offering descent speeds, and admit they are ahead of the pack in general. But, they are way too much $ compared to other countries. The worst part is that we (the taxpayers) have paid the telcos lots of money to get faster broadband and cheaper rates. They simply haven't delivered, and instead have invested in capping and limiting technologies in hopes of forcing customers to pay even more or trap them into using their add-on services. Now the government is offering them more taxpayer money to attempt to move towards what we paid them for years ago. It is incredibly sad.
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
And we're talking about average speeds. Remember that Europe and Japan has much higher deployment of Docsis 3.0 than here in the U.S. (where deployment is just starting as mentioned in the above article).
It's basically the same thing with cellular networks. Japan, Hong Kong and a few markets already have 28.8Mbps HSDPA networks in service. Basically all of Asia and Europe run 14.4Mbps or 7.2Mbps HSDPA networks in service.
The United States is about 3-5 years behind those countries in terms of broadband connectivity as well as cellular networks.
I would charge a one-time fee of $1250 to remove 25 seats of McAfee security and install an effective security suite (but it is the customer's responsibility to buy licenses). Having ineffective security software installed is worse than none at all, because the user who knows he is not protected will be more careful than the user who thinks he is, but isn't.
I have to echo the comment by cvaldes1831 also; I have 20 Mbps FiOS, and there's no way I can justify the outrageous expense of 50 Mbps, much less anything faster.
Lastly, I would point out that Comcast does NOT offer 100 Mbps service; they offer "up to 100 Mbps" service, with no guarantee that you'll even get dial-up speeds of 14.4k. That's why I am no longer with Comcast; their advertised speeds were ALWAYS at least 40% higher than the speeds they delivered, and when we had a total outage for a week without being credited for downtime, I told them where to stick their cable modem.
My company has had Comcast for 3 years, and we've never had a bit of trouble with their service.
I left comcast 1 month ago and OMG! I should have doen this a log time ago.
I no longer have lag. I love fios!
- by redmarine September 17, 2009 3:17 PM PDT
- Meh, In my country pretty much everyone is able to have broadband and I seriously mean it. Seems like Europe and Asia is the place to be during this revolution.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(20 Comments)What I don't get is that the prices of broadband can't be lowered because of some crazy anti-competitive regulations in our country meaning that we're stuck with the $30-40 price tag. Kinda annoying.