Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is increasing its Internet speeds with the introduction of a new Performance Pro speed tier of 75 Mbps and Blast! Pro speed tier of 150 Mbps. Customers who subscribe to several other Xfinity bundles will now receive either Performance Pro, increasing their downstream speeds from 50 Mbps to 75 Mbps, or Blast! Pro, increasing their speeds from 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps.
The MSO is increasing speeds in Arizona, Colorado, Houston, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
For those subscribing to eligible bundles, the new Performance Pro speed or Blast! Pro speed tiers will be available by the end of October. They are available to customers in Houston and Washington effective October 9.
To get the new speeds, customers need to restart their modems. Comcast will also notify customers who may need to upgrade their modems to be able to receive the increased speeds. Eligible customers who lease modems from Comcast will be able to receive upgraded modems at no additional charge. A list of approved modems can be found online at http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/.
Editor's note: As of noon Denver time on Oct. 9, my Comcast web speeds had not changed significantly. I checked my initial speeds first at www.speedtest.net and got 26 ms ping time, 59.67 Mbps downstream, 6.16 up. I then rebooted the modem (a DOCSIS 3.0 ARRIS TG862G provided by Comcast, and which is supposed to support the new speeds) and checked again: 32 ms ping, 59.56 Mbps down, 6.03 up. So apparently either my Xfinity Internet package isn't part of the upgrade or it just hasn't gone live in my neighborhood yet. - Ron Hendrickson
