Comcast in San Mateo business broadband partnership

The San Mateo Chamber of Commerce and Comcast have partnered to provide high-speed broadband services to businesses in the downtown area. The services become available after Comcast and the city worked together to upgrade the broadband network in San Mateo's downtown underground utility district.

Comcast plans to offer business-class services over the upgraded network, which includes a fiber-optic backbone. The services range from up to 100 Mbps downstream and up to 10 Mbps upstream, as well as up to 10 Gbps for high-end requirements.

The "Digital Downtown" project is an outgrowth of a Chamber of Commerce project called The EDGE, which is designed to identify and remove obstacles to economic growth in San Mateo. EDGE leaders approached several broadband providers late in 2010 to investigate how higher-speed broadband could be brought to downtown. Comcast says it was the only provider to offer to make a major capital investment to achieve The EDGE's goal.

"I am very proud of the efforts by a group of passionate individuals that made this happen," said Linda Asbury, president, San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce. "The EDGE, the Chamber, Comcast and the City worked seamlessly together to make downtown San Mateo a vibrant hub for business."

"Comcast's investment, the EDGE and Chamber of Commerce's ideas, and the cooperation of the City of San Mateo will continue to make downtown San Mateo even more attractive to businesses of all types," said Brandt Grotte, Mayor of San Mateo. "We are honored and proud to partner in this public/private/non-profit manner, and know that our local workplaces, not to mention the citizens of San Mateo, will all benefit from the increased data density and content richness available through these new services from Comcast."

"Comcast is ecstatic to bring our best-in-class products and services to this exciting and rapidly growing part of the City of San Mateo," said Mark O'Leary, vice president of Comcast's Business Services division in Northern California. "The San Mateo Chamber, The EDGE and the City of San Mateo were terrific partners in this complex endeavor, and its successful completion is a victory for every party involved – especially local businesses."