Comcast said today that it has completed the rollout of its DOCSIS 3.0 wideband service in Massachusetts with the addition of more communities in the western part of the state.
Comcast’s two wideband tiers are now available to residential homes and businesses in the western Massachusetts communities of Bernardston, Erving, Gill, Greenfield, Hardwick, Monson, Montague, Northfield, Palmer, Ware and Warren . With these launches, the company now offers wideband in all 238 communities it serves across the Commonwealth.
"Wideband utilizes our existing advanced fiber-optic network in neighborhoods across our footprint to dramatically enhance our customers' online experience," said Doug Guthrie, senior vice president of Comcast's Western New England Region, which includes western Massachusetts. "This new service will enable us to continue to offer our customers even faster speeds and an entirely new realm of Internet innovation."
Comcast’s DOCSIS 3.0 tiers are Extreme 50 and Ultra. Extreme features download speeds of up to 50 Mbps and upstream speeds of 10 Mbps for $99.95 per month with a subscription to Comcast’s video or voice services. Ultra has a downstream speed of 22 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up at a cost of $62.95 per month when paired with the company’s video or voice offerings.
Comcast also increased the speeds for its existing Performance tier residential customers, who will now benefit from doubled downstream and upstream speeds offering up to 12 Mbps and 2 Mbps, respectively.
Business customers will also have access to the new wideband services. Customers can sign up for the Deluxe 50 Mbps/10 Mbps tier for $189.95 per month, while the Premium tier has speeds of 22 Mbps/5 Mbps for $99.95. Existing business customers also will receive speed increases, with speeds on the Starter tier doubled to up to 12 Mbps/2 Mbps.
Comcast’s stated goal was to have wideband deployed across 80 percent of its footprint; as of September, the faster tiers were in 65 percent of its footprint, which represent roughly 33 million homes and businesses.