Comcast now has the largest gigabit network but it does not come cheap

[Greg S]

Why it matters: Despite the lack of consumer choice in many areas when shopping for internet services, Comcast has actually made significant improvements to their gigabit offerings over the past several months. More consumers are gaining access to true high speed internet.

Internet service providers are steadily improving networks available to home customers. Ookla's Speedtest service that has become the go to standard shows that the United States has finally broken 100Mbps average download speeds. Recently, Comcast also announced that it has completed the expansion of its Xfinity Gigabit Internet service.

Currently, Comcast operates in 39 states. Over the last two years, its network capacity has more than doubled. Now, more than 75 percent of Comcast customers have at least 100Mbps. Comcast claims that "nearly 58 million homes and businesses have access to gigabit internet service."

Fortunately, Comcast is exempting gigabit and two gigabit service plans from its lowly 1TB monthly data cap. On the more common 100Mbps plan, cord cutters that stream HD video regularly are at risk of being charged extra fees. For single users, this cap may not be a problem, but families can easily blow past this cap when multiple people are streaming.

For those that would actually consider an upgrade to gigabit with Comcast, promotional pricing starts at $89.99 per month before taxes and fees. After promotional pricing ends, expect to shell out $140 to $160 per month dependent on region. Two gigabit plans will run upwards of $299.99 per month at regular prices, essentially double the price of one gigabit.

As similar to all other internet service providers, there are no actual guarantees of reaching the advertised speeds. Once 5G services become more readily available, wireless options may also begin to ramp up competition against traditional providers that are completely dependent upon wired connections.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/77008-comcast-now-has-largest-gigabit-network-but-does.html

 

[ShagnWagn]

"promotional pricing starts at $89.99 per month before taxes and fees. After promotional pricing ends, expect to shell out $140 to $160 per month"

Sorry to be negative, but such is the scam of Concrust. They won't tell you the promotion has expired until AFTER a month on the next bill - in which they were charging their full ripoff price. I dropped them over a decade ago and never looked back.

Why are they charging OVER DOUBLE, capped even, of google fiber which is unlimited? Is google getting kickbacks to offer it that much cheaper (standard pricing - no promotion even), or is Concrust just giving it to customers without lube? Any articles out there?

 

[Nima304]

Upload speeds are only 35Mb/s, which makes this plan overpriced and absolutely useless.

 

[YudaHnK]

Murica!

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

"promotional pricing starts at $89.99 per month before taxes and fees. After promotional pricing ends, expect to shell out $140 to $160 per month"

Sorry to be negative, but such is the scam of Concrust. They won't tell you the promotion has expired until AFTER a month on the next bill - in which they were charging their full ripoff price. I dropped them over a decade ago and never looked back.

Why are they charging OVER DOUBLE, capped even, of google fiber which is unlimited? Is google getting kickbacks to offer it that much cheaper (standard pricing - no promotion even), or is Concrust just giving it to customers without lube? Any articles out there?

They're doing it because they can. G.Fiber is not in enough areas yet to be a threat...Yet. Whether the slowness of the rollout is because of kickbacks I don't know, but kinda doubt it. However, you never know with these providers. They all seem in cahoots with each other at times then at other times are taking each other to court, so who really knows. I have Comcast and it absolutely sucks, but it's virtually the only high-speed provider in this area. AT&T claims to provide high-speed, but it's a joke at up to 25Mbps for $50. HAHA Riiiiight. I currently pay $70 for 100-150 Mbps consistently. So despite having the absolute worst customer service on the planet, I have no choice but to go with Comcast, at least until I move or Google Fiber rolls out here.

 

[MasterMace]

Comcast's prices near Boston are $90 promo / $105 off promo for the "gigabit" service (960mbps - sometimes)

 

[sgtevmckay]

Ok. I am unconvinced. This seems like a Feel Good promo for a Comcast product that is vaguely identified/designed.
A Commercial like for cars; I am shown the hood, the radio, the interiors, a couple of safety features, and given the zero-to-sixty, but ultimately they sold me everything but the car.

Says here:
""Over the last two years, its network capacity has more than doubled.""
Ok, but from what? So they had one single processor server and now they have two single processor servers? Since it is not stated, I can not believe, once again, that Comcast has made any efforts at solid infrastructure upgrades.

Also stated:
""more than 75 percent of Comcast customers have at least 100Mbps. Comcast claims that "nearly 58 million homes and businesses have access to gigabit internet service."""
Is this Up and Down streams? (apparently not by the graphic shown)
Is this a cobined total of both up and download?
Can I run a small family owned and maintained server at these speeds...properly?
Why is this still slower than some of the offerings in other remote, "Third World" areas I have traveled to?
Since this offering is not in my area, a small town but still the Capital of this state, where is my availability? Oh...I must be in the 25% that will be lucky to get any kind of solid Infrastrucr=ture upgrade in the next decade!
This also brings us; Where's the map to show where and how available, and a timeline for additional upgrades to cover the rest of mere mortals?

Why is it still so damned expensive?
I have traveled to areas where the speed is similar and at about a third the cost!

I Have a ton more questions, but too many to list here.

Although I must ask if this is simply a copy and paste from a Comcast .pdf Flyer with some reporting privilege added?

Comcast is still behind the times, refuses to do any serious infrastructure upgrades broadly, refuses to offer fiber cable in "Remote Areas", overly regulates their Up Stream capabilities, and asks premium Dollar for sub-standard offerings, communications, and assistance.
Additionally and even more worrisome is that there is no System Redundancy in my area (STILL), so when the line gets cut or damaged within 300 square miles or in the hub from a neighboring state goes down, everyone, including state agencies go down.

so please, ya want to report the latest thing from Comcast? great! But report YOUR findings, do not simply copy and paste a Public announcement that seems to be in YOUR words. Ignore the Hype and get down to the Brass Tax.

Comcast could be great, they just refuse to be!

 

[Polycount]

"promotional pricing starts at $89.99 per month before taxes and fees. After promotional pricing ends, expect to shell out $140 to $160 per month"

Sorry to be negative, but such is the scam of Concrust. They won't tell you the promotion has expired until AFTER a month on the next bill - in which they were charging their full ripoff price. I dropped them over a decade ago and never looked back.

Why are they charging OVER DOUBLE, capped even, of google fiber which is unlimited? Is google getting kickbacks to offer it that much cheaper (standard pricing - no promotion even), or is Concrust just giving it to customers without lube? Any articles out there?

They're doing it because they can. G.Fiber is not in enough areas yet to be a threat...Yet. Whether the slowness of the rollout is because of kickbacks I don't know, but kinda doubt it. However, you never know with these providers. They all seem in cahoots with each other at times then at other times are taking each other to court, so who really knows. I have Comcast and it absolutely sucks, but it's virtually the only high-speed provider in this area. AT&T claims to provide high-speed, but it's a joke at up to 25Mbps for $50. HAHA Riiiiight. I currently pay $70 for 100-150 Mbps consistently. So despite having the absolute worst customer service on the planet, I have no choice but to go with Comcast, at least until I move or Google Fiber rolls out here.

Google Fiber is apparently available in my state, but not my area. So it's actually even less available than it implies on its Fiber map. Which really sucks, because it's super affordable and I'd kill (not really) to have access to unlimited Gigabit speeds.

The only alternative is overpriced stuff like what Comcast offers, sadly.

 

[Ted Ingersol]

5G will not be widely available until fiber cables can be run to the cell towers around the country. There are around 50,000 cell towers in Pennsylvania alone. So no, 5G will not be an option for quite some time.

 

[toooooot]

Data caps, these vultures think it is 2005 still. No sanenperson would agree to pay them given another option without data cap. But seriously, this ain't wireless, they already sucked huge amount of government *our* money to expand and improve. They shouldn't be allowed to have caps, greedy %$^#&$&$ sd%#&#&$&$ #&$&%*%*.

 

[sgtevmckay]

Google Fiber is apparently available in my state, but not my area. So it's actually even less available than it implies on its Fiber map. Which really sucks, because it's super affordable and I'd kill (not really) to have access to unlimited Gigabit speeds.

The only alternative is overpriced stuff like what Comcast offers, sadly.

What makes this worse is that Google's Fiber Line was just a con pulled by Google in order to get the current, long-standing, internet/communication companies to upgrade their Infrastructure.

Google took a gamble, and ya know what...it worked, Google got the majority of internet users Higher speeds, and they didn't pay as much for it as the big ISP's have.
The blowback is higher speeds at higher prices and still shoddy service at best.

Once The ISP's started vastly improving their speeds, Google stopped building additional infrastructure and apparently they have plans to continue.
Unless of course the ISP's drop the ball again.

I submit this following article for my current beliefs about Google's Fiber Line and why the future of it was discontinued:
https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-google-fiber-is-high-speed-internets-most-successful-failure

 

[Bill A]

AT&T is better, I pay $90 for fiber with no installation fee and no data cap.

 

[ShagnWagn]

I'm also thinking it's a scam that you can hit your cap in about one day and be forced to pay ridiculous overage charges for the entire rest of the month. I'm sure the millionaire bean counters are making the caps on purpose.