Comcast puts the pedal to 100 Mbps metal in Minneapolis

Taking a page from its 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 rollout playbook, Comcast is targeting Minneapolis with a 100 Mbps Internet service. Initially targeted at businesses, Minneapolis was the first market where Comcast debuted its DOCSIS 3.0-based 50 Mbps service last year. Priced at $369.95 per month, the new service will provide business users with 100 Mbps download speeds and 15 Mbps upload speeds. The MSO's 50 Mbps offering is priced at $190 a month. Like other cable MSOs, Comcast is targeting current telco T1 business customers that are looking for alternatives.  

Similar to its 50 Mbps offering, Comcast's 100 Mbps service is being bundled with Microsoft Communications services (Sharepoint and Outlook) and McAfee Security Suite software. Currently, Comcast offers its 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0-based service in various markets, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Philadelphia, New Jersey and San Francisco. The MSO says it is on track to convert 80 percent of its cable systems to DOCSIS 3.0 by the end the year and all of its cable systems by the end of 2010.

Although it would not offer a timeline on when it will offer the 100 Mbps service in other territories, a Comcast spokesperson said in a Cable Digital News article that it will roll out the service "market-by-market, just as we did with Extreme 50."

Comcast is obviously not alone, nor the first cable MSO, to offer a 100 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0-based service. That feat was already achieved by Cablevision and Canada's Shaw, which both launched a 100 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 service earlier this year. Outside of the U.S., Virgin Media is trialing a 200 Mbps download speed DOCSIS 3.0 offering.

For more:
- see the release here
- Light Reading has this analysis

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