Comcast launched its "extreme high-speed" Internet tier Thursday in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, including Hudson, Wis.
The company plans for DOCSIS 3.0 and the accompanying 50 Mbps tier to be available to 20 percent of its customers by the end of 2008. It should be available nationwide by the middle of 2010, the company said.
While the maximum download speed is 50 Mbps, uploads are capped at 5 Mbps.
The service costs $149.95 per month for residential subscribers and $199.95 per month for businesses.
The tier below the 50 Mbps service offers video customers downloading at 8 Mbps and uploading at 2 Mbps for $52.95 per month.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said the prices are "competitive" and comparable to what Verizon charges for similar speeds on its FiOS network.
"This announcement marks the beginning of the evolution from broadband to ‘wideband,'" said Mitch Bowling, Comcast's senior vice president for high-speed Internet. "We believe wideband will usher in a new era of speed and Internet innovation for today's digital consumers. Wideband is the future, and it's coming fast."
Douglas said Comcast plans to increase its top speed to at least 100 Mbps in the next couple of years.
DOCSIS 3.0 is theoretically capable of 160 Mbps.
Comcast's Twin Cities subscribers who don't sign up for 50 Mbps service also will see speed increases.
Those on the lowest tier - 6 Mbps for downloading and 384 Kbps for uploading - will have their upload speed bumped up to 1 Mbps. "Performance Plus" customers with 8 Mbps downloading and 1 Mbps uploading will have their upload speed doubled to 2 Mbps.
Douglas told ARS Technica that Comcast chose to introduce the service in the Twin Cities because "they have done an excellent job, operationally, on other rollouts we have done."
The Twin Cities area is served by Qwest and has no super-fast broadband competition.
