Comcast Kicks Off Nation's Largest Multi-Gig Network and WiFi Deployment, Will Begin Offering Symmetrical Multi-Gig Speeds in 2023

[TheLostSwede]

Comcast today announced it has begun a nationwide rollout of multi-gig Internet speeds - that will reach more than 50 million homes and businesses before the end of 2025 - making it the largest- and fastest-ever multi-gig deployment in the United States. New speeds will be paired with Comcast's multi-gig Wi-Fi experience, which delivers the industry's best combination of speed, coverage, and control, powered by one of the world's first Wi-Fi 6E Gateways.

As part of this initiative, Comcast is accelerating the transformation of its network to a virtualized cloud-based architecture that is fully prepared for 10G and DOCSIS 4.0. Comcast will begin offering 10G-enabled multi-gig symmetrical services in 2023.




Under this initiative Comcast is:

• Immediately rolling out download speeds up to 2 Gigs - combined with up to 5x-to-10x faster upload speeds - to millions of homes and businesses; available in 34 cities and towns before the end of 2022; more than 50 million homes and businesses by the end of 2025; and continuing throughout the entire network. Initial rollouts are already underway in Colorado Springs, CO; Augusta, GA; and Panama City Beach, FL, with more launched at a regular cadence through the end of the year
• For Xfinity customers: extending new multi-gigabit network speeds throughout the home with the multi-gig-capable Wi-Fi 6E Gateway, xFi connected home platform, and xFi Pod Wi-Fi extenders
• For Comcast Business customers: Delivering ultra-fast Wi-Fi speeds for businesses with a new multi-gig capable gateway
• Completing the core technical foundation for 10G, which will deliver multi-gig symmetrical speeds over the connections already installed in tens of millions of homes and businesses
• Finalizing transition to a cloud-based, virtualized network that enables faster speeds, greater reliability for customers, while also implementing a network architectural update that enables greater upload and download capacity
• Building multi-gig capabilities that can reach everyone connected to Comcast's network, not just select neighborhoods and customers, just as Comcast has done with previous network improvements
• Improving energy efficiency, helping Comcast become carbon neutral by 2035

"We're making our network even smarter and faster, which allows us to quickly deliver true multi-gig Wi-Fi to tens of millions of businesses and residential consumers at an unprecedented pace," said Charlie Herrin, President of Technology, Product, Experience at Comcast Cable. "Whatever the application, whatever the future holds, our network and world-class, whole-home Wi-Fi experience will be there and ready to power all of our customers' connected experiences."

In preparation for faster network speeds, earlier this year, Comcast launched its latest Wi-Fi 6E Gateway, one of the first in the world to support multi-gigabit symmetrical Wi-Fi. For business customers, Comcast Business also launched a new, ultra-advanced multi-gigabit gateway earlier this year.

Over the past several years, Comcast has been transitioning to digital network technology - powered by a virtualized platform - that delivers greater reliability and increased performance. With it, rather than maintaining, updating, and replacing traditional analog network appliances by hand - which can take days or even weeks - Comcast engineers can reliably maintain, troubleshoot, and upgrade core network components almost instantly, with a few keystrokes on a laptop or mobile app. This also makes the network much more energy efficient and is an important element of Comcast's plan to become carbon neutral by 2035.

Because Comcast is evolving its entire network architecture, equipment, and customer devices, it's uniquely positioned to deliver these advancements in speed, reliability, and performance to everyone it serves, not just a select few. And because much of this work is powered by software, these changes can be made with far less disruption to customers than other technologies.

Delivering Faster and More Reliable Internat at Lighting Speeds
In addition to the immediate performance boost, this work also accelerates the transition to DOCSIS 4.0 and 10G. Powered by DOCSIS 4.0, 10G will deliver multi-gig symmetrical speeds to tens of millions of people over the connections already installed in their homes and businesses, without the need to dig up yards and neighborhoods, or pick and choose who gets faster speeds and who doesn't. The technical updates included in the initiative announced today are a necessary precursor to Comcast's 10G deployment.

Thanks to this work, Comcast plans to start launching 10G-enabled multi-gig symmetrical speeds to customers in the second half of 2023. That work will happen on a parallel path with the introduction of the faster speeds launching now.

Over the past 24 months, Comcast has made significant advances in 10G technology, including several world firsts. The company has conducted successful tests of all the technical components necessary to deliver 10G speeds to customers and is now looking forward to beginning live trials.

"10G will deliver so much more than just speed," said Elad Nafshi, EVP & Chief Network Officer at Comcast Cable. "The digitization and virtualization work we are doing today is already enhancing our customers' connected experiences and delivering better performance."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Space Lynx]

I remember when my Dad asked me to call and cancel his Comcast for him, circa like 2016 or 2017 I think it was. I was on the phone on three different occassions for like 4 hours each time. Absolute insanity the run around they give you.

Never again Comcast, you will not get a second of my life ever again.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I remember when my Dad asked me to call and cancel his Comcast for him, circa like 2016 or 2017 I think it was. I was on the phone on three different occassions for like 4 hours each time. Absolute insanity the run around they give you.

Never again Comcast, you will not get a second of my life ever again.

I had to stop some TV streaming crap 4 or 5 years back through Comcast. I never used it and it was part of the "contract" price. Once the contract time was up, my cost was going to jump $50 a month. I called in and spoke to, thankfully, just one customer rep to get it canceled, but it was almost a 30 minute process.

Rep: Why do you want to cancel the TV streaming service?
Me: I don't use it, never have. I don't need it.
Rep: Okay. I understand. Give me a moment to update my notes..... We could get you on "such and such" deal and send you an XBox to use and it would be the same price you're paying now for just the internet service.
Me: No, I don't need the streaming service. I didn't use it before and I won't use it anytime in the future.
(while talking to the lady and refusing any offer she gives me I'm trying to think why the hell they'd be offering a Xbox......Xbox....? WTF? It took a few minutes and it finally dawned on me that she was talking about a Xfinity box for streaming, not the Xbox console)
Rep: Okay, no problem. I'll just update my notes here.......How about this deal for TV streaming? Get you that Xbox and it comes with faster internet, only an extra $10 a month?
Me: No, I don't want any TV service. I just want to be left with the internet service I have now.
Repeat this a handful of more times. I almost started cussing out the lady on the other end, but I took a deep breath and remembered that she's just doing her job - retain and if they can't, upsell. Thankfully right at this tipping point she finalized everything and officially removed the TV streaming.

I was entertaining the idea of moving to the gig and no datacap plan from Xfinity - but it's only possible to be on that service if you rent their equipment and pay a monthly rental fee. It would be an extra $50 months for the updated plan and equipment rental so I decided not to go with it. Then I tried to do just the $30 extra a month for no data cap, but that's not offered in my area (what the literal fuck? - I can't add a no datacap to my plan, but they do offer the gig service with no datacap if I pay to rent their equipment?)

 

[Anarkie]

Best recent moment was when a new fiber optic company came into my neighborhood. Pretty sure I was one of the first people signed up. I got to tired of Comcast and how overpriced and out of date they were.

I'm now paying about $40-50 less per month for symmetric gigabit speeds up from Comcast's 600mbps plan, and no looming threat of usage caps and extra charges. They have made no adjustments to their plans/pricing almost a year since. I doubt they'll ever compete anymore.

 

[bonehead123]

no looming threat of usage caps and extra charges

Well, these things (and/or higher prices) always come later, once the new company feels that they have secured enough customers to warrant the moves.....

I've seen it myself in 5 different states where I've lived, with the exact same situation happened with the exact same result ~2 yrs later...

perhaps instead of worrying about 10G/DOCSIS 4 etc etc, they should 1st concentrate on eliminating all the current dead zones that exist everywhere they operate....

yea right, like that will eva happen

 

[natr0n]

I pay 70 a month for comcast with a bandwidth cap of 1229GB. fkn bs

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I haven't had any real issues with xfinity love their cell phone service to pretty much verizon but a ton cheaper
But yeah I cut the t.v. service cord long ago and just get internet only, been working well for a while now

At&t is the freaking devil I'll never use them ever again.
Had to clear up billing charges every other month
xfinity not ever.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

I quite look forward to this. Cant wait to get my hands on 2GBps+ internet.

 

[Space Lynx]

I pay 70 a month for comcast with a bandwidth cap of 1229GB. fkn bs

There is a small fiber optic internet company where I live now, they aren't very big, but I pay 60 a month for unlimited data, 1 gig down and 500 up I think. Comcast is a monopoly in some areas though, must suck.

 

[TechLurker]

I wish I had more choice in my area; the offers aren't as bad as Comcast, but they're almost as bad. It's coming to the point that I'm almost ready to shift to Starlink, if not for their current lack of speed and slightly higher latency than the current ISP. And also the questionable quality of their Dishy 2.0, given that it's much harder to set up vs Dishy 1.0 given the proprietary cabling and modem box changes.

 

[openbox1980]

I remember when my Dad asked me to call and cancel his Comcast for him, circa like 2016 or 2017 I think it was. I was on the phone on three different occassions for like 4 hours each time. Absolute insanity the run around they give you.

Never again Comcast, you will not get a second of my life ever again.

Same thing with Cox cable in Vegas, I tried to cancel their shit, I was on the phone for 2hrs. I finally had enough and hung it, I canceled by debit card and turned in their equipment the next day in person, they told me I had to mail it back to them. Wasted an hour in line to be told that.
Today I use my phone for everything, including internet, I'll phone tether to the computer.

 

[Zareek]

Awesome 10Gb/s, just think, you can hit their 1.2 TB monthly data cap in only 16 minutes!

 

[defaultluser]

they're almost two decades too late (had fios available here in MD since 2006, and had since 2009 )

not going to switch back after the cluster that was calling Comcast every time the cable went out - which meant talking with multiple layers of tech support who don't communicate with each other, or calling retention yearly to get lower bills

Verizon completely revamped things with fios, I just have to call once every three years to get 100/100 for fifty a month, three year agreement) and then its months between outages

 

[mechtech]

I'm still waiting for a service with more than 10 Mbps upload :|

 

[thegnome]

I can already see them offering router/modem combo's with ethernet much too slow. Sort of like the "2.5 gigabait" router with a single (and useless) 2.5Gbe port, and no more. What's the point in advertising insane (and unrealistic) wifi speeds if you can't even use it over a proper network...

 

[R-T-B]

I'm still waiting for a service with more than 10 Mbps upload :|

Which this is supposed to be. Not defending shitty comcast or their "you are with us because you have no choice" business model, but DOCSIS was the main limiting factor on this until today.

Sort of like the "2.5 gigabait" router with a single (and useless) 2.5Gbe port, and no more.

It's called a switch. You'll be hard pressed to find more than one port without paying out the nose.

How on earth is one port with your complete line speed behind it "useless?"

Look, I know it's popular to hate comcast. As a victim of theirs for more than 2 decades though, I'd ask you to keep the hate rational. No provider is giving a NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK type router switch combo at the rental rate. Just reality.

How about how their modem/router units force their own DNS servers with no option to change?

Or how the fast speed tiers are only affordable with useless bundles?

Or how they make it unfriendly and niegh impossible to bring your own modem device?

How they are outright hostile and anticompetitive to competition on their turf and try to force consumers into using them for "lack of options?"

etc.

 

[mechtech]

Which this is supposed to be. Not defending shitty comcast or their "you are with us because you have no choice" business model, but DOCSIS was the main limiting factor on this until today.

Ya. Cable modem. 350 down. 10 up isp eastlink Canada

I think I’d rather have 150:150

 

[Steevo]

The reason for the speed difference is that unless you want to pay for business level service they want to keep people from hosting their own service site that takes business away from mainstream providers, YouTube, streaming services, etc….


They are trying to privatize the internet the way that the FCC allowed a few companies to rule the airwaves.

 

[Slizzo]

The reason for the speed difference is that unless you want to pay for business level service they want to keep people from hosting their own service site that takes business away from mainstream providers, YouTube, streaming services, etc….


They are trying to privatize the internet the way that the FCC allowed a few companies to rule the airwaves.

And they're losing out to all the fiber providers that are now rolling out across the US. I switched to GoNetspeed fiber here in CT when it came available to me in 2020. Frontier has been aggressively rolling out fiber in CT as well now.

Frontier is feeling the pressure as they're offering 2gig down around here now vs. GoNetspeed offering 1gig symmetrical.

 

[R-T-B]

The reason for the speed difference is that unless you want to pay for business level service they want to keep people from hosting their own service site that takes business away from mainstream providers, YouTube, streaming services, etc….


They are trying to privatize the internet the way that the FCC allowed a few companies to rule the airwaves.

It's more a limitation of DOCSIS than that. Honestly the majority of comcasts customer base couldn't host their way out of a wet paper bag...

If it was really about stopping hosting, you'd see incoming http/https port blocks, which they have yet to do.

 

[Athlonite]

Comcast will begin offering 10G-enabled multi-gig symmetrical services in 2023

HAHA No they won't oh they'll offer it but you won't be able to get anywhere near those speeds. Why you ask well it's Comcrap what do expect they'll either oversell it or underfund the equipment running it so it'll be overwhelmed and run like shite

 

[R-T-B]

HAHA No they won't oh they'll offer it but you won't be able to get anywhere near those speeds. Why you ask well it's Comcrap what do expect they'll either oversell it or underfund the equipment running it so it'll be overwhelmed and run like shite

I mean... I get my speeds.

Uptime could be better, but when it's up, speed is not an issue.

Do not discuss the bill however. The bill is a forbidden topic in our home.

 

[Athlonite]

I mean... I get my speeds.

Uptime could be better, but when it's up, speed is not an issue.

Do not discuss the bill however. The bill is a forbidden topic in our home.

I pay $149 per month for my 2000/2000Mbps unlimited data + $10 VOIP line & $10 router rental for a total of $169NZD ($101.16USD) per month

 

[R-T-B]

I pay $149 per month for my 2000/2000Mbps unlimited data + $10 VOIP line & $10 router rental for a total of $169NZD ($101.16USD) per month

I said do not discuss the bill.

Now you've made bady frog jesus cry.

 

[openbox1980]

I pay $50 per month for cell phone which I use for my main internet, I usually get about 25-30mbps speeds. I use lots of cell data, over 1.5-2tb per month.