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Comcast Launches Streaming Service and Unveils Pricing For 2G Fiber
An anonymous reader writes: Comcast has announced the release of its Gigabit Pro service which offers speeds up to 2 gigabits per second. The service is $300 a month (agree to a two year contract and get the early promotional price of $159 per month) with a $500 installation and activation fee. The new service is only available in the Jacksonville, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Florida area. This announcement comes on the heels of the $15-per-month "Comcast Stream" launch. The live TV and streaming video service does not require a cable TV subscription, but live TV channels can only be watched on customer's home internet connections.
If my choices were Comcast or rabbit ears on top of the TV and dial-up, I'd go for the rabbit ears.
Only 3 times more monthly, a contract and a 500$ installation fee. No thanks.
I'll wait for Google.
Comcast components, Time Warner Components, all runs on Verizon fiber!
Still no practical choices to get a full plate of live sports without being tied to cable... Football, Baseball, Hockey, Basketball - college and pro levels, that shouldn't be too much to ask for, but either you spend $100+ for cable, or run XBMC/Kodi with SportsDevil to stream it.
Geez, idiots, just give me an option to pay $10~25/mo for live locals and sports stations and you'll get my money.
Unfortunately, you are only interested in short-sheeting the consumer with fewer offerings than NetFlix or Sling at a higher price with more limitations.
Is a sub-80 IQ a requirement for an MBA and a job as a media company executive these days?
in their monopoly areas, they're instead investing money to make connections faster for the people that are already lucky enough to get service? They should provide service to everyone before spending money to make incremental improvements. I've lived in Seattle all of my life, but I have never lived anywhere with cable TV or Internet available.
The service is $300 a month
You heard it folks, step right up for $300 a month in abusive customer service, random SRVFAIL hijacking, complete prohibition on running "a server" of any kind, advertisement injection, the resale of your personal information, and best of all an ardent refusal to cancel this service.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How does the live TV streaming work? Is there some sort of a browser plugin they make you use to stream local channel 2, 3, 4, etc?
Let me guess, 2Gbps with a 250GB cap.
So they're promising a cap on their maximum quality of service, but not on their minimum quality of service?
In many places you can get 2G fiber for very close to the same costs. only drawback is you have to buy your own endpoint gear as they will not rent it to you.
Plus if you get your fiver from a good provider you wont have your data going through the Comcast lag adding networks.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It would have to have multiple 1G Ethernet ports to take advantage of the 2G speed. Even my new Comcast modem only supports a single 100 Mbps Ethernet connection.
Then we moved and were too far from the CO for DSL, so we had to get Cox Cable modem. Now she understands. They recently upgraded me from 5 to 15 mBit. I would gladly give the extra 10 back to get a connection that doesn't periodically drop.
I wanted to make a 2G (bandwidth) vs 4G (cell network) joke, but decided to pop up with some actual useful information instead.
Currently Comcast has this in their contract:
"For upgrading from Performance to Blast!®, ranges based on area, from $10.00 to $12.00 more per month (subject to change)"
This is an additional service charge ON TOP OF the higher price already charged to get faster internet service. That's right, they're advertising one price, and then tacking on additional fees for that bandwidth. Just for having faster bandwidth, you're forced to pay an additional $10+ on top of the already higher rate.
So, what is the premium "Blast" or "2G" fees going to be with this new service? Sure, the base rate is already an outrageous $300... but this is Comcast, who is actively tacking on hidden fees to customers outside of the usual regulatory fees.
Only in America can we roll out a service so very few will pay for* while, at the same time, big chunks of the nation are still unable to get any sort of broadband connection at all. :| The ISP's know where the money is so that's where they concentrate their deployments. At least make SOME effort to get bare minimum broadband access to everyone before you start selling the network equivalent of a sports car.
I would love to see Broadband Internet treated like the POTS lines of yester-year as part of the Title II requirements. Quit letting the monopolies cherry-pick their regions for deployment and force them to deploy into the areas where Capitalism loathes to go. ( In your best Yale or Harvard voice " You know. . . where the poor people live." ) Hey Verizon, hows that FIOS roll out coming along that you promised everyone ?
Threaten to go all 1984 on their ass ( referring to Divestiture here ) or nullify all non-compete laws when it comes to Metro Areas rolling out their own networks.
It's amusing just how fast big ISP's can deploy high speed networks when a Metro area says " Screw it " and starts deploying their own.
The ONLY way I'm ever going to see true competition or even competitive pricing is if I'm lucky enough to live in an area where Google has plans to deploy their infrastructure. That seems to be the only motivating factor if you're a large ISP these days. OMGGOOGLEISGONNASTEALOURBUSINESSCUSTOMERS DO SOMETHING !!!!!
So the best thing we get out of Comcast is to roll out a service that's completely ridiculous in price. I wonder if you get a discount if you allow them to spy on your traffic like AT&T does ? ( Yes, I'm sure they all do it, but AT&T is the only one admitting to it and offering a discount for the privilege )
*Because:
a) It's Comcastic and ( one of, if not THE worst ranked ISP in the US )
b) It's $300 / month and ( hahahahahahahahah . . . . no. See A above )
c) No way in hell it will be unlimited usage ( regardless of their claims ) without some data cap or throttling mechanism
Wasn't it Concast who made Netflix pay for peering? I thought so. If bandwidth were such a premium, why would Concast possibly waste the extra bandwidth on streaming? Oops! (smacks forehead) All is well now that Concast has streaming of their own. I will gladly go back to digital air before I pay another dime for your shit TV services. Overpriced and 150+ channels of shit!
Too bad you have to be a TV subscriber to get their shit. Too bad I no longer have Concast.
Fuck you Concast!
For only about as much as you'd pay in a car payment, you can have the speed other countries get for about the price of a cup of coffee a day.
God spoke to me
You lost me right there, guys. For $300/mo, you darn well better guarantee some particular minimum level of service. If you can't, or won't, there's zero chance I'm signing up for three years of somewhere between zero and 2Gbps.
$20 to rent the hardware + your own costs for 10GB hardware (if there hardware only has 1 port) or a switch that can do bonding + your own router with 10GB nics and or dual bonded gig-e on both sides.
Tried to ask if it is available in my Area.
Here's the REAL transcript:
Live Chat
user dmitry has entered room
analyst Elvin has entered room
Elvin
1:42PM
Hello dmitry_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Elvin. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Elvin
1:42PM
Hi! Welcome to Comcast High Speed Internet Technical Support (Residential Accounts). You can call me Elvin, I'll be happy to get your concern addressed today.
dmitry
1:42PM
My Issue: Is Gigabit Pro available in Rex Manor Area of Mountain View, CA?
Elvin
1:42PM
I understand that you have question with Xfinity services. I am a costumer also, so I understand ho wimportant this is. I will assist you today.
Elvin
1:43PM
May I know your exact concern, please?
dmitry
1:43PM
Is Gigabit Pro available in Rex Manor Area of Mountain View, CA?
dmitry
1:43PM
Gigabit Pro service from comcast
Elvin
1:43PM
May I know what Gigabit Pro is, please?
dmitry
1:43PM
claims to be available in the SF bay area
dmitry
1:43PM
i want to know
dmitry
1:43PM
dude...
dmitry
1:43PM
it is on YOUR website..
dmitry
1:44PM
http://www.xfinity.com/multi-g...
Elvin
1:45PM
Thank you for that.
Elvin
1:47PM
Gigabit Pro will generally be available to homes within one-third of a mile of Comcast's fiber network and will require installation of professional-grade equipment. Select markets in Atlanta, California, Chattanooga, Chicago, Florida, Knoxville, and Nashville have been chosen for initial launch, with the addition of numerous West Coast markets in the coming months.
dmitry
1:47PM
ok...so can you tell me if a given address meets that criteria?
Elvin
1:49PM
To properly assist you, I will transfer you to our sales department. Would that be fine?
Elvin
1:50PM
I would like to set your expectation that you have actually reached Comcast High Speed Internet Technical Support.
Elvin
1:50PM
No worries, I can still resolve your issue by connecting this chat to the department that handles this. I assure you that this will be accommodated accordingly.
dmitry
1:50PM
ok
Elvin
1:50PM
Thank you. Please wait while the problem is escalated to another analyst. There may be a 3-5 minutes hold for the chat to be assisted, and you will see a message that says I have âoeleft the roomâ; but please don't close the chat window for the next available agent to assist you.
Elvin
1:53PM
By the way, may I know your zip code, please
-------
1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
After a two weeks of trying to get comcast to fix my lack of connection I switched to DSL. I'm getting the advertised DSL speeds. What I'm wondering is why the hell is the upload speed of ADSL pegged at such a crappy ratio to the download speed. Cable has about a 2:1 ratio but ADSL is about 30:1. My upload speed is 0.8Mbs on a 20Mbs download line. Why? what's the physical limit on DSL that cable doesn't have on the asymmetric division? It used to be that this wasn't a big deal since relatively few people upload much. But these days uploading for common people is ubiquitous: your phone by default wants to push every photo to the cloud, your backups go to the cloud, and it's not uncommon to want to e-mail a 20Mb word document. So upload speed has become an issue.
It becomes a major issue when a long duration upload (say a backup) chokes off even the modest handshaking upload that other download streams require and your Amazon prime fire TV stops working smoothly.
Are the DSL companies doomed by physics or their market price point if they can't increase this without raising prices dramatically? Why would this be costly? I'd gladly trade a megabit of download for another megabit of upload.
Comcast seems to have incentivized its india based outsourced customer service to optimally work against comcasts own interests. namely they first employ an incompetent first-line who cannot reason logically what the problem is and make you follow the script even after five previous calls (which apparently are not incentivized to make notes). thus they make their money from answering calls and getting you to just give up. then the next technique is to flat out lie("we will have technical call you in 30 minutes sir, this I promise to you. Now being such a good customer I have an upgrade deal to offer you"_) and finally even in the middle of the nightmare non-performing service they take the time to offer you additional costly upgrades. This only makes sense if you consider what the service center makes its profit on as opposed to comcast (retaining customers).
The DSL company also seems confused at well but at least they make as many errors in my favor as they do against it that it can't be a deliberate strategy.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Do rabbit ears provide 2 gbps internet? Why are they even an option here?
Rabbit ears have way more than 2gbs/sec download but zero upload. You can easilyt watch 100 HD digital TV channels simultanously ig you have 100 rabbit ears, 100 Tv sets, and live in a city with 100 broadcast channels.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The best part is when no one signs up, they'll tell the FCC there's no demand for fiber.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
secret data cap is and how quickly you'll hit it with fiber... What good is the connection if you're blowing through all your data in 2 hours...
$300 a month? My internet service better be delivered by hot Nubian sex slaves wearing nothing more than a smile.
Seriously, fuck Comcrap, they suck, their service sucks, their reps suck, and did I mention they SUCK?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I wonder why. You don't need 2g fiber to watch Pornhub and WWE clips on YouTube.
You are welcome on my lawn.
TSIA
Even ISO's at 25MBps are done in next to no time. Instead of pumping up the volume so to speak, it would be far more consumer friendly (and valuable) to reduce the price of the connection dramatically. Of course, that will never happen as a) there is no competition and b) profits! The price of broad band is especially gualing giving how much fiber was scooped up for next to nothing during the dot.bomb
If you own the pipes, it is a conflict to attempt to be one of many providing the water.
Fuck off, Comcast.