I’ll be the first to beat up on Comcast when they screw up. So I thought I would take a second to commend them for doing something good (yes it’s still easy to complain, but let’s not for a moment). I’ve had Comcast Cable Modem service since 1999. The service has been relatively reliable and has not really been down much in the last 8 years. I think my longest outage was about 18 hours. My sister on the other hand was down for an entire week and was pulling her hair out as well as mine. So your mileage and experiences will vary. After all for the most part we’re at the whim of a aging network of cables strung across wooden poles. It’s a mircle it works at all.
Comcast has the monopoly in my area. Sure I can go with DSL (as a matter of fact I also have DSL as a backup) or other services, but none of them are as fast or even come close. I keep waiting for FIOS or AT&T’s rumored Fiber Optic service, but it’s just not here yet. So Comcast Performance Plus is it for me, for now.
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I work from home. I need the speed!
Even though the (Comcast) service is considered to be expensive by some (If you’ve been to some other parts of the world, you’ll know it’s not. I have friends in other countries that pay a lot more for a lot less), it has been worth it. I work from home and I need the fastest most reliable internet service that I can get. It’s not uncommon for me to download gigabytes of files from work. This is also why I have AT&T’s DSL service as a backup. If and when Comcast goes down, I can’t call in and say “sorry, I won’t be working today AND I don’t know when I’ll be working again.” I have the DSL service on a separate Wi-Fi network. If Comcast does go down, I simply switch to my other network and keep right on working.
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A welcomed email message
Having fast download speeds has become the norm. However, upload speeds have lagged way behind and still do. Granted we’re usually consuming more information than we’re publishing, but that is changing rapidly. We’re pushing more and more content out these days and the upload speeds have to keep going up. I’m FTPing stuff up to servers all the time. I do video podcasts, photo galleries, large email attachments, etc. on a daily basis. So when I got this message from Comcast, I just smiled and thought “bring it on!”
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Putting it to the test
I immediately went to my favorite internet speed test site and ran my usual test against the Chicago server (the closest one to me). I was thrilled with my results for both download AND upload speeds (see the top of this post for the final results). My upload speed was indeed testing much faster (compare to last year’s test) than before and I welcome this improvement.
testing in progress (love the animation of this site)
 I also took this opportunity to do a couple of comparisons:
I tested my DSL connection by simply switching the ethernet cable coming out of my MacPro (which I used to do the above tests) from my gigabit ethernet switch that is connected to my cable modem and plugged it directly into the AT&T supplied DSL router. I expected the speed to be much slower and it was. However, this is the fastest DSL connection available to my home:
I also asked my team member Lynn Grillo to send me a test from her Verizon FIOs connection (keep in mind that she ran this test on a slower MacBook Pro AND over Wi-Fi. She also tested against the NY server. Her upload speed was still faster than mine (so not apples to apples, but still interesting):
Just to even things out a bit, I tried a test using my MacBook Pro over Wi-Fi (802.11n) and here is the best result:
and the worst result running the test 5 times in a row:
Even in the test that yielded the slowest download speed, my NEW Comcast upload speed remained pretty consistent.
Comcast, I’ll take more! I know you can turn it up to be even faster. If Fiber comes into my area with faster service, I’ll drop you like a hot potato. If you want to keep me as a customer, keep the prices competitive, the service relaible and the speed up. So let’s get it going!
I think they’re loosening the belt in preparation for AT&T’s U-verse Fiber network. Finally, some true competition (satellite can’t be had in every location in a city)! Don’t be surprised to see their prices come down when the U-verse covers more of the area.
Terry, since you mentioned that Comcast is on the expensive side it I thought it was worth mentioning that in addition to great speed I get FIOS Internet, FIOS TV (basic service, but they provided a DVR for each of my three TVs) and FIOS telephone (one line only) for $99. When I signed up it was called Verizon FIOS Triple Play.
Of course, it doesn’t help those who don’t have access to FIOS. 🙁
I must live on the edge of nowhere then (actually the edge of Phoenix). Qwest and Cox are about the only ones who provide high speed internet service in our area. I have this deep psychological problem with Cox so I got Qwest. Blistering speeds of 3Mbps down and about 800Kbps up. I can’t complain too much though – it beats dialup and Qwest has been remarkably reliable. Someday….
Fantastic news about the fiber optic line causing an old fashioned price war. I’m locked into comcast because nothing is close to that speed in my area. As a gamer, this means I’m staying put. But the future is looking up….