Comcast Charging $300 For 2 Gbps Service

[dlevere]

Posted by Steve

$300 a month with installation fees of up to $500 and a $500 activation fee? What a bargain! O_o

[Pyriel]

Yeah, they turned up at my door trying to sell their service. I didn't even ask about the pricing, but reading between the lines of what the "Xfinity" rep was telling me, it sounds like they try to charge you for running fiber from wherever they have it now in your neighborhood to your home. I figured the monthly charge would be around $100 given the rest of their pricing structure. I'm glad I didn't ask, or I probably would have reflexively punched the guy.

Mostly he was just trying to get me to switch from my current company to their 50Mb service. If my own experiences with Comcast weren't so horrible, I might have done it. Even after the discount period expires, their rate is about 60% of what I'm paying now for 30Mb.

[dlevere]

Comcast isn't going to lay down a Fiber Optic network. They are going to piggyback onto the cables that Verizon Fios has already laid down. I know this because that's what a Comcast technician did to me, even after I told him not to do it. Comcast was then fired by me, and I went back to Verizon Fios.

[dlevere]

On second thought, if Comcast is going to start using Fiber Optic Cables, it looks like they want YOU to pay for it, rather than them just installing it everywhere like Verizon did.

[Pyriel]

Joke's on them if they want to piggyback in my neighborhood. Verizon sold off their fiber 5 years ago, and hasn't had a presence here since, outside of wireless. Well, they probably still do land-line phone service in some capacity, unless they sold that off as well. The company that bought the infrastructure has been fairly open about having no intention of upgrading anything for the foreseeable future.

[MathUser]

2 gbps would be a dream. But I don't really need that much speed myself. I guess I could watch netflix in HD and download PS4 games faster, but I don't buy PS4 games that often.

[Pyriel]

At that speed, assuming it would consistently top out rather than limp along at 200Mb/sec most of the time, you'd likely find that the remote server is the bottleneck in many cases. It'd only be useful if you had 20 connections to different servers or peers open at the same time. A torrent with enough seeds might fly, and you could have a different HD stream running in every room of your house while a PS4 game downloads, and everyone simultaneously plays online games...assuming your home network can handle the traffic. Forget it if you're using wireless, and I'll laugh my ass off if it turns out that the hardware Comcast gives you includes a 100Mb/sec router or switch.

I'd have to see the actual package, but I'm guessing that while they charge you for 2Gb/sec, chances are the consumer grade hardware you'll have in your house won't allow you to access it fully the majority of the time. Comcast is probably counting on that too. You have to lug your computer out to your garage, and plug it directly into the line coming into your house, instead of the router inside. Even then you don't get above half the theoretical max, because your stupid NIC tops out at 1Gb/sec.

I'm actually having a hard figuring out how this isn't just an audiophile sort of rip off for residential customers, unless a big part of that $1000 install and activation fee is giving you appropriate hardware to take advantage of the connection.