Yesterday morning as I slept, my broadband connection was upgraded. I feel bad even reporting on that knowing that so many readers are stuck in places where nothing is getting upgraded despite the best efforts of locals but here’s the scoop from MinnPost…
What happened?
Around 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, quite a few of us got a free upgrade. Comcast, the largest cable provider in the metro area, doubled the speeds for each tier of its service. The most popular broadband choice, formerly in the 25-35 megabit (mb) range is now delivering a minimum of 50.
What does that mean? (Interesting commentary on perceived bottleneck for many users)
Emmett Coleman, Comcast’s VP for External Affairs (and brother to Mayor Chris and exStar Tribune columnist Nick), concedes that most of his company’s customers will barely notice the upgrade, and most of that will be the experience of what they don’t see, namely sluggishness when every member of the family is pulling a signal from the same router.
Why did they do it?
The upgrade comes, of course, amid a gigabit war that includes Comcast, CenturyLink and US Internet here in the greater metro. (Because of some old agreements, Comcast still provides service to places like Hudson, River Falls, New Ulm and New Prague.) Each company is aggressively upgrading to 1 gig service, via existing wiring, to residences as well as full, fiber-to-the-home 2 gig service and even higher speeds … at even higher prices, not all of which have been made official.
For folks in the Twin Cities, the article provides some instructions to reboot equipment to make sure the upgrade happens at your home. For everyone it’s a little glimpse at the power of competition.