Comcast says it is increasing the speed of its Xfinity Internet service across five packages, a move that will boost the performance of its Internet for more than 20 million residential customers.
The speed boost comes as Comcast continues to build out its fiber-based Gigabit platform, which is expected to reach more than 50 million homes by the end of 2025.
According to Comcast, customers on the following Xfinity Internet plans will see a boost in download performance without any additional costs:
- Performance Starter: 75 megabits per second (Mbps), up from 50 Mbps. Performance Starter is also known as “Connect.”
- Performance: 200 Mbps, up from 100 Mbps. Performance is also known as “Connect More.”
- Performance Pro: 400 Mbps, up from 300 Mbps. Performance Pro is also known as “Fast.”
- Blast: 800 Mbps, up from 600 Mbps. Blast is also known as “Superfast.”
- Extreme Pro: 1 Gigabits per second (Gbps), up from 900 Mbps. Extreme Pro is also known as “Gigabit,” and was formerly known as “Ultrafast.”
In a statement, a Comcast executive said the speed boost was intended to help residential customers who are using more data-intensive devices, including 4K television sets, smart lightning, video doorbells and other gadgets.
“The number of devices connected in Xfinity households has skyrocketed 12 times since 2018, and the need for fast, reliable, and secure Internet will continue to grow,” Bill Connors, the president of Comcast’s Xfinity, said on Monday. “That’s why today, Xfinity is increasing speeds for most of our customers across the country.”
What won’t change is a previously-imposed cap on how much data a residential customer can use in a given month. Currently, the data cap stands at 1.2 terabytes (TBs), a ceiling that is easy to reach in households that use a lot of data for live television, 4K video and online gaming. Customers can remove the data cap by paying an extra $30 a month, or by subscribing to a package called “xFi Complete,” which includes a router-modem and costs $25 a month.
Comcast competes in the wired broadband Internet space against a number of small Internet service providers and AT&T Fiber. It has also seen an increase in competition from fixed wireless service providers, including T-Mobile and Verizon, who are offering home Internet solutions that run on top of fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks.
Comcast says it is in a better position to offer reliable broadband Internet because the company’s services run on lines that are already connected to most homes. The company recently completed a successful test of its next-generation wired broadband Internet platform, called 10G, which utilizes the DOCSIS 4.0 standard to deliver multi-gig download and upload speeds.
