Cablevision has fastest Internet speeds for cable

(AP) -- Cablevision Systems Corp. is set to unveil Tuesday the fastest Internet speeds available from any cable or phone company.

Starting May 11, the Bethpage, N.Y.-based cable operator will offer speeds of up to 101 megabits per second downstream throughout its service area, and 15 Mbps upstream. Cablevision has three million subscribers in the New York metro area.

The company also plans to double the downstream speed of its Wi-Fi Internet service up to 3 Mbps for free. Cablevision offers wireless Internet at several Wi-Fi hotspots in New York's Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester service areas, and in parts of New Jersey.

Cablevision is in a race against Verizon Communications Inc., which is rolling out its fiber-optic FiOs service in New York City.

At present, Verizon's top Internet speed is 50 Mbps per second with a starting cost of $140 a month plus a free wireless router. Cablevision is offering its service at $99.95 a month.

The second fastest Internet speed offered by a cable operator is up to 60 Mbps from Charter Communications Inc., but currently it's only available in the St. Louis area. Charter, based in St. Louis, is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. offers speeds of up to 50 Mbps.

©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

   

• John_balls - Apr 28, 2009
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  Though verizon offers only 50mb service they have the ability at anytime to up that to over 100mb.
  
  
  
  The problem is that no one in the home needs 100mb pipes. I currently have fios internet and have 20 mb download which at this time is more then enough.
  
  
  
  Their are not to many servers out there that will let you download from them at more then 5mb/sec just to put into context.
  
  
  
  100mb at this point in time is way overkill.
  
  
  
  Well, cablevision at least can now say they have the fastest download speeds.
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• Merkk - Apr 28, 2009
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  The one thing that they failed to consider about Verizon is just how revolutionary its downstream is. Take a look at it again. Verizon's downstream is '50 Mbps per second'...50 Megabytes per second per second. Where I'm from the only thing slowing those interwebs down is terminal velocity and wind resistance.
  
  Ok, so I'm just pointing out a typo, but what an awesome typo it turned out to be.
  
  It all sounds like 100Mb tubes are extreme, but lets consider that at one point if you were rocking a 256M HD you were on top of the world and 28.8k dial up was so much bandwidth you could drive a bus through your phone line. It may sound extreme and exuberant at the moment, but in the future when we are complaining about how slow our 10Tbps downstream is just not fast enough 101Mbps would give us a heart attack.
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• John_balls - Apr 28, 2009
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  Merk,
  You're right, hence my use of the sentence"100mb at this point in time is way overkill"
  
  
  
  The future will without question call for it as has been seen in the past.
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• Snakekilla - Aug 26, 2009
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  100mb isnt overkill for the heavy users. And those heavy users right now is the minority because of the lack of internet speeds today in the U.S. I myself love watching stream TV, movies, and soon once the U.S. has a faster internet speed, cloud gaming. e.g. Onlive. Onlive may not work because of the lack of the avg. internet speeds in the U.S. It is only overkill for the people who avoid being online or take advantage of the online world to make life easier, faster, and cheaper. I myself wont let a TV network dictate my TV viewing for TV shows or movies. So hulu.com is perfect, but as higher and higher resolution becomes a new standard, we need more internet speed to play HD content. I can barely watch 720p on a 2mb down speed. Sooner or later hulu.com will have a new standard of 1080p, and so on as technology gets better. 100mb right now is perfect. But as resolution for video downloading/streaming, and playing stream video games (cloud gaming) will become a giant industry only if internet speeds rise to the level its suppose to be. 100mb is perfect for todays technology, 2mb is nothing. Heck I wish I was living in Japan to get the experience of the technology they have, we all know Japan loves Science and Technology, U.S. could care less about Science in most cases. If its an overkill, don%u2019t pay for it%u2026 and don%u2019t bash it for not letting consumers who need or want it%u2026 let the consumers drive and control the speeds and demands. We%u2019ll see how much demand they%u2019ll be once 50-100mb is on the U.S. market and available anywhere in the U.S., and I mean every inch in the U.S. We%u2019ll see how many people will say 100mb is an overkill.
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