Comcast’s Promise of 160Mbps Speeds
Comcast announced that they will be rolling out hardware enabling up to 160 Mbps over cable. Given my recent experiences with Comcast's port blocking/interception, it's hard to believe that they'll use this for anything more than a token speed bump to get it on par with FiOS from Verizon. As much as I'd like to believe it, I just don't believe this will mean I'll be able to get even 20 Mbps symmetric or even 20/5. It's just not in their business model to allow their customers to use the connection for what they want.
But for those wanting to download stuff from iTunes or updates to applications, I'm sure this is going to be a significant upgrade. Thankfully, Chicago is a major Comcast market, but if they are trying to go up against FiOS, they won't put the new hardware here first.
I guess the best news I can read from this is the fact that new infrastructure is coming to Comcast, and if regulation follows - or they ge their act together, it'll mean better connectivity for me. That's at least something to look forward to.