Comcast doubles speed of Net service

Bay State users of Comcast Corp.'s broadband Internet service will soon be able to download files a lot quicker. Comcast has introduced a new technology that could make the service run twice as fast for most customers, while offering even faster speeds for those willing to pay extra.

"Comcast is really changing the experience of our users and revolutionizing what people can do on the Internet," said Mitch Bowling, general manager of the company's online services business.

But a spokesman for Verizon Communications Inc., a rival, said that Comcast is just catching up with Verizon's FIOS service, which delivers data at much higher speeds than Comcast's previous broadband offerings.

Most users of Comcast's broadband service get download speeds of either 6 or 8 megabits per second, compared to Verizon's basic FIOS service, which delivers 10 megabits per second. But thanks to Comcast's new technology, called Docsis 3.0, customers will see their top speeds doubled to 12 or 16 megabits, respectively, at no additional cost.

In addition, Comcast will offer two premium broadband services: 22 megabits for $62.95 a month and 50 megabits for $139.95 a month. Verizon already offers similar FIOS services at about the same prices.

Bowling said the new Comcast services are available in about 100 Massachusetts and New Hampshire communities, including Foxborough, Framingham, Natick, New Bedford, and Manchester, N.H.

Docsis 3.0 service has also been launched in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, and in parts of New Jersey.

Though 14.4 million US households subscribe to Comcast Internet service, about 50 million households have access to the network. The company said it will be able to deliver the service to 20 percent of those homes by year's end, and to gradually upgrade the rest over the next couple of years.

The speed boost won't affect Comcast's plan to limit its customers' Internet use. Starting this month, users who download more than 250 gigabytes of data per month could be disconnected. A Comcast spokesman, Jim Hughes, said Docsis 3.0 doesn't eliminate the need to set limits on bandwidth usage. He said that only about 1 percent of users ever exceed the limit, and he doubted that higher download speeds would cause customers to sharply increase their downloading.

The Comcast upgrade comes at a time when fewer Americans are signing up for new broadband Internet accounts. According to Strategy Analytics Inc. of Newton, Comcast added 278,000 subscribers nationwide in the second quarter of the year, down 18 percent from the same period in 2007. But demand for DSL, a slower broadband service offered by Verizon and other telephone companies, has fallen much faster. Orders for Verizon DSL dropped 81 percent in the second quarter of 2008.

"DSL can no longer compete with what cable has to offer," said Ben Piper, broadband analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Verizon is fighting back with FIOS, a $23 billion effort to run fiber-optic data lines directly to millions of homes. A fiber connection can carry far more data than Verizon's old-fashioned copper telephone wires. FIOS allows Verizon to compete with Comcast and other cable companies in delivering television services as well as faster Internet connections. Verizon has signed up 2 million FIOS customers in 14 states; the service is available in 84 Massachusetts communities.

Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro said Comcast is rushing to deploy Docsis 3.0 because its standard services can't measure up to FIOS. "I think they have to do something," he said, "and this is their best attempt at that."

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.