100Mbps in the Twin Cities

We hit an exciting milestone this week with the launch of our new 100 Mbps Business Class Internet Service in the Twin Cities. Customers in that territory can now power their businesses with speeds of up to 100Mbps on the downstream and 15Mbps on the upstream.

I’ve been in this industry for quite a while, yet I’m still amazed when we hit these milestones.

I remember being in the meetings several years ago planning the rollout of our first major speed increase: doubling our speeds from 1.5Mbps to 3.0Mbps. It seems trite now, but at the time I remember several of us wondering, “What are people going to do with this speed?”

Now we know the answer. You innovated. Web site & web service providers innovated. You added rich media to your on-line experience. You connected more devices. In short, you came up with lots of new ways to take advantage of speed…and demanded more.

So we kept on cranking up the speeds and introducing ever-faster enhanced tiers. Today in our DOCSIS 3.0 markets we offer 12 Mbps as well as 22Mbps and 50Mbps options.

I’m intrigued to see what you will do with 100Mbps/15Mbps. Some answers seem obvious. I suspect you’ll expand your embrace of Software-as-a-Service products including our own Microsoft Communications Services and the plethora of other hosted services available on the web. I suspect you’ll do more video conferencing and web-based collaboration.

I think you’ll do these things because speed makes them accessible and seamless. 100Mbps means it’s possible for an office full of people to do these things at the same time which allows them to become ubiquitous…which in turn allows the network effect to kick in on a whole next generation of services.

But I have to admit… I don’t really KNOW what you’re going to do. Care to tell me? Please drop me a line and let me know what you think your company will do with all this speed.

(As ever, thank you to the hundreds of Comcasters who made this happen. I get the fun of participating in the announcements and watching the product ramp up, but like most things in life those highlights are only possible because of many people working long hours on complex and sometimes seemingly forgotten tasks. Not forgotten at all. Much appreciated. Thanks folks!)