Comcast should expand service area as well as access speeds

Roberts went on to demonstrate how wideband can download four gigabytes of data, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica Library--55 million words and more--in just under four minutes. It would take a traditional cable modem about three hours and a dial-up connection two weeks to download the same amount of data, which Roberts said is equivalent to how much the average family consumes online a month.

“It’s kind of mind boggling to think what you’d be able to do with that speed,” said Roberts.

In the short term, Roberts and his fellow cable operators plan to use that speed to continue to hammer away at the competitive threat from both the telcos and satellite with their triple-play offering of video, broadband and voice services.

Satellite Internet with triple play? What planet is Roberts living on? Satellite Internet is crippled broadband, with sluggish connections and high latency that can't even support Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). As for the telcos, the only real threat is Verizon if it continues to speed deployment of Fiber To The Home (FTTN). If Comcast really wants to compete with the telcos and satellite, it should expand its coverage to those areas where residents are stuck with a Hobson's choice of dial up over aging telco copper cable or satellite.