Cox jacks up modem speeds

Cox Communications today became the first of the top three MSOs to push its cable broadband download speeds past the 3 Mb/s mark. It announced that it had turned up the maximum downstream bit rates on its standard and premium high-speed Internet services to 4 Mb/s and 5 Mb/s respectively.

Cox also launched what could be the beginning of a price war with its DSL competitors. It made its budget 256 kb/s symmetrical service available to all customers for $25 regardless of whether they subscribe to cable video services.

Cox officials said feedback from their customers indicated that more than 70% felt the most important feature of their broadband service was speed, and that customers wanted even more bandwidth to take advantage of new multimedia applications and services like online gaming. Because of the way Cox engineered its network, it already had the capability and the capacity to offer higher speed service and required very little engineering, said Winston Warrior, director of high-speed Internet marketing.

"Our network has been powerful from the beginning," Warrior said. "It was basically a software change. We literally started on Sunday and completed the upgrades Monday night."

Cox said the enhancement was only the matter of a software upgrade in all of its nodes. Technicians began turning the service on Sunday and Monday, and by Monday night the new high-speeds were available to of Cox’s nearly 2 million cable broadband subscribers.

The upgrade gives Cox the fastest broadband speeds in the industry of any major provider, second only to Cablevision, which markets its standard service at rates as high as 10 Mb/s. Cox’s upgrade also is significant in that many DSL providers are starting to offer services at speeds of 3 Mb/s, matching many MSO’s standard bandwidths. By offering a 4 Mb/s flagship service, Cox can continue with its assertions that cable modems are a superior technology to DSL, Warrior said.

"We will continue to set the bar higher," Warrior said.