Cablevision Planning 101 Mbps Broadband

This May, Cablevision is planning to offer 101 Mbps broadband to its customers for $100 a month as it tries to compete with the likes of FiOS and Uverse.

Cable operator Cablevision has announced it plans to launch a 101 Mbps broadband offering across its entire market beginning May 11. The offering will be prices at nearly $100 per month, and will supplement Cablevisions’s current 15 Mbps offering priced from $45 to $50 a month. The move is seen as a way for the cable operator to ratchet up competition not only with Comcast—which is offering a 50 Mbps option in many of its markets for $140 a month—and fiber-to-the-home services like Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s Uverse.

Like Comcast’s high-speed offerings, Cablevision’s system is implemented using DOCSIS 3.0; Cablevision is the first major U.S. cable operator to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 across its entire network. Other cable operators like Charter and Comcast are rolling out DOCIS 3.0 bandwidth upgrades across portions of their service areas.

Industry watchers see the market for 100 Mbps Internet access among consumers as fairly limited at the moment, but as high-definition video download services become commonplace and an accepted part of consumers’ entertainment options, demand is expected to increase substantially. With a 100 Mbps connection, a complete high-definition movie could be downloaded to the home in as little as 10 minutes.

Cablevision also announced it is doubling the speed of its wireless Internet access via Wi-Fi to 3 Mbps; the company offers Wi-Fi service free to customers in selected service areas.