Speaking at the Merril Lynch U.S. Media Conference in London, Comcast senior VP of investor relations Marlene Dooner said the company plans to offer cable Internet customers bandwidth up to 100 Mbps in most of its markets by early 2010—and some 20 percent of its markets may have the service by the end of 2008. In a not-unrelated forecast, Dooner also says Comcast expects to have converted analog television channels to digital in most of its markets by 2010—enabling the company to reclaim bandwidth currently used by those video signals—and expects 20 percent of its markets converted to digital by the end of 2008.
The U.S. is scheduled to terminate analog television broadcasts on February 17, 2009, meaning U.S. television viewers who receive television signals over-the-air with an analog television will need to purchase a digital TV or a relatively inexpensive digital tuner to use with their television. However, the FCC has mandated that most cable operators support analog television through 2012. However, cable companies have some leeway in how they can keep providing service, and are widely expected to encourage customers to switch to digital cable as quickly as possible, since cable operators will be allowed to drop analog signals—and reclaim their bandwidth—if all subscribers can handle digital signals.
Comcast has been aggressively rolling out wideband service based on Docsis 3.0 in an effort to compete with fiber-based offerings from the likes of Verizon and AT&T. Last month, the company introduced 50 Mbps service in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and promised 50 Mbps service to its entire customer base by 2010.
