Comcast bumps up speeds for majority of internet customers

If you have Comcast internet service at home, your online speeds are likely getting a boost.  

It won’t happen without a little effort. 

Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Bilotta says subscribers to the company’s Blast or Performance Plus tiers of internet service will receive a 30 percent increase in speed.  Performance Pro will go from 75 Mbps to 100 and Blast will go from 150 Mbps to 200.  To make it happen you must reboot your modem or router.

“They can unplug their modem from the wall or they can use the Xfinity my account app on their devices or their computers to power cycle the modem so they can get the benefit of the new speed,” she said.

Bilotta says the decision to quicken download speeds is responding to customer demand.

She would not say how many subscribers it affects, but says it’s more than half.  Comcast has about 2 million internet customers in the service territory getting the upgrade, so she says it would be more than one million getting faster downloads.  

The speed boost does not apply to the least expensive versions of internet access, such as Internet Essentials, a broadband service for low-income people that costs $9.95 a month.  

The higher speeds were made available starting Oct. 18.