Mediacom Bumps Speeds Ahead of Gigabit Launch

This week, with little fanfare, Mediacom made a dramatic upgrade to its base internet speeds, with minor adjustments for its higher tiers of service.

The changes essentially means they have reduced the number of speed tiers from 5 to 3 (60x5, 100x10, and 200x20) while differentiating between several tiers based on their data allowance.

The new speeds are available to customers that have a DOCSIS 3.0 modem (after a power cycle). Mediacom customers with older DOCSIS 2.0 gear (and who knows, maybe some old DOCSIS 1.x gear still floating around) will have to schedule a modem exchange.

The information was posted by "Mediacom Chad", a member of the company's social media team and a frequent poster on DSLReports.com (CLICK HERE for the thread about the speed bump).

​Although Mediacom has announced that its launching it's new "Gigasphere" service across its entire footprint, it has not offered a definitive timeline for when those speeds will be available. One "speed bump" in the road to deploying gigabit is the availability of DOCSIS 3.1 modems (Mediacom says it's already upgraded its CMTS to D3.1).  Also, price is still a question mark.

Pricing will not be announced until the launch in January, but Larsen said he expects it to "come down significantly" from what is currently being charged in Missouri. (Press reports indicate service there is $149.00 per month.)--From article in Broadband Technology Report

Another question mark is what changes to their rate structure they plan to make. Currently, Mediacom's Launch tier, which will be moving to 60x5, is $29.95 for residential customers with TV, $44.95 for customer without TV. Even assuming a rate increase, it might seem more attractive for some customers because of the speed increase.

The key takeaway for municipal broadband providers who compete with Mediacom is that you should be ready for a major marketing push sometime in early January as they tout their new faster speeds. Since most municipals do not have data caps, now is a good time to reinforce that fact to customers, many of whom will blow through a 150 GB cap in short order if they do any amount of streaming. It's also a good time to remind your customers that faster internet doesn't mean a thing if its subject to frequent outages, and that your utility emphasizes reliability above everything.