PORTLAND — Comcast is raising its internet speeds for most customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington amid intense competition for internet services and streaming video.
The faster speeds will kick in automatically over the next several weeks, Comcast said Monday. The faster speeds don’t come with an immediate price hike, though the company typically raises prices every year. The last rate hike was October 2018; Comcast hasn’t said when the next one will be.
Comcast said 85 percent of its customers subscribe to a plan getting a faster speed. Here’s the list:
• Performance: Speeds increase from 60 megabits per second to 75 Mbps.
• Performance Pro: Increasing from 150 Mbps to 175 Mbps.
• Increasing from 250 Mbps to 275 Mbps.
• Extreme: Increasing from 400 Mbps to 500 Mbps.
Comcast is the region’s largest cable TV and internet provider, with about 600,000 customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
Most customers in the area have at least one other choice for fast internet service; CenturyLink, for example, is promoting service with speeds of 940 Mbps for $65 a month — 12 times faster than Comcast’s “Performance” tier for roughly the same price.
And Hillsboro, Ore., is preparing to begin rolling out a municipal fiber service to parts of the city, promising gigabit connections (a gigabit is 1,000 Mbps) for $55 a month.
Internet providers are touting faster speeds as a way to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. But few families need superfast speeds — Netflix says 5 Mbps is adequate for high-definition video streaming.
Unlike prior speed upgrades, Comcast says customers who lease their modems from the company won’t have to reset their modems to get the higher speeds announced Monday. Customers who own their own modem, though, may have to take steps to receive the faster connections.
Comcast suggests checking online for details on specific hardware.
