Any experience with Comcast's Blast tier?

I just got rid of my rental modem fee(Surfboard 6120+AExtreme), so I was toying with the idea of upgrading one tier to Blast. I'm wondering if there's anybody on here that could give me real world numbers on Blast.

No numbers from me. I had it for a ew months (before my iMac) so I cannot even say I used it to it's potential.
I did use it to play xbox live and dl'media offline and was happy with it. Is the price something like 10$ more than the level below (termed 'standard' I think)? And below that is economy I believe.

I just upgraded to FIOS and had Comcast before that. I don't recall them having tiered pricing, so I'm going to guess that I had the "Standard" tier. At least in this area, that meant about 25Mb/s down and about 3 up. FIOS blows it away at a consistent 30 down and 30 up with no bandwidth caps. But I was never dissatisfied with Comcast, either from bandwidth or customer service perspective. I can't say the same for FIOS, which has been technically flawless, but their customer service is absolutely abysmal.

Thanks for the replies. Comcast has at least 5 tiers that I know of(Standard, Performance, Blast, Ultra, Extreme), but 2 are not available nationwide. Blast is the highest tier available everywhere.

CWA, my download is about as good as yours. My download is however is lacking.

I just upgraded to Extreme -- I'm getting 60mbps downloads and 6mbps uploads. I work from home and I use GoToMyPC to connect directly to my work pc via my MBP. I love that set up. Anyway, they supplied me with a Cisco DPC3000 modem, and then I connect that through a new Airport Extreme. I've bee very pleased and have noticed a significant performance increase. However, it's pricey -- $100 per month -- but for me, totally worth it.

pethomas12 said:

I just upgraded to Extreme -- I'm getting 60mbps downloads and 6mbps uploads. I work from home and I use GoToMyPC to connect directly to my work pc via my MBP. I love that set up. Anyway, they supplied me with a Cisco DPC3000 modem, and then I connect that through a new Airport Extreme. I've bee very pleased and have noticed a significant performance increase. However, it's pricey -- $100 per month -- but for me, totally worth it.

Click to expand...

Same 250GB/mo. bandwidth cap?

I have performance, and I just checked it a couple of times today. It is between 19 and 24 MB/s down and 3 to 4 up. I just checked the pricing this week and with out any deals/specials it is 59.99 plus 6$ modem rental. I play xbox live, stream netflix/hulu+, and DL the usual media. I am toying with dropping to what i thought is called economy at 3MB/s i think. I just don't know if that is enough for the things we use.

I will save about 18$/month and there isn't any penalty for changing so I am going to change and report back.

Yep, I've got Performance too with 30 down and 3.5 up. Just hoping to get a little more upstream with a higher tier. I bought a modem to do away with the $7 modem rental and I'm very happy with the situation

@class77
where did you shop for the modem? what model?

edit,
i read you first post, scratch the model question.... but the where still applies & how was the transition (from com casts model to your Surfboard 6120? easy? medium? hard?

Ttaylor394 said:

@class77
where did you shop for the modem? what model?

edit,
i read you first post, scratch the model question.... but the where still applies & how was the transition (from com casts model to your Surfboard 6120? easy? medium? hard?

Click to expand...

Went to my local Best Buy and got it since I needed it quickly. You can get a slightly better price from NewEgg. The Surfboard 6120 was an absolute snap to get on line. I plugged it in, called Comcast and gave them the new MAC number.

Before I finished giving them the number, the modem was up and running(Make sure you're attached straight from the modem to your computer via ethernet while checking the line with Comcast). I then plugged the ethernet to my Airport Extreme and configured that in less than 5 minutes. In total, I spent no more than 10 minutes and part of that time was on hold with Comcast.

Seriously go buy the modem. It's going to take you about a year of rental payments to pay for the modem. After that, it's all gravy. My last modem lasted over 5 years, so I figured it's worth it.

sp there is some sort of firmware/software needed to run? due to the ethernet connectivity required?
im reaalllyy thinking about it.

Ttaylor394 said:

sp there is some sort of firmware/software needed to run? due to the ethernet connectivity required?
im reaalllyy thinking about it.

Click to expand...

No, no software or firmware that I'm aware of. I literally screwed the coax in, attached the ethernet to my iMac and called Comcast to give them the MAC address. That's all of it and it's been working flawlessly since the last of June.