Nov. 18--Comcast is pushing the pedal down.

Starting next month, the cable company plans to give faster Web connections to all its Internet customers in Oregon and Washington -- twice as fast -- without a rate increase. Comcast will also add a premium service with hyper-fast downloads for $140 a month.

Verizon already offers similar speeds to its Internet subscribers in Washington County, east Multnomah County and parts of Clackamas County. In Portland, however, Comcast's upgrade brings fast connections that were heretofore unavailable to most residential customers.

Comcast's existing Internet connections currently download material at about 6 megabits per second. That's considerably faster than standard DSL connections from phone companies, which typically run about 1.5 megabits per second.

For basic Web surfing, e-mail and for watching an occasional video, most people would be perfectly happy with those existing speeds. Indeed, many older computers can't process information fast enough to take advantage of Comcast's top connections.

Increasingly, though, many Web junkies equip themselves with the most powerful computers and plug into high-definition Web video and fast-paced online games. For those people, the new download speeds will be particularly welcome.

And in the future, new Web applications such as online medical exams and hyper-realistic video conferencing will put fresh demands on Internet connections.

Sometime in December -- Comcast hasn't set a date -- its basic Internet connections will climb from 6 megabits per second to 12 megabits per second. The monthly rate will remain at about $43, or $53 if you don't subscribe to Comcast TV or phone service.

For basic tasks -- such as downloading a song -- subscribers won't notice much difference. A typical song that now takes almost 6 seconds to download can be on your iPod in just over 2 seconds after next month's upgrade.

Faster speeds are more apparent if you're downloading a movie, which will take just over 3 minutes after the upgrade.

Comcast also plans to offer two premium services with downloads of 22 megabits per second and 50 megabits per second for $63 and $140 a month, respectively. At the top speed, you can have that same movie in less than a minute.

Comcast's faster speeds, made possible by a new version of a technology called DOCSIS, can eventually support downloads up to 160 megabits per second. The company has not announced a timetable for that next upgrade.

"I am happy, by all means happy, when speeds can increase," said David Olson, director of the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission in Portland. "However, I think the jury's out on how they're going to do with it."

Comcast's prices and its upload speeds -- usually less than one-fifth as fast as its download speeds -- leave a lot to be desired, Olson said.

Additionally, Comcast caps monthly downloads at 250 gigabytes. That's roughly the size of a modern computer's entire hard drive, which could hold more than 40 high-definition movies.

It would be an extremely rare computer user who downloads that much in a month, but Olson said those caps will be increasingly problematic as Web surfers find new applications for faster Web speeds.

For several years, the city of Portland has been exploring the possibility of commissioning its own fiber-optic network in hopes of increasing speeds and lowering prices. Such a project would likely cost more than a half-billion dollars, however, and city commissioners have been cool to the idea of funding the project with taxpayer dollars.

Early next year, the city plans to ask private companies for information about alternatives for getting such a project built.

Mike Rogoway: 503-294-7699; mikerogoway@news.oregonian.com; blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/

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