Comcast offers tantalizing hint of a future with upload speeds above 35Mbps

Comcast offered the latest hint of a future in which its cable customers won't be limited to 35Mbps upload speeds. Announcing a recent lab test, Comcast said its research team "deliver[ed] upstream and downstream throughputs of greater than 4Gbps" and that "future optimization" will allow "even greater capacity." This was "the first-ever live lab test" of a Broadcom "system-on-chip (SOC) device that will pave the way for Comcast to deliver multigigabit upload and download speeds over its hybrid-fiber coaxial (HFC) network," Comcast said. It won't require installation of more cables because the "technology works using the same types of connections already installed in hundreds of millions of homes worldwide," Comcast said. Currently, while cable download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps are prominently displayed, Comcast doesn't tell customers what upload speeds they'll get until they enter a valid credit card number. Comcast justified its tactic of hiding upload speeds by saying that its "website reflects the way customers use the Internet, with downstream overwhelmingly dominating usage." But occasionally Comcast acknowledges that customers want higher upload speeds.