Time Warner Cable goosed its Road Runner Internet service for standard customers overnight, bestowing the extra speed free of charge.

Standard service subscribers should now download data at 10 Mbps and upload at 1 Mbps -- a substantial increase from the previous 7 Mbps down and 512 kbps up, the company announced today. The changes give Time Warner Cable Internet customers uniform speeds across most of the Midwest region, the company says.

Update:

Stacy Zaja, Time Warner's spokeswoman in Milwaukee, said new standard customers hooked up over the last week and a half already had the new speeds. She noted that although "turbo" subscribers in some of Time Warner's Midwest region were getting an increase in speed, customers in Wisconsin were already at the top-end of the "turbo" speed spectrum.

"I did some checking and our speeds in Wisconsin were at the 15 for turbo, so the turbo speeds for us in Wisconsin ... those are the existing speeds that we've had," Zaja said. "Primarily our customers in Wisconsin will really see it with the standard service. That seven to 10 (increase) is the big push for us here in Wisconsin."

Translation: No speed change for turbo customers -- it would appear the local office sent out a regional announcement without editing it for the Milwaukee market. Zaja got back to me this afternoon with answers to questions I had, hence the update.

The company announced two new tiers of Internet access earlier this month to accommodate the most bandwidth-hungry customers: Time Warner Cable Wideband Internet and Road Runner Broadband Extreme, which cost $99.95 a month and $69.90 a month, respectively. The wideband service provides downloads at 50 Mbps, and "broadband extreme" clocks in at 30 Mbps, with upload speeds for both capped at 5 Mbps. The current service-speed lineup for Time Warner as of today reads: