Comcast hopes to roll out wideband Internet connections to 65 percent of its footprint in the US this year, the company announced Thursday. The cable giant said that it has already introduced beefed-up DOCSIS 3.0 speeds to more than 15 million homes and businesses, roughly 30 percent of its footprint, and its goal is to eventually get its entire footprint up to a minimum of 12Mbps.

Comcast noted that its DOCSIS 3.0 rollout was already reaching customers in ten major markets across the US, including the Twin Cities, Boston, parts of New Hampshire, Philadelphia, parts of New Jersey, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Ft. Wayne, Portland, and Seattle. Many of those markets are fairly recent additions to the list, and the fact that Comcast has already surpassed its October 2008 goal of reaching 10 million homes and businesses is encouraging. By the end of 2009, the company hopes to offer DOCSIS 3.0 capabilities to 30 million homes and businesses, enabling speeds of up to 100Mbps down.

"What we're finding is that speed really matters to consumers, particularly as they watch more video on the Internet on sites like YouTube and Fancast.com. In addition, gaming, downloading and other applications get even better with more speed," Comcast's COO and President Steve Burke said in a statement.

Comcast first flipped the switch on its first DOCSIS 3.0 deployment in the Twin Cities in April of 2008, pricing the 50Mbps tier at $149.95 per month. Comcast's newly renamed Extreme 50 service is now a bit cheaper at $139.95 (upstream speed is 10Mbps). The cable giant's other new service tier is Ultra, which offers speeds of up 22Mbps down and 5Mbps up for $62.95. Most current Comcast customers will at least get a speed boost from DOCSIS 3.0: Performance broadband customers will see their speeds doubled to 12Mbps/2Mbps up, while Performance Plus subscribers get a boost to 16Mbps down.

Comcast's newly implemented 250GB monthly bandwidth caps will also remain in place for its DOCSIS 3.0 deployments. Comcast spokesperson Charlie Douglas confirmed that the new tiers are subject to the same cap, but stressed that "far less than 1 percent" of residential customers are ever affected by the cap's presence.

With its aggressive plans for 2009, Comcast is clearly looking to compete even more fiercely with Verizon's FiOS offerings. Verizon has rolled out its 50Mbps/20Mbps tier across its entire fiber-to-the-home network for anywhere between $89.95 and $139.95 per month, so while expensive, Comcast's Extreme 50 service is priced competitively with Verizon's offering. All I can say, being based in Chicago, is that I hope that homes that are actually inside city limits get some wideband love from Comcast this year. My suburbanite coworkers shouldn't be allowed to have all the fun!