Comcast last week applied for a trademark on the phrase "True Gig" to describe extremely fast Internet service.

The trademark application filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (and reported yesterday by The Donohue Report) says that True Gig describes "Internet service provider services; providing high speed access to the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks; wireless broadband communication services; provision of telecommunication access to video and audio content via cable, fiber optics, the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks."

Comcast is also using True Gig to describe online video streaming, specifically "provision of non-downloadable films, movies, and television programs via an online video-on-demand service; providing entertainment information via television, cable, telephone, wireless broadband, fiber broadband, and via the Internet."

Comcast launched a streaming video service called Streampix in 2012, but it was never popular and is being folded into Comcast's other services. Comcast has said it hasn't found a "viable business model" for a nationwide streaming service as opposed to one available only in its cable territory.

As for gigabit Internet, Comcast is already halfway there with its "Extreme 505" service, which uses fiber rather than cable to deliver 505Mbps download speeds and 100Mbps upload. Extreme 505 costs $400 a month and requires a three-year contract. It's available in some markets but not throughout all of Comcast's territory. Plenty of fiber-to-the-home services offer gigabit speeds (at much lower prices), so that provides one clear path to a gigabit for Comcast.

Comcast isn't giving up on cable, though. While Comcast declined comment on its trademark application, the company told Ars that its roadmap includes "multi-gig" speeds using DOCSIS 3.1, a new cable standard which will power the next wave of cable equipment. "We will start testing DOCSIS 3.1 next year," Comcast said.

Gigabit Internet would make it easier for customers to hit Comcast's 300GB monthly data caps, triggering overage charges. Comcast is testing the caps in some markets and plans to extend them to its whole territory within five years. Comcast said its data plan trials are "market specific" rather than "service level specific," so the limits and overage charges apply to customers within the trial areas even if they have the fiber-based Extreme 505 service.