Comcast says it has begun rolling out gigabit per second cable technology to employee homes for testing, LightReading reported today. The company appears on track to test in consumers' homes this year and roll out the faster speeds on a wider basis in 2016.

Further Reading Comcast says it will sell gigabit cable service this year

"The target for us is to be in the field establishing network readiness in 2015," Comcast VP of Access Architecture Jorge Salinger said, according to the LightReading article. "Our overall goal is to be able to deploy DOCSIS 3.1 and gigabit-per-second in a broad scale starting in 2016."

The new version of DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) is able to support gigabit download speeds, bringing cable in line with the top fiber downloads available to consumers, though with lower upload speeds. Broadcom announced a DOCSIS 3.1 system-on-a-chip for cable modems in January; at the time, Comcast said it would use DOCSIS 3.1 technology to "offer our customers more than 1 Gigabit speeds in their homes in 2015 and beyond."

We've asked Comcast when the first customer deployments will happen and will provide an update if we get one.

Gigabit download and upload speeds are available in some cities from Google Fiber for $70 a month, and from other providers elsewhere at similar prices. Comcast's top speeds are far more expensive. Comcast charges $400 a month for its existing 505Mbps download/100Mbps upload service, available in some markets but not all. In my Massachusetts location, the fastest Comcast service offered is 150Mbps down and 20Mbps up. It costs $90 per month with a discount the first year, with "regular" rates of at least $115 per month applying thereafter.