Comcast Touts WiFi Speed Report

Citing a new independent lab study by Allion USA, Comcast claimed its Xfinity Wireless Gateway equipped with 802.11ac WiFi pumped out more than 700 Mbps in the downlink, outpacing the most current residential gateway devices from telco rivals AT&T and Verizon Communications.

The report focused on Comcast and Verizon gateways equipped with 3x3 antennas supporting 2.4 GHz and 5GHz bands, and compared how they matched up with AT&T’s older 1x1 single-band, 1x1 device. According to the study, tests were conducted on two Cisco-made models for Comcast (the DPC3941T 3x3/802.11ac, and the DPC3939 3x3/802.11n, as well as the Verizon FiOS 3x3/802.11ac G1100 model, and the AT&T/2Wire 1x1 with 802.11b/g (Pace acquired 2Wire in 2010).

A 2013 MacBook Pro with 802.11ac with a Broadcom BCM4360 was used to collect measurements. Allion said it used a two-story, ~3,000 square foot home in the Pacific Northwest to conduct the study. Allion said the Comcast/Cisco DPC3941T achieved over 700 Mbps downlink throughput, versus 610.4 Mbps for Verizon’s device, and 25.6 Mbps for AT&T’s. The firm also found that Comcast’s newest device outperformed the MSO's previous generation by more than 2.3 times.

For the full story go to Multichannel.com.