Next week, Cablevision is going to start offering customers download speeds of up to 101 mega bits per second. And while at $99.95 per month it’s not the cheapest internet service, it certainly is the fastest available in the US. Here are some of the details:

The new service will offer download speeds of 101 megabits per second and upload speeds of 15 Mbps for a cost of $99.95 a month. It will be available May 11 to all 5 million of the people in areas served by Cablevision, mainly in the New York City suburbs.

Cablevision is deploying a new technology called Docsis 3 which can utilize more of the capacity of a cable television system for data, offering both higher capacity and lower costs. In Japan, J:Com uses the same technology to offer 160 Mbps service for 6,000 yen ($62) a month.

I can’t say that I’m happy about the pricing but at least the cable companies are moving in the right direction when it comes to speed. For too long other countries have had better, faster, and more reliable internet service. It’s about time our corporate monopoly of ISPs start getting Americans up to speed. Hopefully after the initial investment, they will start lowering prices to compete. Though I’m not holding my breath on that one.