Today, Comcast announced an upgrade to its Xfinity internet service with a new ultra low lag connectivity experience that should make things like FaceTime and game streaming much more fluid and faster.
According to Comcast, the upgrade makes your connection faster by reducing the amount of time it takes digital information to travel between locales.
The upgrade is based on L4S or "Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput." Essentially, this tech is supposed to significantly reduce latency by bypassing or cutting out buffer bloat so the information gets to you faster. Presumably this would make things like streaming games or making video calls smoother and less laggy.
How L4S does this is by telling information packets where congestion and queueing are happening between users. If a delay appears, the end devices can make adjustments to allay the congestion.
This doesn't mean upping the amount of data in your internet connection. Instead, it's supposed to reduce the time for packets of information to travel between people.
Apple produced an explainer video in 2023 that was shown during WWDC that year. It's little dry and developer focused though. Fortunately, The Verge also put out its own explainer on the tech powering L4S at the time.
As they explain, data can only go so fast, but even with "nearby" servers, it can get congested, especially for popular things like one of the best Netflix shows which just came back for its final season.
Comcast's press release claims that Xfinity customers will experience 'faster than the blink of an eye' speeds when using things like FaceTime, apps on the Apple Vision Pro and Meta's Quest headsets as well as game streaming platforms like the Nvidia GeForce NOW.
"Comcast’s low-lag experience will expand to any additional content and application providers who choose to leverage the new open standard technology for their own products. When fully deployed it will be available to all Xfinity Internet customers," the release adds.
In June of last year Comcast announced trials of its L4S tech. At the time, it was said that Apple and Nvidia were collaborating with the internet provider on the technology. Apple already had L4S support built in to iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma for instance.
Allegedly, Comcast reported reduced latency by about 78% during the trials it has conducted so far. It may not solve the customer service issues and annoying pricing structure, but it may make using Xfinity internet a bit more enjoyable.
Comcast is rolling out the latency upgrade to Atlanta, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Philadelphia, Rockville (MD), and Francisco in the coming months with more cities expected throughout the year.
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