Cox Communications Inc. has picked the Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) FiOS battleground of Northern Virginia for its latest launch of Docsis 3.0 services.

As it did last month in Lafayette Parish, La., where Cox battles with AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and a municipal fiber-to-the-home buildout, the MSO is starting things off in Fairfax County and Fredericksburg with a wideband tier that caps the downstream at 50 Mbit/s and the upstream at 5 Mbit/s. (See Cox Unleashes Wideband.)

The fastest FiOS tier from Verizon clocks in at 50 Mbit/s down by 20 Mbit/s upstream for $139.95 per month, when it's bundled with home phone service, and $144.95 otherwise.

Cox is selling the new "Ultimate" tier for $139.99 month, though customers can get it for $109 per month via Cox's "introductory rate." So far, Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) is besting all U.S. MSOs with a 101 Mbit/s Docsis 3.0 tier that runs $99.95 per month. (See Cablevision Debuts 101-Mbit/s Wideband Service.)

Cox is still the only MSO (so far) to publicly combine Docsis 3.0 with "PowerBoost," a patented technology that gives subs an extra speed increase when there's latent capacity on the network. A company exec previously estimated that PowerBoost, when it's active, will give wideband subs temporary downstream speed bursts of around 55 Mbit/s. (See Cox Gives Wideband a 'PowerBoost'.)

The MSO expects to deploy wideband in several more markets by the end of this year, and in more than two thirds of its footprint in 2010. Some near-term deployment candidates include New Orleans, Phoenix, central Florida, and Orange County, Calif.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News