"I feel like I have died and gone to internet heaven," a Cox broadband user says in our Cox forum, as Cox continues to expand the availability of upstream Powerboost technology. Powerboost gives cable broadband customers a significant boost of both downstream and upstream speeds for the first few minutes of large downloads, and has proven very popular among customers of Comcast, Shaw, Cox, and now Time Warner Cable.

Powerboost is cable's answer to increased Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse technology, at least until they deploy faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds. A leaked document I received last week suggested Cox would be launching upstream Powerboost in New Orleans this week, but apparently the upgrades hit a number of additional markets as well, including California and Florida.

Florida in particular is lining up to be a very busy market this summer. I'm hearing (and should have more detail on this soon), that after some initial delays, Comcast should begin testing pre-certification DOCSIS 3.0 speeds in Sarasota this week. Comcast is apparently using Powerboost to battle AT&T U-Verse (which offers a top speed of 10Mbps), and 50Mbps pre-cert DOCSIS 3.0 to do battle with FiOS.

Cox, which is being a little less aggressive on the DOCSIS 3.0 front, says they'll be deploying DOCSIS 3.0 "in a limited fashion" by the third quarter of this year. They haven't publicly stated which markets will see the upgrades, but it's likely to first pop up in the Northern Virginia Cox markets where Cox faces FiOS competition.