Comcast Internet customers, expect your connection speeds to double by the end of December.

That's the news today from the cable provider which says new technology will allow it to offer customers with regular Internet service up to 12 megabits per second download speeds and upload speed of 2 Mbps.

That same technology will allow Comcast to offer new enhanced services for customers who bandwidth appetite is much greater.

Customers who now Performance Plus service will see their perfomance increased to 16 Mbps on downloads.

The company is also offering two new much faster residential tiers of service:

* Extreme 50, offering up to 50 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 10 Mbps of upstream speed at $139.95 per month.

* Ultra, offering up to 22 Mbps of downstream speed and up to 5 Mbps of upstream speed at $62.95 per month.

Existing business class customers will receive complimentary speed increases: Speeds on the Starter tier will be doubled to up to 12 Mbps download, 2 Mbps upload.

A new Premium tier also will be introduced, offering speeds up to 22 Mbps download, 5 Mbps upload for $99.95/month.

Customers can sign up for the Deluxe 50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload tier for $189.95/month, the company said.

Alaska Airlines began service from Sea-Tac Airport to Kona on Hawaii today. Kona is the fourth Hawaiian destination for the SeaTac-based carrier.

The daily flight to Kona departs Sea-Tac at 8:40 a.m. and arrives in Kona on Hawaii's "Big Island" at 1 p.m.

Alaska flies a 157-passenger Boeng 737-800 on the route.

The return flight leaves Kona at 2 p.m. and arrives in Seattle at 9:40 p.m.

Alaska, which began Hawaii flights last year, serves the islands of Oahu, Maui and Kauai in addition to the island of Hawaii.

SeaTac's Alaska Air Group and Delta Air Lines today announced an expanded marketing alliance that will make it easy for customers of either airline to use each other airline's flights.

Alaska, parent company of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, and Delta, now the world's largest airline with its merger with Northwest Airlines, said the tighter relationship will benefit both carriers.

Alaska has had marketing agreements with both Northwest and Delta in the past. The new agreement will cement that past alliance and expand it.

Under the new pact, for instance, members of either airline's airline clubs, Alaska Board Rooms and Delta Crown Room Clubs, will have access to the other airline's clubs in cities around the country.

Both airlines' most frequent fliers who've reached platinum or gold status will have priority boarding, priority check-in and seat assignment privileges on both carriers.

The two carriers will continue offering "codeshare" flights on each other's network.

A "codeshare flight" is one that is flown by one of the airlines' but which is sold as a flight on the other's network.

For instance, Alaska's three daily flights from Seattle to Dallas are shown on Delta's reservation system as Delta flights. Customers who buy tickets on those flights check in at Alaska and fly on an Alaska plane.

Likewise, Alaska customers headed from Seattle to Atlanta can buy an Alaska ticket, but fly on a Delta plane.

The alliance will enhance the connections to two new Delta international flights, said Delta chief executive Richard Anderson.

Those flights are a new flight from Seattle to Beijing beginning March 1 and a new Delta flight from Los Angeles to Sao Paulo, Brazil beginning next spring.

Fliers on Alaska and Horizon will continue to be able to earn frequent flier miles on Delta's frequent flier progam, and Delta customers can continue to have miles flown on Delta credited to the Alaska mileage plan.

Alaska chairman Bill Ayer, said his airline will continue to offer frequent flier and codeshare arrangments with 10 other airlines including American, Continental, British, Air France, Cathay Pacific and LAN.

The inner section of the wing of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner has passed a critical stress test at Boeing's Everett plant.

The company applied force to the so-called "wing box" of the new jetliner to determine how much force it could handle before it broke.

The wing box, the inner 50 feet of the wing, successfully withstood 150 percent of the highest stress the airliner is expected to encounter in flight, the company said.

The wing of the 787 is revolutionary because it is made almost entirely of composite materials. Until now, most airliner wings were built of aluminum.

The wing box is about 50 feet long and about 18 feet wide at its widest point.

The test was critical to getting the first 787 into the air. The plane is now scheduled to make its first flight early next year, some 18 months hehind schedule.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has sued a Redmond-based Web service provider alleging the service failed to deliver increased Internet traffic it promised its clients.

The suit names Visible.net and Captures.com as defendants. The suit contends the defendants failed to significantly improve Web sites' search engine ranking and to attract more traffic to their sites.

When customers, who paid startup fees of $3,749.99 to $9,749.99 and monthly fees of $39.99 to $99.99, tried to cancel, some of those cancellation requests were not honored, the suit claimed.

The attorney general's office said it had received nearly 90 complaints about the defendants beginning in 2005.