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For DNC, Comcast will make Wells Fargo Center network 17,000 times faster than average home

Twenty-five miles of new fiber. That's the high-speed wiring that Comcast Corp. has wrapped around the Wells Fargo Center for the Super Bowl-class media event of live video streaming and selfies at the Democratic National Convention later this month in South Philadelphia.

Twenty-five miles of new fiber.

That's the high-speed wiring that Comcast Corp. has wrapped around the Wells Fargo Center for the Super Bowl-class media event of live video streaming and selfies at the Democratic National Convention later this month in South Philadelphia.

Comcast announced Tuesday - no surprise here - that it will be the official "broadband and telecommunications provider" for the political event that will likely nominate Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Comcast spokesman Joel Shadle said Tuesday that the Philadelphia company also has added 50 temporary WiFi hotspots on the floor of the Wells Fargo Center, adding to the 300 permanent ones already at the arena.

The center's total data capacity will be 17,000 times faster than the average home internet connection, with the ability to handle more than 225,000 Instagram photo posts per second.

"With the new consumer technologies that have emerged since the 2012 convention, we expect an unprecedented amount of content to be created and shared using the network we have built at the Wells Fargo Center," said Bill Stemper, president of Comcast Business.

Comcast Business, one of the company's fastest-growing divisions, is the unit providing the broadband and telecom services, and it was not having a stellar day Tuesday.

Social media on Tuesday were reporting a broad range of Comcast business phone outages in Philadelphia and other areas of the nation.

"We apologize for the inconvenience, and we're working as quickly as possible to understand the root cause and get it resolved," Comcast said in a statement.

bfernandez@phillynews.com

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