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That may not be completely inaccurate, if the bottleneck is on the link leaving comcast. You get your full bandwidth for internal network stuff, but get less once you leave the internal network. So, technically, you are getting what you pay for, even if that is meaningless.

That said, I've often wondered if Qwest (my provider) prioritizes packets for speed tests.

That's funny, I've usually had the opposite experience with Qwest (in Seattle): inconsistent results in speed tests, but very consistently good download times for large files. Tis strange.

Internal network will get you that speed... random parts of the internet is always a crapshoot. comcast may route you halfway around the country until you get to that other close by server, who knows. Try downloading http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test and see what you get, or a few other speedtests randomly in different parts of the country.

Do you know if PowerBoost factors into the speed?