Charter Communications announced that it has increased the speed of several of its Internet offerings at no additional cost.

The Madison area's dominant subscription TV provider said in a news release that it has increased the download speeds -- from the Internet to a user -- on the Charter Internet Express and Charter Internet Plus tiers and also is also increasing both the upload -- from a user to the Internet -- and download speeds on the Charter Internet Max tier.

The upgrades to Charter Internet speeds are as follows:

-- Charter Internet Express now has download speeds up to 8 Mbps (previously up to 5 Mbps) and upload speeds up to 1 Mbps.

-- Charter Internet Plus offers download speeds up to 16 Mbps (previously up to 10 Mbps) and upload speeds up to 2 Mbps.

-- Charter Internet Max provides downloads up to 25 Mbps (previously up to 20 Mbps) and upload speeds up to 3 Mbps (previously up to 2 Mbps).

The free increases are accompanied by a marketing campaign of "Fast Free" commercials featuring customers.

Charter also recently began offering "PowerBoost 2" -- a temporary extra burst of speed during downloads, when network capacity is available.

Charter Internet Ultra60 service is also available in many of Charter's markets, with download speeds up to 60 Mbps.