Comcast, AT&T and Google Fiber move on Southeast hub
Cable and Internet provider Comcast announced it will begin offering residential multi-gigabit home Internet service for Atlanta-area customers beginning in May.
Comcast’s service is called Gigabit Pro and promises 2 gigabits per second throughput speeds with a fiber-to-home connection. Rival AT&T has announced its plans to offer GigaPower in the Atlanta area, and Google Fiber, the search engine giant’s foray into the utility space, is similarly planning an expansion into the Southeastern hub.
The Comcast network rollout is said to be available to some 1.5 million Comcast customers.
“Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods,” said Doug Guthrie, SVP of Comcast Cable’s South Region.
“We already provide the fastest speeds to the most homes and businesses in Atlanta,” he said, “and access to Gigabit Pro will give our customers all the broadband capacity they need to stay ahead of future technologies and innovations.”
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Comcast has a fiber network in Atlanta, more than 145,000 route miles, in fact, and potential customers will be “within close proximity” to the core. The company has been offering enterprise Internet up to 10 Gbps since 2010. Comcast also has a partnership with Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves. In that case, Comcast will wire the new mixed-use stadium development with multi-Gigabit speeds.
AT&T last month announced it is expanding its GigaPower high-speed Internet and television service to the tech-centric market in Cupertino, Calif. AT&T GigaPower is currently available in Austin (the first deployment), Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Kansas City, Mo.; and Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, N.C.
The company has announced plans to expand the service to Atlanta; Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C.; Houston and San Antonio; Chicago; Jacksonville and Miami, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; and St. Louis, Mo.
AT&T’s list of soon-to-be GigaPower markets contains significant overlap with cities that currently have, or will soon have, access to Google Fiber, a competitive high-speed Internet service.
Google Fiber is currently available in Austin, as well as Provo, Utah, and Kansas City. In January the company announced planned expansions in Atlanta; Nashville; and Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.