Comcast rolls out Gigabit Pro in California; faster than Google Fiber, AT&T GigaPower
In a move to keep up with competitors Google and AT&T, Comcast has rolled out its ultra-high-speed home Internet service packages throughout California.
Comcast said in an April 17 announcement it will launch Extreme 250, a 250 Mbps broadband service, as well as increase existing speeds from 50 Mbps to 75 Mbps and 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps based on the service package.
Comcast will also roll out Gigabit Pro, a 2 Gbps home connection, in Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas.
“This is Comcast’s 15th speed increase in 13 years. We are proud to boost our existing speeds and most importantly introduce new Internet tiers like the Extreme 250 and Gigabit Pro that will allow our California customers to do more online, across multiple devices,” said Hank Fore, regional SVP of Comcast Cable’s California Region.
“We will continue to look for opportunities to increase speeds to not only stay ahead of customer demands, but also to provide a wide range of options that meet customer needs,” he said.
Earlier this month Comcast announced it will begin offering residential multigigabit home Internet service for Atlanta-area customers beginning in May.
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 customers.
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 multigigabit 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.
