What you could do with faster online speeds at home?
Comcast says it will offer 2 gigabit-per-second residential speeds in metro Atlanta. Google and AT&T have separately announced plans for 1 gigabit speeds in some local cities. Currently, many local Comcast customers get 50 megabit-per-second connections. (1,000 megabits make a gigabit.)
How fast would it take to download:
A full-length HD movie
• 2 gigabit = 12 seconds
• 1 gigabit = 24 seconds
• 50Mbps = 8 minutes
100 songs
• 2 gigabit = 2.4 seconds
• 1 gigabit = 4.8 seconds
• 50Mbps = 1 minute and 36 seconds
Source: Suwanee-based Arris Group
Comcast will offer lightning-fast Internet connections to about 1.5 million metro Atlanta homes starting next month, promising speeds twice what rivals Google and AT&T have said they will offer locally.
Installations could be done in a matter of weeks, say officials for Comcast, which is expected to announce the plan Thursday.
The proposed 2 gigabit-per-second service would be 200 times faster than the average for U.S. homes. It would allow customers to download an HD movie in about 12 seconds and families to simultaneously use multiple online connections for work and play with almost no delay.
The price? Not yet set, the company said. Google charges $70 a month for the 1-gigabit speed it already sells in some other cities.
Comcast’s offering is a big volley in what has become an arms race for online speed. Comcast, both the nation’s and metro Atlanta’s largest cable TV provider, would shoot past the service that Google and AT&T have said they will sell within certain metro Atlanta cities and will or already do offer in several other cities elsewhere.
Metro Atlanta would kick off Comcast’s national roll out of the 2-gig residential service this year in its markets, becoming the biggest U.S. bet yet on home gigabit and faster speeds. The company expects to have 30 million cable TV subscribers if it can complete its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.
But perhaps the biggest factor in Comcast’s move is whether it will offer the service at a price that is affordable for many of its customers. The service will be marketed as Gigabit Pro.
“The goal is to get the fastest speeds to the most people as quickly as possible,” spokesman Alex Horwitz said.
Speed upgrades could be made within weeks of people signing up, Horwitz said.
“The vast majority of our greater Atlanta customer base will have access.”
To be served, homes will have to be within about a third of a mile of fiber portions of Comcast’s network. Comcast usually uses fiber to get to the front of neighborhoods and often to front yards, then relies on coaxial cable to reach homes. Under its 2 gigabit plan, it would install fiber for the final stretch, potentially digging into yards and streets. It would put a box on the side of the home and provide a new modem inside.
For now, many consumers may have a hard time knowing what they would do with so much speed, said Ron Hutchins, chief technology officer at Georgia Tech. But he called Comcast’s decision “great.”
“Google has competition now that will drive prices down further and give us better quality,” he said.
Comcast, like many cable providers, has weathered bitter customer complaints over the years about its TV service and increasing prices. The company has said it’s pushing hard to improve service.
Because of its existing cable system, Comcast can roll out its service much faster and more broadly than Google or AT&T.
Google and AT&T have carefully picked areas to launch the service locally. Combined, they would reach areas totaling less than 20 percent of metro Atlanta’s population.
Google hasn’t given a timetable for when its service will be available locally. It has said prices will be “roughly consistent” with what it offers elsewhere, which can include a gigabit Internet connection plus TV service for $130 a month.
AT&T has not said how much it will charge for its local gigabit service or when it will begin offering it.
Google’s earlier launch of Google Fiber service in Kansas City put pressure on other Internet providers to keep up. It expanded into Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, and earlier this year announced plans to enter Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville and eight cities locally: Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs and Smyrna.
AT&T is slated to offer its gigabit service inside the city limits of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Decatur and Newnan. Like Google, it’s also considering expanding into other local cities.
Comcast recently announced plans to add about 1,000 new local jobs at a new regional headquarters building and provide super-fast online connections inside the Atlanta Brave’s planned Cobb County stadium and surrounding complex.
Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Cox Communications, one of the nation’s largest cable providers, has begun offering gigabit speeds to homes in Phoenix and Orange County, Calif., and plans to offer in all its markets by the end of 2016. Cox, which doesn’t provide cable service in metro Atlanta, is part of Cox Enterprises, which owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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