Comcast has confirmed their plan to implement a 1 Gigabyte per second Network roll out in Atlanta. This should come as very cheerful news for users with a thirst above the normals for data – companies maybe. For the home, this could probably be an overkill. For Comcast, this will be their first location to implement that bandwidth of data and is set to up the access speeds of internet with 55 times or even 100 times faster than what users of broadband are currently getting. While all this could have you at the edge of your seat, the fact is that Comcast is not the first company to carry out a network roll out project of this magnitude.
Google fibre has already set foot and established speeds comparable to Comcast’s goals. Perhaps Comcast just realized it is well time to get started and Atlanta is where it starts. Which is why they are trying to dial down the hype around Google fibre’s offering. Them being a huge shareholder of the market, Comcast is looking to secure what they already have, at all costs and super fast. Some neighbourhoods in the Atlanta area are eligible for their tests, just to show customers what they would be signing for.
If you have been watching how you started off using internet services and their speeds then, getting the new level of speed for personal use should have you thinking and worried if it is really what you need. There is only so many movies you can stream on Netflix, let’s just say you are downloading the latest music too from your iTunes. In a week or less; you would have ‘downloaded the entire internet’ – as we laughed in our office thinking about the possibilities.
That thinking has never stopped the developments in internet connectivity from happening though; a bundle with up-speeds and down-speeds of an impressive 2Gbps is also available with the network roll out.
What will all this internet cost people then? Well we hear that users that opt in early and agree to a contract binding them in for 3 years will part with $70 per month. There obviously has to be an opt out fee plan for this ($350), so a steady usage to avoid the exhaustion spoken of earlier is necessary. If the contact is not your cake, you can just part with double the fee per month – they will also place a limit of 300 Gigs of data on that, which you can negotiate with an extra $35 per month.
Who knew access to the new network roll out would have you deciding through such options. Since they are not the only ones offering the 1 Gbps service, maybe an even broader option table will be needed is we consider AT&T’s contract variable too.
The plan for Comcast is to take the network roll out idea and implement if over their existing infrastructure to more cities (5 in total) by the end of 2016.