Comcast said it has begun to deploy Gigabit Pro, its new residential 2 Gbps broadband service, in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, announcing that it will be available to about 500,000 customers in the region starting next month.
Comcast has not announced pricing on the service, which will use targeted fiber-to-the-premises deployments to deliver symmetrical 2-Gig speeds.
Notably, Nashville is also being targeted by Google Fiber as part of an 18-city expansion. AT&T has also identified Nashville as a launch site for GigaPower, its fiber-based 1-Gig broadband service.
Comcast has not yet announced pricing on Gigabit Pro, a service that it expects to make available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year, offering it to customers who are within about one-third of a mile of the MSO’s fiber network. Deployments of Gigabit Pro is already underway in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Atlanta, parts of Florida (Miami, Jacksonville, West Palm and Ft. Lauderdale), and certain areas of California.
Comcast is also making plans to offer gigabit speeds on its more widely deployed HFC plant using DOCSIS 3.1, a new CableLabs spec that is targeting speeds up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream. On Tuesday, Comcast offered a sneak peak of an multi-service “Gigabit Home Gateway” that will support DOCSIS 3.1 and RDK-B, a new flavor of the Reference Design Kit, a preintegrated software stack, that can be applied to broadband devices as well as set-top boxes.
“Our commitment to deliver the fastest speeds to the most homes in Tennessee continues with today’s announcement,” said Doug Guthrie, SVP of Comcast Cable’s South Region, in a statement. “As one of Nashville’s largest employers, we have steadily invested in our technology, added to our employee base and unveiled new products and services, making the launch of Gigabit Pro the latest in a series of investments across the state.”
