Comcast, Cox Gbps expansions further disrupt the broadband status quo

Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Cox Communications are enhancing their Gbps broadband reach with plans to bring their services to multiple markets in the Midwest, Southeast and West. In doing so, they will increasingly do battle with traditional telcos like AT&T (NYSE: T) and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), which are selectively moving into the fiber broadband game.

Delivered over a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture, Comcast will begin offering its 2 Gbps symmetrical Gigabit Pro service in Nashville and surrounding communities in Middle Tennessee beginning later this month.

The Tennessee market expansion follows what has been an aggressive rollout schedule for its 2 Gbps service. Over the past month, Comcast has announced it would bring the service to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Tenn., California and Florida, with plans to roll out the service to 18 million homes by the end of the year.

Taking a leverage-and-extend approach to the FTTH rollout, Comcast said that the service will be available to any home that resides in close proximity to its fiber network and will require a technician to come to each home to install an optical network terminal (ONT) at the customer premises.

No less compelling is fellow cable operator Cox Communications.

Cox Communications is taking advantage of this week's INTX 2015 show to announce that its 1 Gbps service, which will use a mixture of FTTH and DOCSIS technologies, is available in parts of Phoenix, Ariz.; Orange County, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; and Las Vegas. It initially announced its 1 Gbps plans during last year's NCTA show.

Ultimately, Cox plans to offer its 1 Gbps residential service across all of its market by the end of next year.

Similar to other regional cable MSOs like Grande Communications, which also offers 1 Gbps FTTH services, Cox has also been updating its existing Internet service packages such as Cox High Speed Internet Preferred and Cox High Speed Internet Premier.

In 2014, the cable MSO updated its standard packages from 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps, with premium speeds from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps, which today are available to 75 percent of its customer base. Later this year, the service provider said it plans to increase the speeds of its High Speed Internet Ultimate package.

For more:
- see the Comcast release
- and the Cox release

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