Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) is continuing to shake up the gigabit broadband market, announcing that it will be offering its 2 Gbps service in Florida to 1.3 million customers in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm and Jacksonville areas.
Comcast will offer the service, which is delivered over a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture, across its Florida service area beginning in May.
Similar to the service launches Comcast conducted in Atlanta and California, Gigabit Pro will be available to any home that resides near Comcast's fiber network and will require a technician to come to the home to install an optical network terminal (ONT) device.
Delivering 2 Gbps to residential customers in Florida may be new, but the service provider has a long track record in the state of delivering up to 10 Gbps Ethernet service to businesses since 2011.
What will be interesting to watch with Comcast's 2 Gbps rollout is how competitors respond to it.
Florida is the third market the cable MSO has named for its 2 Gbps service. Earlier this month, it launched Gigabit Pro in Atlanta and California, two markets where it will go head-to-head with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Google Fiber (NASDAQ: GOOG), both of which have also announced their intention to offer a 1 Gbps FTTH service. In addition, Comcast said it plans to offer multi-gigabit fiber service through its Xfinity Communities program, which serves residents living in multidwelling units, such as apartment complexes.
AT&T recently launched its 1 Gbps GigaPower service in the Chicago metro area, another one of Comcast's major hubs, while Google Fiber said it plans on bringing its service to Atlanta this year.
For more:
- see the release
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