Sonic lights 1 Gig service in six Northern California communities

Sonic, a competitive broadband service provider, is entering the 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) game with plans to deliver service to residential customers in six Northern California communities, including Brentwood.

Being a competitive carrier that's had a reputation for shaking up the market with competitively priced DSL services, the company hopes that its 1 Gbps service will promote growth and investment by providing broadband speeds rivaling those found in nearby technology hubs by traditional telcos and cable operators like AT&T (NYSE: T) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA).

To make the new service a reality, the service provider is leveraging Adtran's FTTH product portfolio.

Besides serving local residents, Sonic is going to offer a complementary Gigabit Fiber Internet service to local school districts. Taking a page from Google Fiber's (NASDAQ: GOOG) playbook, it will provide services to local schools when a certain percentage of residents in a community sign up for service.

By having faster bandwidth in the classroom, teachers say they will be able to drive collaboration with students around the globe, enable more rich media content and allow better use of existing technology in the classroom.

"Whether it's creating telecommuting opportunities for our residents or enriched learning capabilities in our local schools, our Gigabit Fiber Internet service is providing a platform that will allow them to participate in and create the next generation of digital innovation," said Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic, in a release.

Sonic is hardly a FTTH novice. In 2012 it began expanding its FTTH plans in Sebastopol, Calif., to serve more customers, for example.

For more:
- see the release

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