Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on February 07, 2018, 11:47:20 AM
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https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/charter-promises-gigabit-internet-to-virtually-all-customers-this-year/ (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/charter-promises-gigabit-internet-to-virtually-all-customers-this-year/)
Charter's cable network extends to about 50 million homes and businesses across the US, and nearly all of them should have the opportunity to buy gigabit-speed cable Internet by the end of 2018. So far, prices for the service range from $105 to $125.
"By year-end, we'll offer gigabit services in virtually everywhere we serve at all 50 million passings," Charter CEO Tom Rutledge told investors in an earnings call Friday. The number of residential units among those 40 million locations is somewhere above 40 million.
An earnings call transcript by Seeking Alpha is available here, and Rutledge's remarks were pointed out by news site Stop the Cap.
The gigabit upgrades will require some modem transfers, Rutledge said. While it's advertised as a gigabit service, the actual maximum speed is slightly less, at 940Mbps, and uploads are 35Mbps.
So far, Charter is offering gigabit services in eight markets to 9 million homes and businesses, he said. The markets are Oahu, Hawaii; Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas, Charlotte, North Carolina; Cincinnati, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; New York City; and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
It's interesting to see Charter is already using the DOCSIS 3.1 technology. Interestingly in the US it appears the pricing is the opposite to here. In the UK VM pricing tends to be cheaper than fibre products. But in the US cable is more expensive, which is a bit odd as don't they use cable a lot for tv services too?
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So there are a bunch of bundles and discounts to be had which changes the pricing formula somewhat.
There's also the big time lack of competition in the US. Most have a choice of the cable company and the phone company and the phone company service is unlikely to be FTTP.
Charter aren't especially early to 3.1. Comcast have been deploying it since early 2016.
There is still no driver for Virgin Media to deploy 3.1 here. They were expecting to be at 500Mb and 10:1 downstream to upstream ratio on the top product however a lack of FTTP from Openreach at >300Mb without ridiculous price tags and deploying G.fast from PCPs rather than deeper fibre hasn't really left any need for urgency. My own, new build, area for instance doesn't even have 300Mb available yet.