Is Comcast serious about offering gigabit Internet in Huntsville? (Decatur: appointed, sales)

[MisterEd51]

Comcast had been advertising a 2 Gbps (GigabitPro) residential internet plan in Huntsville for at least a year now but I bet they got few takers. It was to cost $300 per month with about a $1000 upfront fee.

Is the announcement of a new 1 Gbps internet plan at an unknown rate just fishing on their part or they really serious now about competing with Wow, AT&T, and Google Fiber in Huntsville?

Comcast will offer gigabit Internet in Huntsville (2/14/2017)
Comcast will offer gigabit Internet in Huntsville | AL.com

As an example I noticed that Comcast only decided to become competitive with gigabit internet in Chicago after they received real competition from Google Fiber.

Comcast’s $70 gigabit deal is shockingly difficult to sign up for (8/23/2016)
https://arstechnica.com/information-...-in-real-life/

[dijkstra]

All I know is that everyone I know that has had comcast hated them. Their rarely got the internet speeds they were paying for and the cable tv was flaky. Does anyone really expect them to be able to pull off reliable 1 or 2Gbps, when they can't even pull off standard services reliably? Plus their customer service is notoriously lousy.

[MisterEd51]

Another question is how many people are willing to pay for gigabit internet? I remember reading about Chattanooga being disappointed in how few people signed up for their gigabit internet. That was two years ago. Maybe things are different now in Huntsville.

[cnygreek]

I just think that there is a limited market for those that are willing to pay more than $100 a month for internet. Its not that people don't want gigabit internet, they just don't want to pay more than $100 a month for it.

[csutton79]

Can't say I've really had the reliability and speed issues others have had with Comcast, BUT I'm not a fan of their data caps, "customer service" and bait & switch sales tactics.

I think it mostly comes down to the infrastructure in the area. I had Knology/Wow in an area with older lines and it was absolutely horrible. I'd only get a tiny fraction of the speed that was advertised and that's when the connection didn't drop. I moved to a newer area with new lines and am getting more than the advertised speed and have have very few outages.

Saying that, how often do you actually see download speeds near the speed of your connection? Most content providers cap download speeds for balancing. Is gigabit actually worth paying more just for the speed?

[Southlander]

Even Decatur is getting into the fiber optic access, at least for commercial, government, and non-profits. Officials hope fiber optic expansion helps diversify Decatur's economy | Decatur | decaturdaily.com

[NoleFanHSV]

I've been dealing with issues for 3 weeks now with Comcast. I may hit up att fiber.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by csutton79

Can't say I've really had the reliability and speed issues others have had with Comcast, BUT I'm not a fan of their data caps, "customer service" and bait & switch sales tactics.

I think it mostly comes down to the infrastructure in the area. I had Knology/Wow in an area with older lines and it was absolutely horrible. I'd only get a tiny fraction of the speed that was advertised and that's when the connection didn't drop. I moved to a newer area with new lines and am getting more than the advertised speed and have have very few outages.

Saying that, how often do you actually see download speeds near the speed of your connection? Most content providers cap download speeds for balancing. Is gigabit actually worth paying more just for the speed?

I used to have the "12-15" with Wow!, and very seldom got the speed I was paying for. More often than not, it down around 2.

I went to the 25-30 plan, then a year or so ago they increased everybody and now I'm on their 60 up, 5 down plan. I get 65 consistently except during "rush hour" in the evenings, but even then it's about 50. So I have no complaints, except price. They are very high. Internet plus a landline telephone is about $115. But I have no qualms with their customer service ... you always get someone in the US that speaks English, and you get them pretty promptly.