Comcast is rolling into Chattanooga, Tennessee with the biggest if you can’t beat em, join em play you’ve seen in quite a while.
Why Chattanooga, you might ask? In 2008, Comcast sued the city’s Electric Power Board (EPB) to block the municipality from creating its own fiber network. Comcast eventually lost that battle, and Chattanooga went ahead with creating its high-speed internet.
But now Comcast is taking its recently-announced 2 gigabit fiber program there.
“Gigabit Pro will be the fastest internet available to residential customers in Chattanooga,” said Doug Guthrie, SVP of Comcast Cable’s South Region. “This important milestone follows years’ worth of investments we’ve made to consistently deliver the fastest in-home and Wi-Fi speeds to the most homes and businesses in our markets. We’re excited that Chattanooga will become one of the first cities in the country to enjoy the nation’s fastest residential speeds.”
Comcast announced its 2Gbps initiative in April, firing shots at Google in the process.
“Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods,” said Doug Guthrie, SVP of Comcast Cable’s South Region.
Yes, Fiber’s rollout has been slow and deliberate.
Comcast started its fiber rollout in Atlanta, and then expanded it into Florida and California. The company’s goal is to have the 2Gbps service in 18 million homes by the end of this year.
Chattanooga has been prevented from expanding its fiber network by state laws, but the FCC recently voted to do away with the regulations that prevented municipal broadband expansion. Of course, companies like Comcast are still fighting this.
But hey, might as well go after one of the flagship cities for municipal fiber with your fiber, right?
Image via lmilious, Wikimedia Commons
