Comcast Begins Rolling Out Gigabit Cable Connections

Google has been working hard to roll out gigabit internet in various parts of the US. When they first announced the endeavor, many people thought that it was more or less a way to get other ISPs to step up their game and offer higher speeds at lower costs. Well, it's at least partially working, as Comcast is prepping to roll out their fastest cable internet speeds ever, in select locations.

Those living in Atlanta, and Nashville will be happy to know that the company will be bringing gigabit cable internet to their cities early this year. Those in Chicago, Detroit, and Miami will be getting a similar treatment in the second half of 2016. While that may not seem like the biggest news, what's interesting is that this is being done over a cable connection, not fiber.

Thanks to the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard, Comcast is now able to push gigabit speeds to homes without the need to invest money in deploying fiber lines. This will significantly cut down on the amount of time and money that it will take to deploy gigabit connections across the country.

The company went on to state that due to these advancements, they will be able to "eventually make these ultra-fast speeds available to the most homes in our service areas." What they didn't talk about were the data caps that cable users are subjected to. While Comcast doesn't enforce a data cap on their fiber customers, they do have one for cable connections. Hopefully when they roll out gigabit cable service, they will nix the caps for those customers.

Source: Comcast