Cox is planning to offer its customers a gigabit Internet service, competing against similar services being deployed by
Google and
AT&T. CEO Pat Esser revealed in an interview the company will be moving towards expanding the high-speed service from its current corporate customers into the residential market, with the first roll-outs set to occur before the end of this year.
Speaking
to Bloomberg, Esser advised "We're working on our roadmap now around the residential side of the business to bring gigabit speeds to customers this year. I'm talking about plans over time for all our customers in all our markets having residential gigabit broadband speeds available to them." Cox will apparently announce markets the gigabit connection roll-out will start in "over the next two to three weeks."
It was not advised where these launch locations could be, though it already has a "very robust network" with "fiber very deep in the network" allowing it to offer connections as high as 10 gigabit for business customers. In some areas, it may have to fight directly against AT&T and Google Fiber, with AT&T recently revealing
21 metropolitan areas targeted for gigabit Internet, and Google planning the service in
34 locations.
The pricing of the potential service is also unknown, and could be a deal breaker for some. AT&T and Google Fiber offer connections priced at around $70 per month, while Comcast charges up to $300 monthly for a 300Mbps Internet connection. Cox's current Premier package, providing a 50Mbps connection is promotionally-priced at $61, suggesting a gigabit Internet service could be in the same price ballpark as Comcast.
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