One of the best cable providers, Charter Spectrum® recently announced that the company is launching gigabit internet offering in select areas of Southern California as of now. To be precise, gigabit internet will be launched by Spectrum® across highways stretching from Ventura to San Diego and Palm Springs to the east.
All of the cities in Southern California should have accesses to the gigabit network of Spectrum® by 2018, said a representative of the cable provider. Charter’s speedy network offers ten times quicker speed than most of the broadband internet connections offering 100 megabits per second. A 1 Gbps internet connection is useful for residential customers, who have several wireless devices connected to the home network for simultaneously streaming videos, and accessing other online content.
For gigabit internet service, new Spectrum® subscribers will have to pay $104.99 a month, and existing subs will have to pay $114.99 a month as per reports. In a recent statement, Spectrum® said it would keep providing network services without data caps or even modem fees for that matter. Note that for Spectrum® cable, customers pay a separate fee which will be exclusive to that of gigabit internet going forward.
Nationwide internet providers in general have been upgrading their network to deploy gigabit internet service for residential customers that demand more bandwidth. Considering Southern California alone, AT&T® & Google Fiber® deploys gigabit internet in select cities in the region. The launching of Spectrum® would offer more options for customers to choose from, and will enhance the competition in the internet segment.
An audited report drafted by Deloitte Global in 2016 had predicted that the number of 1 Gbps connections would jump to 10mn by 2016, out of which around 70 percentage would be residential gigabit internet connections. The company also commented on the future of gigabit internet in their 2016 report, and said, “Although a Gbit/s connection for a single device may be overkill, consumers are likely to continue accumulating connected devices in the long term.”
The US now has millions of internet customers with accesses to gigabit speeds, but only a portion of the country’s population rely on the high-speed connection for their broadband needs. There are several rural areas in the country, for which cable providers offer other wired alternatives. Spectrum® said that its gigabit internet connection will require a professional installation, so that it can avoid a confusion customers tend to face with self-installation.