Charter Communications has officially entered the DOCSIS 3.1 era with the launch of a 1 Gbps (downstream) residential broadband service in Oahu called Spectrum Internet Gig.
The new service, which is free of data caps and contracts, is priced at $104.99 for new customers, and is paired with an upstream that maxes out at 35 Mbps. Pricing for existing customers with TV service is $114.99 per month, and $124.99 per month without the TV service bundle. Service also comes with a modem with integrated WiFi and a 30-day money back guarantee, the company said.
Tied in, Charter has also doubled the minimum downstream internet speed offered in Oahu – from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps. That minimum speed tier comes with a 10 Mbps upstream.
UPDATE: “Customers today enjoy a flagship broadband speed that is 20 times faster than it was eight years ago, while the price per Mbps for customers has decreased 93%,” Tamara Smith, VP of policy communications at Charter, wrote in this blog post. She added that investment in more efficient bandwidth management and advanced compression technologies have enabled Charter to increase its broadband speeds.
Charter is expected to launch Spectrum Internet Gig in other markets soon. Other MSOs that haven been aggressive with D3.1 include Comcast, Mediacom Communications, RCN, and WideOpenWest, among others.
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In October, Charter president and CEO Tom Rutledge said the MSO planned to launch 1-Gig service via D3.1 “in several key markets” over the next couple of months, and that the company would eventually buy D3.1 modems exclusively (the initial wave of D3.1 models are hybrids that can tap into spectrum for DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 3.0 services).
“Charter’s state-of-the-art, fiber-rich network is superior in its ability to deliver fast and reliable internet to millions of consumers across the country,” Rutledge said in a statement. “As technology continues to evolve, the products and services of tomorrow will increasingly rely on faster broadband connections. Charter’s world-class network is best-positioned to deliver the bandwidth and capacity needed to meet these growing demands.”
Charter hasn’t announced where it will deploy D3.1 services next. However, the company does expect to raise the minimum speeds available to 100 Mbps to most of its footprint by the end of the year.
