Comcast customers in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania as well as parts of New Jersey and New Castle County, Del. can now subscribe to the company’s DOCSIS 3.1-powered gigabit broadband service.

Jim Samaha, senior vice president of Comcast’s “Freedom Region” surrounding southeastern Pennsylvania says at least two million customers will be able to subscribe to the new, faster broadband speed immediately.

“We have been on a pace of doubling our network capacity every 18 to 24 months, ensuring that we stay well ahead of demand,” said Samaha in a statement.

Comcast is running an introductory promotion that will price the gigabit service at $79.99 a month with a one-year contract or $104.95 a month for month-to-month service. A 1TB usage cap did apply to customers on a gigabit plan who did not agree to a term contract, but there was some debate on that point with Comcast representatives giving conflicting answers. Customers who want a cap-free experience with Comcast may have to pay an additional $50 a month.

Another cable company has announced it won’t be bothering with DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades, deciding instead to ditch its coaxial copper network in favor of fiber-to-the-home service.

Massillon, Ohio-based MCTV announced it will begin gradually replacing its coaxial cable network with a new all-fiber system capable of delivering synchronous high-speed broadband to every customer it serves.

MCTV is a small independent cable company serving more than 47,000 homes and business in Stark, Wayne, Summit, Holmes and Tuscarawas counties in northeastern Ohio, including the cities of Canton, Massillon, and Wooster.

MCTV’s “Excellerate” service will use a Passive Optical Network (PON) to provide customers with 100/100Mbps service. MCTV already uses some fiber in its hybrid fiber-coax network, but what used to be sharing one fiber strand with 500 homes connected via coaxial cable will soon become sharing one fiber strand with 32 homes with no coaxial cable at all.

“At MCTV, we pride ourselves on deploying technologies that are at the forefront of the industry to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers,” said Robert Gessner, president of MCTV. “The fiber-to-the-home technology that we are using to build Excellerate is the latest method to deliver the best Internet experience, both today and in the future.”

Excellerate service is already available to customers in select areas and customers can arrange a fiber upgrade with a phone call to the cable company.

Massillon, Ohio

“The real benefit to our customers will be in the long-term future,” Gessner said. “We are putting in a great, new network that will be upgradeable and expandable to meet the growing needs for internet bandwidth, faster speeds.”

The fiber upgrade will cost approximately $20 million and will not affect customer rates. Both MCTV and Cablevision have announced upgrades to all-fiber networks even as some industry-funded researchers and groups complain that the FCC’s 2015 decision to enforce its authority over broadband using the FCC’s Title II enforcement powers was dampening investment in broadband. Yet smaller cable companies are at the forefront of fiber upgrades, and are also the most vulnerable to an uncertain business climate. Title II appeared to have absolutely no bearing on MCTV’s decision to upgrade.

“We live in an instant society,” Gessner said, noting the company chose to take on this project now before broadband traffic demands put pressure on MCTV’s existing network capacity. “We aren’t operating on a budget or time constraints. I always say I want it to be good not fast.”

Comcast may be undercutting its own fiber broadband aspirations by introducing a cheaper way for customers to get gigabit broadband service over their existing Comcast cable connection.

Customers in seven new areas, including most of Colorado, Oregon, southwest Washington State, and the cities of Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco and Seattle now have access to Comcast’s DOCSIS 3.1-powered gigabit downloads. (Upload speeds are limited to a much less impressive 35Mbps.)

Comcast announced the new communities as part of their gradual rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 — the standard that powers cable broadband — across their national footprint. These communities join Utah, Detroit, Tennessee, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami where Comcast has already introduced the new speeds.

It is Comcast’s latest foray into gigabit speed broadband, and it is decidedly focused on the cities outside of the northeast (except Boston) where Comcast has not faced significant competition from Google Fiber or AT&T Fiber, both delivering gigabit speed internet access. Verizon FiOS, predominately in the northeast, only recently introduced gigabit speed options for its residential customers. Comcast continues to be among the most aggressive cable operators willing to boost broadband speeds for its customers, in direct contrast to Charter Communications, the second largest cable operator in the country that is predominately focused on selling 60-100Mbps internet packages to its customers.

Comcast sells multiple broadband speed tiers to its customers.

Comcast’s efforts may undercut its own fiber-on-demand project, which wires fiber to the home service for some Comcast customers seeking up to 2Gbps service. That plan comes with a steep installation fee and term commitment, making it a harder sell for customers. Comcast’s DOCSIS-powered gigabit will retail for $159.95 a month, but Comcast is offering pricing promotions ranging from $70-109.99 a month with a one-year term commitment in several cities. The more competition, the lower the price.

In Kansas City, where Google Fiber premiered and AT&T is wiring its own gigabit fiber, Comcast charges $70 a month, price-locked for two years with a one-year contract. Customers who don’t want a contract will pay dearly for that option — $160 a month, which is more than double the promotional price.

In Houston, where AT&T has not exactly blanketed the city with gigabit fiber service and Comcast has been the dominant cable operator for decades, gigabit speed will cost you $109.99 — almost $40 more a month because of the relative lack of competition. Customers who bundle other Comcast services will get a price break however. Upgrading to gigabit service will cost those customers an additional $50 to $70 a month, depending on their current package.

“Additional prices and promotions may be tested in the future,” the company said in a news release.

Comcast does not expect many customers will want to make the jump to gigabit speeds and a higher broadband bill. Rich Jennings, senior vice president of Comcast’s Western/Mountain region, told the Colorado Springs Gazette that gigabit service was a “niche product for people who want that kind of speed.”

Comcast does suspect a number of signups will be from broadband-only customers who don’t subscribe to cable television.

Mike Spaulding, Comcast’s vice president of engineering, thinks the service will appeal most to those who rely entirely on a broadband connection for entertainment and communications.

“There’s not a lot of need for gigabit service for one customer to do one thing,” Spaulding told the Denver Post. “But what it does is enable an even better experience as more devices in the home are streaming, whether it’s video or gaming or whatever they are doing in the home. Most of our customers subscribe to the 100Mbps package today. Less than 10 percent of our customers are in the 200-250Mbps. We’ll see where one gig takes us.”

One place a gig may take customers is perilously close to Comcast’s notorious 1TB usage cap, which is currently enforced in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Western Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Utah, Southwest Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, even for this premium-priced internet tier. Customers exceeding it will automatically pay a $10 overlimit fee for each 50GB of excess usage, up to a maximum of $200 a month. An unlimited ‘insurance plan’ is also available for $50 a month, which removes the 1TB cap.

Customers will have to use a new modem if they upgrade to gigabit service, either renting one from Comcast for around $10 a month or buying a compatible DOCSIS 3.1 modem. Two of the most recommended: the Arris Surfboard SB8200 ($189) or the Netgear CM1000 ($171.99) (prices subject to change).

Zoom’s Motorola MB8600

Zoom Telephonics will introduce its first full-featured DOCSIS 3.1 modem for broadband consumers later this month at a price of $159.99.

The Motorola MB8600 includes four GigE LAN ports with support for bonding to allow for delivered speeds of up to 4Gbps and includes Broadcom’s Full-Band Capture (FBC) digital tuning, which supports future IPTV applications.

Zoom licensed the Motorola brand name for broadband-related equipment and is hoping to grab more market share in a field dominated by more familiar brands including Arris, Ubee, and Netgear.

The unit is backwards-compatible with DOCSIS 3.0 and includes support for up to 32×8 DOCSIS 3 channels, which some cable operators are using to provide gigabit speeds.

The full feature set:

• DOCSIS 3.1 with fallback to 32×8 DOCSIS 3.0
• Full-band Capture Digital Tuning enhances speed and saves energy
• Works with any router, Windows or Mac computer, HDTV, or game station that has an Ethernet port
• This DOCSIS 3.1 modem supports Active Queue Management (AQM), which significantly reduces Internet latency.
• 4 GigE Ethernet ports with support for port bonding
• Vertical case saves space and enhances cooling
• High resistance to lightning and to power surges
• Future proof, including DOCSIS 3.1, DOCSIS 3.0
• 2 year warranty
• IPv6 next generation Internet addressing support
• Multi Processor Technology with ARM based Application Processor

The box comes pre-branded with Comcast’s XFINITY logo, which means it is a sure bet Comcast will support this modem. Consumers should verify if other cable operators will approve use of this modem before buying. It will be available for retail online sale by Walmart, Amazon.com, Target, Best Buy and MicroCenter as early as late May.

Arris SB8200 DOCSIS 3.1 modem

You know cable operators are getting serious about DOCSIS 3.1 when they open their checkbooks and buy millions of new cable modems capable of supporting the next-generation cable broadband standard.

Arris, one of the country’s biggest cable equipment manufacturers, reports it expects to ship at least two million DOCSIS 3.1 modems this year, a number analyst firm SNL Kagan says is conservative. They predict the number will be closer to three million.

Arris told its investors in the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call that the company is doing extremely well, with sales reaching $1.48 billion this quarter, and expected to be up another $1.69 billion by the summer.

Most of Arris’ modems are likely to end up at Comcast, where the cable operator plans to aggressively introduce DOCSIS 3.1 starting this year. Cox, Mediacom, and RCN are also expected to be big buyers of DOCSIS 3.1 technology this year. The one notable exception is Charter Communications, which remains preoccupied integrating Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks into its existing operations and still has a large number of legacy Time Warner Cable systems left to upgrade to all-digital service — a process that is likely to continue for the next few years. Charter is not expected to move aggressively towards DOCSIS 3.1 until 2018 or 2019. Cablevision is also sitting out DOCSIS 3.1. Altice plans to scrap Cablevision’s existing hybrid fiber-coax network and move to fiber-to-the-home technology for its customers.

DOCSIS 3.1 will allow operators to more easily introduce gigabit download speeds and offer additional bandwidth efficiency. Arris’ first DOCSIS 3.1 modem is the SB8200, available now for $199.99 on Amazon.