Alaska-based GCI has rolled out a free upgrade for customers in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, Mat-Su Valley, and Sitka that delivers broadband speeds up to 250/10Mbps.

GCI’s re:D broadband used to max out at 200Mbps, but thanks to channel bonding on the cable system, download speeds will be upgraded to 250Mbps in re:D service areas by the end of this year.

But getting 250Mbps broadband is not cheap in Alaska. The service is priced at $174.99 a month when part of a service bundle. Broadband-only customers also pay a $11.99 monthly access fee. Both come with 24-month contracts at that price. Customers who don’t want to be tied down can choose month-to-month service for $5 more per month.

At those prices, one might hope GCI would drop its usage cap, but customers can forget it. A 500GB monthly usage cap applies, with overlimit fees up to $30/GB on some plans.

GCI also announced it would deliver 1Gbps next year over a fiber to the home network under construction in Anchorage, promising “no limits with what you can do with broadband” without mentioning whether it planned usage limits for its fiber service as well.

GCI is asking customers to vote support for their neighborhoods getting fiber upgrades. The more red sections of this map of Anchorage shows, the more customers who have shown support for fiber broadband.

For most GCI customers, however, broadband will continue to arrive over the company’s HFC coaxial cable network. To better manage speeds, the company’s DOCSIS 3 platform is bonding eight cable channels, but in re:D areas the company bonds up to 24 cable channels, with plans to increase to 32 channels.

The speed increases come after its competitor Alaska Communications announced speed increases of its own. ACS sells unlimited access broadband service at speeds up to 50Mbps. ACS has beefed up its copper infrastructure to support faster Internet speeds, starting with 15Mbps introduced across the state in May. Now customers in Anchorage can subscribe to faster tiers including 30 and 50Mbps.

“Alaskans asked for faster Home Internet, and we’ve responded with these increased speeds, delivered with great customer service and without overage charges,” said ACS president and CEO Anand Vadapalli. “In addition to faster download speeds, customers choosing our product get the highest upload speeds that are so important for sharing videos and gaming.”

ACS has found its unlimited broadband offering attractive to customers who don’t want to worry about GCI’s overlimit fees. ACS also claims its customers get broadband over a dedicated line, not shared infrastructure like GCI, resulting in no speed slowdowns at peak usage times.

Assuming Comcast doesn’t take over Time Warner Cable and change priorities, the city of Los Angeles is getting a commitment Time Warner will “be in a position to offer” gigabit broadband speeds to homes and businesses in the city no later than 2016.

“Over the last four years, Time Warner Cable has invested more than $1.5 billion to enhance our infrastructure and services in Los Angeles. This significant investment coupled with new ‘Gigasphere’ technology positions us to be able to introduce gigabit-per-second speeds in 2016,” said Peter Stern, executive vice president and chief strategy, people and corporate development officer at TWC. “Leveraging our existing network allows us to deliver these speeds faster and with less disruption than any other provider.”

The new gigabit broadband service will be deployable with an upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1 technology, which offers cable operators a more efficient way to deliver broadband over current cable system infrastructure.

“We believe the introduction of consumer gigabit speeds in our near future will facilitate even greater innovations among students, entrepreneurs and many industries powering the Los Angeles economy,” said Dinni Jain, chief operating officer at TWC. “Cable was the first to bring broadband Internet to the masses nearly 20 years ago, and thanks to the dynamic nature of our fiber-rich network, we foresee endless new possibilities as we roll-out gigabit speeds to all of Los Angeles.”

The first Gigasphere pilot test will begin sometime next year. But a Comcast takeover could shift priorities away from offering the kinds of broadband speeds Time Warner is providing under its TWC Maxx upgrade program. Time Warner’s Internet speeds in upgraded areas are now substantially faster and cheaper than what Comcast offers in its service areas. Comcast could decide to retire the broadband upgrade program altogether and settle on offering speeds comparable to what it already sells across much of its national footprint.

Comcast is also readying a return to usage caps and overlimit fees, with no options for unlimited service, in several test markets.

But there are some caveats on Time Warner’s side as well.

Time Warner’s careful language suggests the company may be technologically capable of providing gigabit speeds but isn’t absolutely committing to offer those speeds anytime soon. Time Warner will not complete Maxx upgrades in Los Angeles until the end of this year, and the company has made no announcements about further expanding Maxx upgrades to other cities. No pricing details were available.

Time Warner Cable’s major broadband speed upgrade is alive in the Astoria, Woodside and Long Island City neighborhoods of Queens, N.Y.

The Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrade is Time Warner Cable’s effort to catch up to other cable operators that have significantly upgraded broadband speeds for customers over the last 18 months. Time Warner Cable has traditionally been one of the slowest major cable broadband providers in the country, with most customers only able to buy speeds up to 50/5Mbps. But Time Warner Cable has also committed to keeping unlimited use service available to customers, unlike Comcast, Charter, Cox, Suddenlink, and Mediacom.

The free speed upgrades are the largest ever for Time Warner Cable, typically more than tripling speeds for most customers.

Stop the Cap! has heard from readers in Queens who discovered the upgrades took effect this week, so we have been able to take a closer look at what customers can expect as Time Warner rolls out upgrades across New York City and Los Angeles and finally extending faster speeds over the next two years in other cities.

(Image: ematrix)

Arris Touchstone Telephony Gateway TG1672g

The first notification your area is about to receive an upgrade will come in a letter from Time Warner Cable.

Customers subscribing to the fastest speed tiers may need new equipment. Time Warner Cable is using 8-channel bonding in Queens for its 100 and 200Mbps tiers and 16-channel bonding for its 300Mbps tier. Some older and low-end DOCSIS 3 modems only support four channel bonding. For instance, a customer using a four-channel capable Motorola 6121 modem in Queens with Time Warner’s 30/5Mbps Extreme tier will only get speeds up to 50/5Mbps after the upgrade. If the customer owned a Motorola 6141, which supports eight channel bonding, they will get the full advantage of the upgrade: 200/20Mbps. But even the 6141 isn’t enough for Time Warner’s top tier: 300/20Mbps. Customers would need an upgrade to a 16-channel capable modem.

Time Warner’s notification letter says customers can swap out a company-owned cable modem for a 16-channel capable model, currently the Arris TG1672g, either by mail, through an area Time Warner Cable store, or with a service call. The usual modem rental fees still apply.

The TG1672g (download user manual) is a fully capable broadband and Wi-Fi home gateway that also supports Time Warner’s phone service:

• 16×4 Channel Bonding
• Full Capture Bandwidth Tuner
• Multi Processor Technology with an Intel Atom Core Application Processor
• DOCSIS® 3.0 and PacketCable™ 2.0 compliant design
• 4 port Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Router
• 3×3 Integrated Dual Band Concurrent
• 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n radios with Beam Forming
• USB 2.0 Host Port
• Upcoming support for DLNA and File Storage
• Two FXS lines of carrier-grade VoIP with HD voice support
• MoCA1.1 for in Home Video and Data distribution over Coax
• Dual Stack IPv4/IPv6 Home Router
• Internal Power Supply for Highest Reliability and reduced energy consumption
• Battery backup: Single battery pack for reaching a full 8 hours of standby support

If picking up new equipment, a Time Warner representative will probably let you know if your account is flagged “Maxx-capable,” which means your neighborhood’s upgrade is imminent or complete. Time Warner may also want to swap out your set-top boxes if you subscribe to cable television, although readers report cable television service and the on-screen guide in Queens doesn’t look any different at present. The backup battery inside the cable modem is rated for up to 10 years of life and is replaceable by the user for around $60.

Customers who own their own cable modem might have to buy a new one if they are seeking the company’s fastest speeds. Time Warner’s latest approved modem list should guide what, if any, new equipment you might need. If you are considering buying your own modem, you might plan your purchase around the model(s) that support the speeds you want.

Time Warner Cable’s Latest Approved Modem List

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TWC Techs Launch 300 Mbps Internet Speeds at Queens NY Hub 5-6-14.flv[/flv]
Technicians launch 300Mbps broadband speeds for Time Warner Cable customers in Queens, N.Y. (1:27)

Cox Communications Inc., the third-largest U.S. cable company, will offer gigabit broadband to residential customers later this year when it begins deploying DOCSIS 3.1 technology across its footprint.

“We’re working on our road map now to bring gigabit speeds to customers this year,” Pat Esser, the president and chief executive officer of Cox, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu at the Cable Show in Los Angeles. Cox customers have asked for faster speeds, he said.

The gigabit speed upgrade is a significant flip-flop for Cox Communications, which last year dismissed the demand for super-fast Internet speeds, suggested they were unnecessary for residential customers and too expensive to offer.

“It would cost multiple billions” to upgrade Cox’s network to offer gigabit speeds to all its customers, Esser said in January 2013. Now Esser tells Bloomberg the estimated cost is closer to “hundreds of millions of dollars to build.”

The leveling off of video subscriptions has made broadband a critical part of Cox’s ongoing business plan. Esser claims Cox will adapt its business network infrastructure to introduce gigabit service to residential customers in some cities.

Last November, Cox’s chief technology officer Kevin Hart told FierceCable’s Steve Donohue that DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades will be able to handle gigabit speeds without difficulty after analog television channels are switched to digital service.

“We have a five-year roadmap in terms of our video architecture–what we’re doing from an analog-to-digital conversion to free up spectrum on the network for broadband growth,” Hart said. “We’re freeing up spectrum, building out node-splits and then aligning with the [DOCSIS] 3.1 roadmap for 1-gigabit speeds.”

Cable operators are increasingly changing their tune about offering faster speed Internet since Google Fiber arrived on the scene. Recent announcements that Google was planning a major expansion of fiber to the home service in multiple cities around the country has brought a flurry of often vague commitments for expanded fiber networks, particularly from AT&T.

Privately held Cox has maintained a low profile about speed hikes and network upgrades until now. Cox has about six million residential and business customers, with most choosing speeds up to 25Mbps. Esser offered no details about pricing or availability and Hart told an audience at the Los Angeles Cable Show this week Cox was still concentrating on expanding availability of 150-200Mbps service across its footprint. With that in mind, it is unlikely Cox will introduce gigabit service on a widely available basis this year.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Cox Plans Faster Internet to Challenge Google Video 4-30-14.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg’s Betty Liu talks with Cox CEO Pat Esser about the cable company’s plans for gigabit broadband speeds coming later this year. (2:30)

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), in collaboration with the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), CableLabs, and Cable Europe, today announced the next generation of cable broadband — DOCSIS 3.1 — will be dubbed “Gigasphere” as its public name to demystify the technology for consumers.

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.1 will be the next standard for delivering broadband service over cable systems. Unlike earlier standards that depended on allocating one or more traditional “channels” for broadband, Gigasphere will use orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), allowing cable systems to bond segments of unused spectrum together dedicated to broadband, delivering the potential of 10/1Gbps service.

Gigasphere will help cable systems compete more effectively with fiber to the home broadband networks, although upstream speeds are still slower than what fiber can offer. By rebranding DOCSIS 3.1, cable operators hope customers will respond to future marketing efforts that promote the viability of cable-delivered broadband in light of growing fiber competition.

The first generation of Gigasphere modems will cover both DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 3.0 spectrum simultaneously when they arrive later this year. Models will support the current DOCSIS 3 standard with up to 24 bonded QAM channels for downloading and up to 8 channels for uploading. The modems will also cover two 192MHz OFDM channels for downloading and two 96MHz wide OFDM channels for uploading under DOCSIS 3.1 — potentially delivering up to 4-5Gbps downloading and 1.5Gbps uploading speeds.