Bright House Preps Broadband Speed Upgrades

Bright House Networks said it will start to light up broadband upgrades next month that will boost the downstream speeds of its most popular tiers without raising the price. The MSO also plans to launch a new 300 Mbps offering in “early 2015.”

Bright House said the downstream speeds supported by its “Standard” tier will jump from 10 Mbps to 15 Mbps, while its multiple “Lightening”-level tiers will also get bumped as follows: 30 Mbps rises to 35 Mbps; 60 Mbps increases to 75 Mbps; and 90 Mbps jumps to 150 Mbps.

The operator noted that it will offer its new 300  Mbps service throughout its full service area in Florida early next year, but didn’t say when it expects to launch the speedier new tier in its other service areas. Bright House is also working on a symmetrical 1-Gig service that will initially be available to a new 6,000-home development in the Tampa area.

Bright House noted that its high-speed Internet packages also include access to 40,000 WiFi hotspots across its service areas and about 250,000 hotspots in other markets, coming way of a Cable WiFi roaming consortium that also includes Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems and Cox Communications.

Bright House serves about 2.5 million customers in parts of Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and California.