GVTC Lights Up 1-Gig In San Antonio Area

Cable has its “Gigasphere,” but GVTC has its “GigaRegion.”

GVTC has launched a 1 Gbps Internet service spanning 2,200 miles of fiber across a 2,000 square-mile area, branded as its “GigaRegion,” that touches parts of Far North San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country, and Gonzales, Texas, and a total of about 40,000 homes. The plan is to expand fiber to an additional 2,600 homes in “select residential neighborhoods,” in the area, the company said in an announcement made Monday (Sept. 29).

The GVTC GigaRegion is a private-public partnership between the service provider and the cities of Boerne, Bulverde and Gonzales aimed at spurring economic development in the region.

According to this GVTC Web page, the company is selling a tier that offers 1 Gbps down by 100 Mbps upstream for $299.95 per month.

A video about the project presents a techno-vision and message that would seemingly rival Disney’s for EPCOT. “GVTC GigaRegion is more than just a smart home or office," the voice over proclaims. "The GVTC GigaRegion is smart living and the platform for cities of the future. It’s not just an ideal place to live, work and play, it’s the ideal place to thrive.”

“The companies that do their homework will understand what an innovative, technological  Utopia we’ve created,” Ritchie Sorrells, GVTC’s president and CEO, adds in the GigaRegion promotional reel. “They’ll jump on board and never look back. They’ll never have to. They will have enabled their businesses to embrace the next century in fiber optic evolution.”

Although GVTC is not pitching symmetric 1-Gig, its 1-Gig download service is being offered ahead of others in the region. In July, AT&T announced that it would roll its fiber-based, 1-Gig capable “GigaPower” network to parts of San Antonio, but has not announced an anticipated launch date. Google Fiber is also eyeing the region, with San Antonio having already approved a long-term, master lease deal that clears the way for the deployment of dozens of “fiber huts.”

Time Warner Cable, the area cable incumbent that’s in the process of being acquired by Comcast, has been deploying “TWC Maxx,” the label given to an all-digital upgrade project that will enable a high-end DOCSIS 3.0 tier that offers 300 Mbps in the downstream. San Antonio is among the markets that’s on tap for the TWC Maxx treatment in 2015.