AT&T Launches ‘GigaPower’ In Houston

Roughly eight months after making the commitment, AT&T said it has followed with the launch of its 1-Gig-capable GigaPower service in Houston, where the telco competes with Comcast.

The U-verse with GigaPower offering for residential and small businesses is launching in pockets of Houston and surrounding areas that include Bellaire, Pasadena, and Northwest Harris County, the telco said.

For those who qualify, GigaPower in Houston will start at $110 per month for 1 Gbps, or $80 for 300 Mbps, for customers who agree to participate in in AT&T Internet Preferences targeted ad program.

Comcast last week introduced Gigabit Pro, an uncapped, fiber-based, symmetrical 2 Gbps service that will initially be offered in Atlanta, and expects to make it available to other systems passing 18 million homes by the end of 2015. Comcast has not announced when it will offer Gigabit Pro in Houston.

The launch in Houston follows a recent debut of GigaPower in Cupertino and in parts of Kansas City,  where AT&T is offering a stand-alone version of the 1-Gig service for $70 per month, a price that matches up with Google Fiber’s standalone gigabit plan there.

AT&T has also launched GigaPower  in Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas; and Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, N.C. AT&T has announced plans to deploy GigaPower in parts of 11 additional markets – Atlanta; Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C.; Chicago; Houston; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis and San Antonio.

AT&T has said it’s weighing GigaPower rollouts in up to 100 cities across 25 markets, and has also pledged to expand its fiber-based platform to an additional 2 million customer locations as part of its proposed acquisition of DirecTV.