Charter Broadens 1-Gig Rollout

Charter Communications announced last week that it has launched Spectrum Internet Gig, a broadband service powered by DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades, to markets covering more than 4 million homes.

The latest batch of launches include more than a dozen new markets, including Cleveland; Erie, Pa.; Springfield, Mass.; Bowling Green, Ky.; Hartford, Conn.; Charleston, S.C.; Orlando, Fla.; and Toledo, Ohio.

Those launches follow an expansion of D3.1 to 14 million more homes announced in April.

With the last round of rollouts factored in, Charter estimates that Spectrum Internet Gig is now offered to more than 27 million homes, putting it more than halfway toward its goal of making the service available to its 41-state footprint.

Charter said it’s on track to offer 1-Gig service to virtually all of that footprint by year-end 2018.

In the early going, Charter has been selling the new data cap-free offering, which pairs a downstream that maxes at 1 Gbps with an upstream up to 35 Mbps, for $104.99 per month to new customers. In markets such as Oahu, Charter has been offering it to existing customers with TV service for $114.99 per month, and $124.99 per month without the TV service bundle.

In some D3.1-enabled markets, Charter has also been doubling its minimum downstream internet speeds (to 100 Mbps or 200 Mbps, depending on the market) at no added cost.

Charter ended Q1 2018 with 22.87 million residential broadband subscribers. About 25% of that customer base was getting minimum downstream speeds of 200 Mbps by the end of that period.