By Mike Freeman, The San Diego Union-Tribune
AT&T said Friday it has launched its fast GigaPower Internet service to a group of 1,200 new apartments in a development in Mission Valley — joining Cox Communications and others in efforts to bring 1-gigabit broadband speeds to San Diego County.
AT&T made the announcement at the Civita master planned community, which consists of apartments and residences just north of Friars Road. It’s one of the first communities in the county with access to 1-gigabit speeds over AT&T’s fiber optic network.
“As the ways in which we communicate and seek entertainment become more data intensive, our customers will benefit from the launch of our AT&T GigaPower Service,” said Amanda Harris, assistant vice president of AT&T Mobility.
The company also is offering 1-gigabit-per-second broadband speeds in parts of Carlsbad and San Marcos, said Harris. She declined to name exactly where for “competitive reasons.”
Established Internet Service Providers have been speeding up deployments of high-speed broadband to compete with Google Fiber, which has rolled out high-speed broadband in a handful of cities nationwide and is considering deploying a network in San Diego.
Critics of these ISP rollouts say they are typically dressed up to appear notably larger than they actually are. In most cases, they are not widely available in an ISP’s geographic service area. Instead, they are offered primarily in new, high-end housing developments where fiber-optic lines are already planned or in the ground.
In all, AT&T said GigaPower is now available in 15 apartment complexes in San Diego County. It expects to expand the network into parts of Chula Vista and other local communities later this year and beyond.
GigaPower starts at $70 a month where available. Customers can bundle it with TV starting at $120 a month.
Harris said customers can check on AT&T’s website or at a store to see if GigaPower is offered in their neighborhood.
High-speed fiber-optic Internet enables users to download 25 songs in one second and a high-definition movie in 36 seconds.
In August, Cox Communications said it was providing its Gigablast high-speed Internet to the 45-story Pinnacle apartment tower downtown, a new single family housing development near Escondido and another new subdivision in North County.
In the next few months, the company expects to offer Gigablast to parts of South Bay, East County and elsewhere, said Ceanne Guerra, a Cox spokeswoman. Customers can go to Cox Communication’s website to check if Gigablast is available in their neighborhood.
In addition, Google Fiber continues talks with San Diego officials about the feasibility of bringing its fiber-optic Internet service to the region, according to a Google spokeswoman.
Google Fiber is already deployed in Provo, Utah; Nashville, Tenn.; Austin, Texas; and Atlanta, and several other cities are in the pipeline nationwide. The company has sought to hang fiber-optic lines aboveground to serve established neighborhoods and allow wider deployment without ripping up streets.
AT&T’s GigaPower network is available to 1.6 million households in 24 metro areas across the country. The company said it plans to add 32 additional cities and eventually reach 14 million residential and commercial locations nationwide.
Cox’s Gigablast service is available in parts of 12 cities nationwide.
©2016 The San Diego Union-Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
