Seattle is getting gigabit-speed internet for Christmas this year — or thereabouts — according to Gigabit Squared. That’s 1,000 megabits, people! Have you ever seen so many?
The company promises its fiber-optic internet will supply residents in the University of Washington West Campus District, First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Central Area by first quarter of 2014, continuing the roll-out to a total of 14 neighborhoods throughout the year. Price for one gigabit-per-second (Gbps), upstream and down? $80 per month. 100 Mbps? $45.
When the plan to light Seattle’s dark fiber was announced back in December 2012, the ETA for initial service was fall of 2013, prices were going to be “competitive,” and the slowest speeds were quoted as 20 Mbps. If the timeline has slid slightly, the announced prices are indeed very competitive: Comcast’s Blast package, with a 50 Mbps download speed, is currently priced at $74.95. CenturyLink tops out at 40 Mbps, but they won’t even tell you how much that costs until you tell them whether you’re a new or existing customer.
Gigabit Seattle’s ultra-high-speed program does come with a hefty $350 installation fee, but if you sign up for a year’s service at either the 1 Gbps or 100 Mbps level, that fee is waived. A basic plan of 5/1Mbps (that’s 1 Mbps upstream) will be free for 60 months (five years), after which point, there’s a conversion to a 10 Mbps plan that’s $10 per month. The installation fee is purely location-based, so there’s no new installation fee charged if, for instance, a renter moves out and another renter moves in. I have an email in asking about whether there’s an installment plan for that $350 fee, given that the 5 Mbps plan seems otherwise a good fit for older people on a fixed-income.
[UPDATE: They’ll look at payment plans for qualified accounts, says spokesperson Matt Weinland. And, by the way, the setup will look pretty much like what you get from other service providers: They’ll give you a modem/router for use in your home.]
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! As part of those subscription plans, Gigabit Seattle plans to disburse a “next generation high-speed wireless neighborhood cloud service” around each neighborhood. That will enable them to offer radio-delivered 1 Gbps service even to locations inaccessible by fiber, and to your mobile device as you wander around town. That high-speed wireless will be shared, of course, so you may not get the same performance as from your dedicated connection at home.
