For the third time, Grande Communications is expanding its gigabit service in Austin, Texas.
Grande’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) gigabit service, which is called “Power 1000,” is now available to new and existing customers in the West Campus area. Aside of West Campus, Power 1000 is up and running in Buda and Austin including parts of Tarrytown, Old Enfield, Pemberton Heights, Bryker Woods, Belmont, Oakmont Heights, and Rosedale.
Austin has been a hotbed of gigabit activity, but Grande Communications beat AT&T and Google Fiber to the punch by first offering its 1-Gig service in February. AT&T’s “GiagaPower” service got out of the gates late last year as a symmetrical 300 Mbps offering until it was upgraded to 1 gigabit this past summer.
Time Warner Cable recently upped its fastest data tier to 300 Mbps on the downstream as part of its TWC Maxx upgrade while Google Fiber announced last month that it would start signing up customers for its 1-Gig service in Austin starting in December.
“Grande’s plan is to expand 1G service to areas where there is clearly high demand. West Campus is adjacent to the University of Texas, so there is a high density of college students in the area,” said Matt Rohre, senior vice president of operations and general manager for Grande Communications. “Austinites are hungry for fast speeds and we are evaluating the options to broaden our 1G coverage area in 2015.”
Power 1000 is priced at $64.99 a month while AT&T’s GigaPower Premier plan cost $70 a month when subscribers agree to take part in AT&T’s Internet Preference program. The Internet Preference program is a web-based targeted advertising program, which Grande took aim in its latest release: “Unlike other providers, Grande will never share customer’s personal information or track online activity to sell to any company or organization.”
Power 1000 also comes without bandwidth caps or contracts, and features a 30-day money back guarantee if customers aren’t happy with the service.
