Mediacom announced today that it will invest $1 billion over the next three years to upgrade and expand its broadband network, among other projects. Headlining the list of planned company initiatives is Project Gigabit, a deployment of 1 Gbps broadband services to “virtually all of the 3 million homes and businesses within the 1,500 communities in Mediacom’s 22 state footprint.”
Project Gigabit will build on the residential and business gigabit product launches by Mediacom in 2015. The company reports it expects to bring the first wave of Project Gigabit communities online as early as the fourth quarter of 2016. “Unlike some other 1-Gig providers whose services are limited to selected neighborhoods and/or are relying on federal, state or local taxpayer subsidies, Mediacom will invest its own money to make gigabit speeds available to essentially all of the residences and businesses along its network,” Mediacom states in a press release.
In addition to Project Gigabit, Mediacom’s $1 billion capital investment plan will fund a number of other important customer initiatives including:
• Expansion of Mediacom Business’s high-capacity network inside downtown areas and commercial districts in order to create more “lit buildings” within the company’s footprint.
• Extension of the operator’s deep-fiber residential video, Internet and phone network in order to pass at least an additional 50,000 homes.
• Deployment of community WiFi access points throughout high-traffic commercial and public areas across Mediacom’s national footprint.
“The $4.2 billion in private capital invested by Mediacom over the last 20 years has allowed us to, among other things, create an all-digital video network, launch a variety of advanced broadband services and deploy nearly 600,000 strand miles of fiber,” Mediacom’s founder and CEO Rocco B. Commisso, says. “We decided to accelerate our capital spending over the next three years because our company wants to be the engine that drives economic growth and development for businesses and residents in the communities we serve.”
