Mediacom Communications announced Tuesday it soon will offer customers Internet download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second - and Mid-Missourians will be the first to access it.
The new broadband option is the company's fastest ever download speed made available to residential customers. Mediacom Communications is the eighth-largest cable operator in the United States, serving approximately 1.3 million customers in 22 states throughout the Midwest and Southeast.
Mediacom's Central Missouri coverage area - Cole, Boone and Callaway counties, including Jefferson City, Columbia and Holts Summit - is the first market in the 1,400 communities it serves where the company will offer 1-gigabit service to residential customers. All customers who currently can access Mediacom's services are eligible to make the upgrade when it becomes available Sept. 15.
Infrastructure upgrades to Mediacom's fiber and cable network over the past several years allowed the company to increase its residential offerings, according to Steve Bennett, Mediacom's Missouri operations director.
"Our robust fiber network was designed with flexibility and scalability in mind, allowing us to cost-effectively turn Columbia, Jefferson City and Holts Summit into true gigabit communities," said Ed Pardini, Mediacom's senior vice president of field operations, in a news release. "Unlike some other 1-gig providers whose services are limited to selected neighborhoods, our gigabit speeds are available throughout the community to 100 percent of the homes and residences along our network."
Widespread interest in 1-gigabit-per-second Internet service arose a few years ago, around the time Google Fiber introduced 1-gigabit download speeds to Kansas City, Kansas, in 2011, followed by additional select U.S. cities. Many telecommunications companies are piloting 1-gigabit offerings in certain cities, but Mediacom is the first to do so for all of its Jefferson City customers.
Demand for faster Internet speeds increases continually as families use more devices at home and as people like entrepreneurs collaborate on a wider, sometimes global, scale, Mediacom Communications Director Phyllis Peters said.
"We're making it real, and we're doing it with our existing infrastructure," Bennett said. "No matter what you need, this will handle it."
Mediacom has offered such high-speed Internet to enterprise-level customers in the area for several years - some purchasing up to 16 gigabits per month. However, until now has offered only up to 150 megabits per second to residential customers. (One gigabit is equal to 1,000 megabits.)
"We have invested over $4 billion in our communities through infrastructure upgrades to deliver the very latest broadband innovations to our residential and business customers across a fiber-rich network that includes 600,000 strand miles of fiber-optic cable," Pardini said in the news release. "As an experienced provider of gigabit services to large commercial enterprises, governments and schools, these investments have allowed Mediacom to play a critical role in the development and growth of the cities and towns we serve."
Mediacom's decision to pilot its 1-gigabit program in Central Missouri factored in the location of the state Capitol and the University of Missouri, as well as the amount of industry located in the area.
"It says a lot about the whole area and the potential we see here," Bennett said.
The infrastructure upgrade could serve as an economic development marketing tool for the Mid-Missouri area and the cities within it, Peters added.
"High-speed Internet is critical to the economic well-being of Mid-Missouri as well as our entire state," said state Sen. Kurt Schaefer in Mediacom's news release. "One-gigabit service will keep us competitive in attracting new employers as well as facilitating innovation in education and health care for our communities."
Mediacom's 1-gigabit-per-second residential Internet service will have a list price of $149.95 per month, a step up from its 150 megabit-per-second service that costs $99.95 per month, although customers may receive discounts by taking advantage of promotional rates or bundling Internet, phone and television services.
Mediacom plans to launch gigabit service on a wider scale in additional communities during 2016.