Comcast Provides Uncapped 1 Gb Service To 1 Customer -- of 22.4 Million (myajc.com)

McGruber writes: A month after it suffered a nationwide outage, Comcast announced that a Dunwoody, Georgia resident is the first customer in the nation to get Comcast's new $80/month uncapped 1-gigabit service. The service will only be available in select Atlanta neighborhoods. The company would not say how many people would be chosen for the initial roll out of its 1-gigabit service, but admitted the numbers would be small to 'ensure seamless deployment,' a spokesman said. The company claims that the service will roll out more broadly later in the year. Comcast has 22.4 million broadband customers.

Comments

So you can reach your montly cap in less 1 hr

[Anonymous Coward]

http://customer.xfinity.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-trials/

The one redeeming Comcast virtue

[swb]

Business class. It's kind of a ripoff from a pure speed perspective, but it was really easy to get a /29 and they will set PTR records for you. None of the fiber options that I can get -- CenturyLink or US Internet have an equivalent service they will sell to residential addresses.

I did have a crazy idea, though -- run pfsense as a cloud VM, IPSec to my home network and present my public facing network via the cloud hosted pfsense static IP. It would crimp my style, but I could get by with 2 or maybe even 1 public IP address. Mostly what I access is fairly non-interactive like file syncs or email, so the added latency or reduced throughput of the IPSec session shouldn't be too burdensome.

I can make it work in a virtual lab setup (I wasn't sure if pfsense could port forward for IPSec tunnel remote networks, but it can).

I figure this way I could indulge in the goodness of gig Internet and enjoy the benefits of a static IP via the cloud.

My only complaints so far are that AWS has no pfesnse images except for a "rental" that's outrageously expensive and has other drawbacks (like no updating; the authors have to release an updated image). I found another host that supports FreeBSD and will let you boot your own ISO installers, but I'm skeptical they have the network that Amazon does and the pricing is less transparent than Amazon.

Re:First thought...

[Kjella]

Remind me why competition among public utilities is bad again?

Don't confuse giants competing over monopoly rent with healthy competition. Pre-fiber it was a near-monopoly. Post-fiber it'll be a near-monopoly. Short term they're willing to do almost anything including service upgrades and price dumping to keep you, because they know long term they got you over a barrel. Nobody's going to run a second fiber network after the first one is hooked up, they're going to make back what they lost and more and it's coming out of your hide. That's why we arrange natural monopolies as public utilities, nobody's going to lay down new water or sewage pipes if 99% in that area already get service from somebody else. Fiber will be the same, enjoy the honeymoon but it won't last very long.