Atlantic Broadband Grabs Gigabit Torch

Beating other broadband providers to the punch in Southeast Florida, Atlantic Broadband has joined the ever-expanding Gigabit club, launching 1-Gig service in the greater Miami area.

Atlantic Broadband , the 13th-largest MSO in the US with more than 230,000 residential and business customers, announced Wednesday that it has already rolled out 1Gbit/s service in Indian Creek Village and is now "evaluating expansion opportunities." The company, which serves the Miami Beach area, did not say when or where it would introduce the service next.

Unlike its broadband rivals and neighbors in Southeast Florida, which include Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Atlantic Broadband said it does not need to build new fiber-rich networks to deliver 1Gbit/s service. Without exactly explaining how, the company said it has "the scalability and power" to offer the fast broadband service today.

In addition, Atlantic Broadband said that, unlike other broadband providers, it is not imposing any data usage caps on subscribers. So, it said, "customers can take full advantage of the tremendous speeds without any usage limitations."

Get the latest updates on the Gigabit Cities trend by visiting Light Reading's broadband/FTTx content channel.

Atlantic Broadband is now offering the 1Gbit/s service to Indian Creek Village residents separately or as part of a broadband-TV package that includes more than 350 TV channels, TiVo's multi-room DVR service, access to Netflix content and unlimited local and domestic calling for up to four phone lines. Along with several other mid-sized US and Canadian cable operators, the MSO has been offering access to the Netflix online service as a video app on its cable set-top boxes since the spring. (See Netflix Streams Onto US Cable.)

With the 1Gbit/s launch in Florida, Atlantic Broadband becomes the latest broadband provider in North America and Europe to join the constantly widening Gigabit club. In two of the most recent moves on both sides of the Atlantic, Suddenlink Communications announced plans last month to launch 1Gbit/s service throughout its US regions over the next three years while Virgin Media Inc. (Nasdaq: VMED) began rolling out 1Gbit/s service in the UK earlier this week. (See Suddenlink Joins Gigabit Club.)

Now owned by Canadian MSO Cogeco Communications (Toronto: CCA), Atlantic Broadband also operates in three other regions of the US -- Western Pennsylvania, Maryland/Delaware and Aiken, S.C. So presumably those areas may shortly see Gigabit service as well.

— Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading