Google Fiber has recently launched in Atlanta and this has forced Comcast to make a change with its current strategy. Comcast announced that it would begin offering a gigabit cable connections (not the same as fiber) to its customers a the same price as Google Fiber. However, when you break down the numbers you begin to see that Comcast is offering a lower quality service and charging slightly more.
Google offers 1Gbps download speed as well Comcast however, Google also offers that same speed for uploads while Comcast will only offer 35Mbps (which trails very far behind that of Google).
Comcast is also making customers signup for a three-year contract or you will end up paying $140 a month instead of $70. If you choose to not signup for a contract your internet service will also have a bandwidth limit of 300GB per month which might not sound like a problem you are still paying double for even less. However, if you want unlimited Bandwith you need to spend $35 more which puts your total at $175 which is $105 more than what Google is charging.
Now let’s say you sign that three-year contract if you want to terminate it you will spend an early termination fee of $350. Google will only charge you a $100 if you cancel their 1-year contract which means. That per year cancellation fee of Comcast is still about $17 higher than that of Google.
Now Google clearly is going to beat Comcast in the ISP race for Atlanta but there is one area where Google needs to improve and that’s its adoption rate. Google is not nearly as spread as Comcast and while Comcast would still need to replace their lines to handle these increased speeds its still capable of outpacing Google since it already has the locations worked out, and has been in the industry for years. That being said Google is really pushing the boundaries of ISPS and even if it fails to win the war it is making the web better for everyone.
