Announcements about multi-gigabit fiber broadband offerings are not as exciting today as they were a year or two ago, now that more and more providers are offering those speeds. But one provider has devised a way to stand out.
Florida-based provider Wire 3 has opted to no longer offer any speeds below a gigabit, and to draw attention to this move, the company issued an announcement declaring that megabit speeds are obsolete.
“Fiber optic internet affords consumers freedom from lagging, buffering, and throttled upload speeds, but other companies are still offering 300 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and even 25 Mbps plans. It’s time to stop accepting megabits in a gigabit world, and to lower the barrier of entry for people to embrace the coming technologies,” said Wire 3 CEO Jai Ramachandran.
The company, which focuses on the Atlantic coast in the central region of Florida, also has updated its pricing. The 1 Gbps plan now is $60 per month and the 10 Gbps plan has been lowered to $99 per month. Wire 3 plans to upgrade its current customers to the tier that corresponds with the rate they currently pay.
Wire 3 has made methodical progress during the past two years. In February 2022, the company said it would deploy XGS-PON technology from Nokia capable of supporting symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds. At that point, the company had begun operations in New Smyrna Beach.
Two months later, Wire 3 said that a redundant network between Jacksonville and Miami had been lit. It said that plans were to use it to support new networks in Volusia, Brevard, Indian River and St. Lucie counties, as well as existing subscribers in the New Smyrna Beach system.
More recently, Wire 3 announced an expansion to the cities of Rockledge and Viera in Brevard County. More than $150 million will be invested in the project, the company said last November.
