Approximately 90% of the homes and businesses that are in GFiber’s network footprint can now receive symmetrical 20 Gbps speeds, the company announced this week.
Additionally, the new, more efficient GFiber 20G ONT hardware is three times smaller than the previous version.
The deployment of this new, next-generation ONT is the key to serving customers better than ever before, GFiber said in a blog post: “We have several 20 Gig early access customers today, and we will be automatically upgrading them to this new hardware. As we ramp up operations for this new ONT, we expect to move 20 Gig out of our early access program and into a generally available product next year.”
A company-run speed test in mid-November resulted in symmetrical speeds of 19.9 Gbps download and 19.6 Gbps upload.
The company credits the success of the 20 Gbps capability to GFiber’s long-term investment in 25G PON technology, which the company says will future proof both residential power users and advanced commercial applications.
The latest announcement caps a year of growth for the company, which started with the announcement of expanded multi-gig services after piloting them in Tennessee and Alabama.
The new services were Core 1 Gig, with upload and download speeds of 1 Gbps for $70 per month; Home 3 Gig, with upload and download speeds of 3 Gbps for $100 per month; and Edge 8 Gig, with upload and download speeds of 8 Gbps for $150 per month. These GFiber services include free installation and other amenities.
In its announcement of those services, GFiber pointed out that the price of Core 1 Gig hadn’t changed since 2012. Home 3 Gig is designed for homes that have multiple people working or gaming at the same time. Edge 8 Gig offers connectivity at less than two cents per Mbps, which GFiber claimed is a market-best rate.
GFiber has not yet announced pricing for their 20 Gbps service.
