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Charter’s gigabit internet service now available in 27 million US homes

Charter’s gigabit internet service now available in 27 million US homes

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More than half of Charter’s US footprint is now covered

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Image: Charter Communications

Telecom giant Charter says it’s now offering its gigabit internet service in more than half of the 50 million homes and businesses it provides cable to in the US, via Ars Technica. The company provided the new milestone last week when it said it added 4 million new homes across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Florida. The total number of households who subscribe to Charter service that now have access to its gigabit internet service is 27 million. (Granted, about 24.3 million subscribers purchase internet service from Charter currently, and only a small fraction of those customers likely purchase the gigabit option.)

Unlike service from other major US ISPs, like Comcast, Charter does not have any data caps. That’s not because the company is generous; it’s been prohibited by the federal government to cap US users’ home internet use through the terms of its merger in 2016 with Time Warner Cable. Charter cannot impose data caps on home internet service until 2023, under those same terms.

As it stands today, Charter’s gigabit service is more like 940Mbps down (and 35Mbps up), “due to ethernet overhead,” the company says. Still, that’s about in line with other companies’ gigabit service, and it’s plenty faster than existing tiers for most ISPs. It doesn’t come cheap, however. Charter’s high-speed plans start at $105 per month and can scale to $125 depending on the market. By year’s end, the company hopes to have the tier available in all 41 states it services. It’s next rollout is planned for around this September.