EPB officials announced Tuesday that its Fiber Optic customers will be getting even faster speeds, while paying lower prices.
Harold DePriest, EPB president, said, "As EPB Fiber Optics commemorates four years of serving Gig City, the country's fastest Internet will be more accessible than ever. All Fi-Speed Internet customers will get automatic speed increases, while the price for a Gig is reduced."
For EPB Fiber Optics residential customers:
- 50 Mbps customers will increase to 100 Mbps
- 100 and 250 Mbps customers will go to a Gig for the current 100 Mbps price of $69.99
- Current 250 Mbps customers will get a price reduction of $70
- Current Gig customers will get a price reduction from $300 to $70 per month
Residential customers will have two options for the Fi-Speed symmetrical Internet:
- 100 Mbps speed for $57.99
- a Gig for 69.99
Mr. DePriest said, "We launched EPB Fiber Optics four years ago to help our community grown. With the speed increase, Fi-Speed Internet delivers more value for a better quality of life, economic development and educational excellence."
Q&A
Q: When will EPB Fiber Optics customers see their speed increase?
A: All residential and business customers will have their new speeds by 10/1/13.
Q: What has changed to make it possible for EPB to offer the gig at a price so much lower than when it was first introduced?
A: Several things have changed since we were the first company to offer this kind of connectivity community-wide.
For starters, we’ve re-negotiated the cost we pay for backhaul Internet traffic and are getting a much better rate now.
Also, with over 50,000 homes and businesses connected to our Internet network, we’ve learned a good bit about how to manage it most efficiently.
When we first rolled out the gig in 2010, we had to make educated guesses about the pricing and the effect gigabit users would have on the overall performance of the network. Now, with a few years of experience, we know more and are confident that we can give this gift to our community while maintaining a healthy business.
Q: What does the speed increase say about the health of EPB Fiber Optics business model?
A: The success of our business model is what is making this speed increase possible. We have over 55,000 residential and business customers, we’re exceeding our projections, and we’re continuing to add customers every day. The business model is solid. Solid enough for us to give a pretty nice gift to our customers.
Q: How many gigabit customers will EPB have once the upgrade goes into effect?
A: As of now, there are 2915 residential and business customers who will, after the upgrade, be gigabit subscribers.
Q: What exactly is the “gig” anyway?
A: The “gig” refers to one gigabit-per-second Internet speeds, which is the equivalent of 1000 megabits-per-second. The national average download speed has recently been reported at 7.4 megabits-per-second. So, the “gig” is 135 times faster than the national average.
Since Chattanooga was the first city in the US to offer this level of connectivity to everyone, we’ve been dubbed “Gig City”.
Q: How does the upgrade affect business customers?
A: All business customers will be upgraded to at least 100 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) and may choose from other speed offerings all the way up to 1 gigabit-per-second. There are more speed tiers available for business customers, and we will contact each customer individually to let them know how the upgrades affect their businesses specifically.
Q: How many customers subscribe to Fi-Speed Internet?
A: Today we have:
· Nearly 43,000 residential customers subscribing to Fi-Speed Internet
· Roughly 4500 customers subscribing to Fi-Speed Internet for Business