I have been using Grande Communications 1 gigabit service for a month now, and it is pretty zippy. Installation was quick (I already had fiber to my house) and it doesn't cost much more than I was paying before for 50 megabit service. At $65 a month it's a good deal.
Some folks are going to be surprised when it turns out the their computer with a "gigabit" ethernet port isn't actually capable of handling a full gigabit. A couple of the technicians had newish laptops (Samsung, Toshiba) whose "gigabit" ethernet ports would only pass about 400-500 megabits/second. This is probably due to the fact that most of the US has nothing like a gigabit service, and so the deficiency was unlikely to show up in day-to-day use. We have Apple Macintosh laptops and desktops that can handle a full gigabit, and are useful for testing and using the service at rated speed.
Consumer-grade wireless routers fall in the same category; there are only a couple currently on the market that can actually route a full full gigabyte. I have tried two models that do, the Netgear R7000 and the Asus RT-AC68R. These are kind of pricey (~$200), but the Netgear can be included in the Grande package for $5 a month. There will be more selection in the router market soon, and prices will fall, but it's slim pickings right now. Consumers that use their old router will be disappointed at their data throughput and may not understand why they have a problem.
I have been using Grande Communications 1 gigabit service for a month now, and it is pretty zippy. Installation was quick (I already had fiber to my house) and it doesn't cost much more than I was paying before for 50 megabit service. At $65 a month it's a good deal.
Some folks are going to be surprised when it turns out the their computer with a "gigabit" ethernet port isn't actually capable of handling a full gigabit. A couple of the technicians had newish laptops (Samsung, Toshiba) whose "gigabit" ethernet ports would only pass about 400-500 megabits/second. This is probably due to the fact that most of the US has nothing like a gigabit service, and so the deficiency was unlikely to show up in day-to-day use. We have Apple Macintosh laptops and desktops that can handle a full gigabit, and are useful for testing and using the service at rated speed.
Consumer-grade wireless routers fall in the same category; there are only a couple currently on the market that can actually route a full full gigabyte. I have tried two models that do, the Netgear R7000 and the Asus RT-AC68R. These are kind of pricey (~$200), but the Netgear can be included in the Grande package for $5 a month. There will be more selection in the router market soon, and prices will fall, but it's slim pickings right now. Consumers that use their old router will be disappointed at their data throughput and may not understand why they have a problem.
Cheers,
Peter