Charter catches up on DOCSIS 3.1, rolls out 1-gig service to 14M more customers

Charter Communications today announced that it has deployed DOCSIS 3.1 in Los Angeles, Dallas, Milwaukee and other portions of its footprint, enabling another 14 million homes to subscribe to 1 Gbps services.

The  operator said it has now passed 23 million homes with the next-generation CableLabs network standard and will complete rollout across its 41-state footprint by the end of the year. 

Charter began DOCSIS 3.1 deployments in the latter half of 2017—more than a year after Comcast started the process. Charter was dealing with the integrations of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. But being late out of the gate hardly seems to have mattered. 

Speaking to investors during Comcast’s first-quarter earnings call Wednesday, company CEO Brian Roberts refused to disclose how many customers had signed up for 1-gig services, even though the No. 1 cable company has had them available through most of its footprint for some time. 

RELATED: Charter officially announces expansion of DOCSIS 3.1 into New York, 6 other markets

Charter has been offering its 1 Gbps service with a 35 Mbps upload speed at $105 a month. Services will remain uncapped, per a six-year agreement with regulators as part of the TWC and Bright House purchases. In some regions, it’s been bundle pricing 1-gig plans at $115 a month, and pricing them at $125 a month a la carte.

Regions receiving the DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade typically see their minimum speed increase to 200 Mbps, with a 400 Mbps option added to the menu.  

“Spectrum’s state-of-the-art, fiber-rich network allows us to deploy dramatically faster broadband speeds, including gigabit connections, broadly and rapidly,” said Tom Rutledge, chairman and CEO of Charter, in a statement. “As consumer demands for bandwidth and capacity grow, our world-class network is best-positioned to meet these demands, today and into the future.”

Charter reports its first-quarter earnings tomorrow.