Comcast to offer superfast 2Gbps internet to take on AT&T and Google Fiber

With the race to offer faster internet service hotting up, Comcast said on Friday it would be offering some customers in the San Francisco Bay Area and the state 2 gigabits-per-second internet service, leaving behind competitors like AT&T and Google Fiber. The two companies offer an internet speed of 1 gigabit per second.

Comcast said it would disclose the cost of the lightning-fast service around June, when Gigabit Pro is set to launch in California.

Thanks to the blazing fast speed, customers would be able to download an entire high-definition movie in 12 seconds or 100 songs in 2.4 seconds.

According to Teresa Mastrangelo, an analyst with the market research firm Broadbandtrends, Comcast was trying to get a jump on Google Fiber and others like AT&T who were rolling out gigabit services. She added, there was that threat to at least be able to offer a speed tier that was competitive," PC World reported.

Comcast added, the service would first be launched in Atlanta in May and then be made available to nearly 3 million California homes starting in June. The areas would include San Francisco Bay Area, Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas.

''This is Comcast's 15th speed increase in 13 years,'' said Hank Fore, regional senior vice president of Comcast Cable's California region, in a statement. ''We are proud to boost our existing speeds and most importantly introduce new Internet tiers like the Extreme 250 and Gigabit Pro that will allow our California customers to do more online, across multiple devices. We will continue to look for opportunities to increase speeds to not only stay ahead of customer demands, but also to provide a wide range of options that meet customer needs.''

There was a bit of a catch, though as Comcast said the new services would require professional-grade installation, and customers would need to be ''in close proximity'' to its existing fibre network.