A company representative told Fierce the new service runs $295 per month.
TDS Telecom is seeking to gain a competitive advantage through faster speeds, launching a new 8 Gbps product just a year and a half after doubling the data rates on its top-tier service to 2 Gbps.
The new symmetrical 8-gig service, which costs $295 per month, is already available in more than 75 of the operator’s fibre markets, according to the company.
Though most US operators are sticking with 2-gig as their top-tier product, for the time being, a few others have already moved into the multi-gig territory. AT&T and Ziply Fiber, for example, both offer home plans with speeds of up to 5 Gbps. Fewer have gone above and beyond. In August, Lumen Technologies introduced an 8-gigabit tier for their Quantum Fiber service in August and Google Fiber has announced plans to trot out 5-gig and 8-gig plans in early 2023. Lumen’s service costs $300 per month.
Wire 3, which delivers a 10-gig service to consumers in Florida, and EPB, which sells a 25-gig offering in Tennessee, are outliers.
With good reason. It’s not apparent that consumers require these types of speeds right now. Indeed, while TDS promoted the 8-gig offering in a press statement as ideal for power users such as gamers and content creators, an operator official told Fierce that the plan is unlikely to be popular at first.
Instead, such products are instruments in the broadband industry’s marketing fight.
TDS CFO Michelle Brukwicki noted on the operator’s Q3 2022 earnings call that its 1-gig and 2-gig plans are “valuable instruments that will allow us to defend and gain new customers.” She added nearly a quarter of new customers are taking its 1-gig service where it is available and its faster, higher-APRU tiers helped it boost residential broadband revenue in the quarter.
In terms of who it’s competing against, rivals include AT&T, Comcast, Consolidated Communications, and Lumen.