GASTONIA HAS GIGABIT SPEED

On Friday August 28, 2015 AT&T announced that their Gigabit Internet service, GigaPower, is available to residential and small business customers in select areas of Gastonia, NC. This is a major win for the Gaston Gigabit committee, county, city, and economic development leaders, and most importantly the consumers and businesses which can access Gigabit speed.

County Commission Chairman Tracy Philbeck said “AT&T’s new fiber-optic network, delivering gigabit speeds, is going to be a game-changer for residents and businesses as we grow our economy and strengthen our community.”

Gastonia Mayor John Bridgeman said “The announcement that AT&T is launching its AT&T GigaPower network in Gastonia is good news for our community.” He added “When our business community has access to the latest technology available, especially in the data and communication fields, they can be more competitive in their industries and more likely to succeed.”

An excited group of community and business leaders attended the announcement at the AT&T store on Cox. Rd. Several members of the Gaston Gigabit committee, including our leader Dr. Stephen Hannon, were in attendance.

Pricing for the GigaPower service in Gastonia is similar to most other AT&T markets, with Internet speeds up to 1Gbps starting as a low as $70/month. As you recall from our previous blog post on GigaPower in Charlotte, to get this price you have to accept the AT&T ‘Internet Preferences’ (Click here for the details on AT&T GigaPower Internet Preferences.) If you do not accept these terms the price is $29 more per month.

((* Note: In order to achieve gigabit internet speeds you need to have a computer, modem, and AC wi-fi router that support the speed. We recently purchased a gigabit wif-fi router for less than $100 (TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router) and have been pleased with the results.))

An AT&T official had previous told us that a market is declared live when ~20 of the addresses are eligible. Network upgrades continue to roll out, so if you are not eligible today you may be in the near future. Gastonia residents can check GigaPower availability here.

We are excited that our committee efforts paid off by attracting AT&T to Gastonia. Now the challenge is expanding service availability, and educating the community on what they can do with Gigabit speeds.

To learn more about leveraging the new Gigabit infrastructure Gaston County residents are encouraged to attend the GigWOW Experience Event on Sept 17.