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Angry With Charter, Lexington Forces Broadband Competition

Lexington, Kentucky residents Charter customers have been relatively apoplectic in the wake of Charter's $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Residents there say they've seen higher prices and worse customer service in the wake of the deal. The problems have been so bad, the city recently held an unprecedented emergency meeting to discuss the city's options in the wake of limited competition.

One of the outcomes of that meeting was a new citywide deal with an ISP named MetroNet, which began building the privately-funded $70 to $100 million network in January, and hopes to light up the company's first gigabit fiber customers this summer.

Local news outlets say that the network should be quickly expanded over the next three years to cover the entire city. Neighborhoods east of downtown and north of Richmond Road will be the first to come online, MetroNet says.

“MetroNet is working hard to get through this construction phase and minimize disruption,” said Scott Shapiro, Lexington’s chief innovation officer. “But we are keeping our eyes on the prize. Beginning in some neighborhoods in late summer or early fall, Lexingtonians will have access to some of the fastest internet access in the world.”

Obviously that's bad news for Charter, which has fallen behind most other cable companies in terms of network upgrades. In many areas Charter's top speed remains 100 Mbps, though the country's second-largest cable provider recently stated it expects to launch gigabit service in a flurry of new markets sometime over the next few months. Don't be particularly surprised if Lexington is one of those early launch markets.

Most recommended from 4 comments


Ostracus
join:2011-09-05
Henderson, KY

2 recommendations

Ostracus

Member

Mudracking.

Surprised there isn't the same bag of dirty tricks here, as the incumbents have used elsewhere.