CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Mediacom Communications has announced the availability 1 Gig Internet speeds throughout its Lake County service areas.

As a result, homes and businesses in 14 communities passed by the company’s fiber-rich digital network now have access to Internet download speeds that are up to 40 times faster than the minimum broadband definition set by the Federal Communications Commission.

“Creating true gigabit communities across our national footprint was a central component of the 3-year, $1 billion capital expenditure plan announced by Mediacom in 2016,” said Shawn Swatosh, Mediacom’s area operations director for Northern California. “Our rollout of gigabit speeds provides area residents and businesses with a distinct technological advantage in today’s global marketplace.”

With 1-Gig Internet service, multiple users are able to surf, stream, download, work, and game online at the same time, with increased reliability and significantly faster speeds.

The technology Mediacom uses enables residential customers to receive gigabit speeds through the same wiring already existing in their homes.

In addition to its new 1-Gig service, Mediacom also introduced a new speed tier set at 500 Mbps.

Mediacom was the first major U.S. cable company to fully transition to the DOCSIS 3.1 “Gigasphere” platform, the latest generation of broadband technology.

The company will utilize Gigasphere to bring gigabit broadband services to virtually all of the 3 million homes and businesses within its 22 state footprint.

Mediacom now offers 1 Gig Internet services in over 1,300 communities across the United States.

“In addition to enhancing speeds for residential and small business customers today, the Gigasphere platform we’ve deployed lays the groundwork for offering multi-Gig services in the future,” said Mediacom’s Chief Technology Officer, JR Walden. “This next-generation technology is an excellent complement to the Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions that Mediacom Business has been offering local businesses in our markets for many years.”

The cable network is composed of a hybrid of optical fiber and coaxial cable elements, and the specification that enables use of the network for broadband is known as Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification, or DOCSIS.

Gigasphere is the brand name for products and services that use a technical specification called DOCSIS 3.1, the next generation of DOCSIS services developed and advanced by CableLabs, the U.S. cable industry’s research and development consortium, and its members.

DOCSIS 3.1 provides a near-term path toward continued improvement of cable broadband performance, with network capacity of up to 10 gigabits per second in the downstream and up to 2 gigabits per second in the upstream.