Getting Comcast’s new 3,000 Mbps (3 Gbit) private fiber internet service called “Gig Pro”
By: Austin Ayers
Tags: Comcast Support, Network, Gigabit Ethernet, Comcast, Gigabit

This $319.00 per month internet package may seem like a super great deal for those who want fast speed… but take it from the third installed customer in Pennsylvania — stay FAR, VERY FAR, away…

My journey begins in October of 2019 when I had read James Watts Medium.com article about Gig Pro, located here. This had blown my mind… that growing up with a dial-up connection and spending most of high-school with a simple DSL 1.5 Mbps line could soon throw me into a new world of multi-gigabit internet. I just HAD to have it. I immediately picked up the phone and called 1–800-XFINITY, to much of my surprise, they knew what I was talking about!

I was soon ushered over to the “Gigabit Pro Team”, which is a very small group of people dedicated to setting up these build orders. I was told that they would take my information and call me back within a few days or a week to see what the computer-top survey said.

Note: The requirements to get Gig Pro service is varied by both your location and your install team. Here, I had up to 1/3 of a mile of fiber needed that would be covered by Comcast. There would also be a $1,000 activation fee I was told ($500 setup, $500 activation).

I just had to have it. I needed it.

Secondary note: MOST people do not need it… I host servers and at the time, I was uploading massive amounts of large and uncompressed YouTube video for my channel at the time. This is why I wanted it. I also hosted several websites that garnished hundreds of thousands of hits on it monthly… but a simple 50 Mbps connection on a CDN with caching could host that too.

Within a week, I got a call back with the “green light” that I was a mere 700 feet away from the MUX (A device on the fiber connection where I could get a direct splice in). I said we could schedule an on-site tour.

Months past and soon COVID-19 had hit the United States. I felt like the world was crashing, but little did I know, in April of 2020, I received a missed called with a transcripted voicemail. A site survey was scheduled in the beginning of the pandemic. Being that I wasn’t worried of the virus as I have no health issues, I allowed the site survey to happen. We walked from the MUX to the inside of my apartment, with measurements being taken. Photos were taken of where their Juniper ACX2100 would sit. This is a Metro-E (Metro Ethernet) EDGE router that basically terminates their fiber into provisioned IP addresses.

Soon I lost contact of Comcast until about October of 2020. I received an email from my sales rep that we were ready to sign the contracts. I was so pumped and excited. I quickly called back about 15-minutes before closing time on a Friday and she had went over the terms with me. She then quickly transferred me to an IVR system to do a 3rd-party contract verification system prompt. I just had to say and spell my name on a recorded line and that I agreed for the install to occur.

My info was then sent to a project manager and by January, I had the towns roads shutdown in my 5-block radius as fiber optic was being ran from the MUX to my apartment. This was fantastic, I was “told” that it would be spliced the same day and within a week, I would have “light” — meaning i would have internet. But this wasn’t the case…

A week goes past and Duda Cable had called the splicer team to come in no joke, 5-minutes. I had a 5-minute notice to get dressed and let them in to splice or I would have to wait 1–2 months for them to be in the area again. I quickly threw my PJ’s on and told them to come in. Tens of thousands of dollars of splicing equipment came into my small apartment — all for a 10 to 15-minute spice. That was it. There was no Juniper like I was told, nothing.

After they left I had emailed my project manager, demanding to know what had happened. I was told that this was a multi-step process, and that we would have to wait for Comcast to come in with their equipment. Months go by, and then in March, I get told that they were still waiting for some SFP+ transceivers at the headend about 27-miles away. I waited and waited till a Friday in early April came.

The Comcast tech came with the Juniper and Netgear Nighthawk router. I was astounded… this was it! Hours go by of troubleshooting. They had to cancel my coaxial 1 Gbit service to provision the Gig Pro line… but there was no Gig Pro. A few more hours go by and it was determined that they never got the SFP+ transceiver at the datacenter. A $30 part was holding up my installation… I was pissed. The tech left and came back, having to reactivate my coax Gigabit plan for the weekend. I was told that I wouldn’t have to worry about March or April’s bill because of the continued delay and now this, that my project manager was waiving the fee. Remember this for the future.

I was happy I still had internet for the weekend.

Monday is when it would go live. After hours of issues, including the regional supervisor coming to my apartment and having to drive over an hour away and back to get a tool he needed, I had Gig Pro. 2,000 Mbps upload and download on the fiber hand off, plus another 1,000 Mbps upload and download on the ethernet handoff.

3 Gbps can be used at the same time — but the IP addresses assigned to the ethernet and the fiber are different. Instead of DHCP being activated, you have to provision your router or Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro for the public IP address as the gateway.

About a month goes by and I get a disconnection notice from Comcast via email. I quickly try to call in but was told that I owed $1,796.00 to them. I was pissed. How could this be?

I found out that the discount said during install was false. They are not allowed to give discounts, it was only said to me to prevent me from being a hothead on install day… grant, I don’t care about the previous bills — I used the service so I owe them for that. But I was also charged a $1,200 early termination fee and a $100.00 unreturned equipment fee, all because of a discount said to me wasn’t applied afterwards.

The next week I get an ad in my inbox from Windstream… 1 Gbps download and upload for $50/month. I said screw it, let’s sign up!

Windstream came within 48-hours and ran dedicated fiber to my apartment. I signed no contracts, and was provided with a super simple gateway. My ping is actually better than Comcast Business, has had no downtime or caching issues, and didn’t take me over a year to get! GET THAT!