NewWave Sets Stage for 1-Gig

NewWave Communications is gearing up to bring 1 Gbps speeds to a handful of rural markets in 2015, and said it will use the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform to deliver them.

NewWave will start the deployment in the fourth quarter of 2014 and intends to boot up Gigabit-class services to residential and business customers in a handful of markets -- Poplar Bluff (MO), where it competes with AT&T, and in Monroe, Rayville, Delhi and Tallulah (LA), where it tangles with a mix of municipal and local service providers.

Phil Spencer, CEO of NewWave and Rural Broadband Investments, said it made sense to focus on those initial markets first because the infrastructure there is well-prepared to take on the upgrade.