Faster Internet Speeds Are Coming to Houston, But How Fast Do You Need?

As more and more Houstonians stream content at home on services like Netflix and Hulu, Houston’s big Internet service providers — AT&T and Comcast — are locked in an arms race of sorts to keep up with consumer demand.

Just today (5/21/15) Comcast announced the roll out of a new residential multi-gigabit broadband service in Houston called Gigabit Pro, which (according to a Comcast press release) eventually promises up to 2 Gigabit-per-second service (or Gbps). They’re also offering a new tier for Houston area customers with up to 250 megabits-per-second in download speed. It’s Comcast’s attempt to keep up with AT&T, whose Gigapower service, available now in limited areas of Houston, offers 1 Gbps service and allowed AT&T to overtake Comcast just a few months ago with the fastest download speeds seen in Houston.

But how much data do you need and how fast does your connection need to be? And what ‘s in the works to improve download speeds in Greater Houston? Houston Chronicle technology blogger and social media manager Dwight Silverman answers those questions.