Comcast will begin selling a 2Gbps fiber-to-the-home service in Atlanta next month, boasting that it "will be the fastest residential Internet speed in the country."

Gigabit Pro, announced today, will be a symmetrical service, delivering 2 gigabits both upstream and downstream. Google and AT&T both plan to bring gigabit service in Atlanta as well, but Comcast will likely get there first by launching next month.

But while Google and AT&T offer gigabit service for as low as $70 a month, Comcast told Ars it is still evaluating pricing options. Comcast's existing 505Mbps service costs $399.95 a month, making a $70 price point seem unlikely. Comcast told us the 505Mbps customers will be upgraded to Gigabit Pro this year and that the price will be lower than the current $399.95 rate.

Gigabit Pro will not be available in Comcast's entire cable territory since it's being delivered over fiber. Any home within a third of a mile of Comcast's fiber, whether in rural or urban areas, will be able to get Gigabit Pro, Comcast told Ars.

"Gigabit Pro will be available to any home within close proximity of Comcast’s fiber network and will require an installation of professional-grade equipment," the company wrote. "The company has fiber at the core of its network and, for the past decade, it has been extending it deeper into neighborhoods and closer to homes. To date, Comcast has built out more than 145,000 route miles of fiber across its service area."

Despite that limitation, Comcast Senior VP Doug Guthrie contrasted Comcast's approach to Google's "fiberhood" strategy of polling neighborhoods and offering service to those with the most demand. "Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods," Guthrie said in the announcement.

While Atlanta will get the 2Gbps first, Comcast said it plans to "roll it out in additional cities soon with the goal to have it available across the country and available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year."

Comcast already delivers up to 10Gbps fiber service to businesses, serving more than 1.5 million businesses nationwide. "Earlier this month, Comcast announced a technology partnership with the Atlanta Braves to deliver multi-gigabit speeds to residences and businesses throughout the team’s new mixed use and stadium development project," Comcast said.

Comcast also plans to deliver gigabit download speeds to cable customers with new equipment supporting DOCSIS 3.1, a faster version of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification.

"We hope to begin rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 in early 2016, and when fully deployed, it will mean almost every customer in our footprint will be able to receive gigabit speeds over our existing network (a combination of both fiber and coax)," Comcast wrote.

Two years ago, Comcast Executive VP David Cohen wrote that gigabit service wasn't necessary for homes. "To be sure, a one-gig connection has value, especially for those who have invested in 'inside' networks and equipment to handle that 1-gigabit firehose of data," he wrote. "The issue with such speed is really more about demand than supply. Our business customers can already order 10-gig connections. Most websites can't deliver content as fast as current networks move, and most US homes have routers that can't support the speed already available to the home. As consumer demand grows for faster speeds, a competitive marketplace of wired and wireless broadband providers will be ready to serve it."

Comcast's statement that it will install "professional-grade equipment" to homes that buy 2Gbps service should solve the hardware problem Cohen mentioned. Even the Cisco-built residential wireless gateway used by Comcast was offering 700Mbps throughput last year.