Comcast's plan to launch a 2Gbps fiber-to-the-home service by the end of May didn't come to fruition, but the company says the rollout is being delayed only briefly and will go live in numerous cities this month.

Comcast originally said that its "Gigabit Pro" service would be available during May in the Atlanta metro area, Nashville, Greater Chicago, and four cities in Florida (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Jacksonville). Rollouts in June were to follow in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Northwest Indiana; and several parts of California (Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas.)

Customers in Atlanta and West Palm Beach who wanted to order Gigabit Pro complained about the lack of availability on the company's support forums. A Comcast employee originally said the service "will be available in your area [Atlanta] come early May" but amended that to May 28 and finally told customers, "The launch of this has been temporarily delayed. No tentative date has been announced yet."

A Comcast spokesperson acknowledged today that the 2Gbps service hasn't rolled out in any of the markets where it was supposed to launch in May. But there doesn't seem to be any technical roadblock preventing an imminent launch. "Our plan is to launch simultaneously in a bunch of markets this month," Comcast told Ars.

DSLReports noted that "we're also no closer to Comcast unveiling how much this new service will cost. The company's website briefly leaked word that the symmetrical two gigabit service would cost $300 a month," but that information was pulled offline, with Comcast saying no final decision has been made.

Comcast has been charging $399.95 a month for its existing 505Mbps plan, but it has said the 2Gbps price will be lower and that all 505Mbps customers will be upgraded to the new, faster service.

Google Fiber and AT&T charge as little as $70 a month for gigabit service (though with AT&T, that price requires opting in to a program that scans your Web browsing in order to serve up personalized ads).

Google Fiber plans to compete against Comcast in Atlanta and Nashville while AT&T is already serving customers in both those cities as well as Chicago, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and San Jose. AT&T's prices range depending on how much competition it faces; in Atlanta, the AT&T gigabit service costs $120 a month.

"My guess is Comcast is in a quandary about how to price it, since Google Fiber charges only $70 a month for gigabit Internet and is coming to Atlanta in early 2016, and AT&T is charging $120 a month for gigabit service and appears to be available now in some parts of Atlanta (not my house, however)," one Atlanta resident wrote on the Comcast support forum. "I don't think they will get many residential customers at $299 a month. If they'll do it for $150 a month with no data cap and no installation charge, I'd sign up for a year. Once Google Fiber is here, though, I don't think I'd pay more than Google charges."

In Chattanooga, Comcast faces competition from the local electric utility, which charges $70 for gigabit Internet.

Comcast will announce more cities for Gigabit Pro later on. The company has said the fiber-to-the-home service will be available to 18 million homes by the end of this year. For homes outside the fiber area, Comcast will roll out gigabit download speeds over cable using equipment supporting the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard. Comcast says it hopes to roll out DOCSIS 3.1 in early 2016.