Verizon Communications is flirting with 1-Gig consumer broadband service with the debut of Fios Gigabit Connection, a new optimized offering that delivers up to 940 Mbps down and 880 Mbps up starting at $69.99 a month.

The debut of the near-1-Gig offering from Fios follows the mid-January introduction of Fios Instant Internet, a symmetrical 750 Mbps service that was initially available to about 7 million homes and businesses.

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Verizon noted that the network performance of Instant Internet exceeded 750 Mbps, and has since “fine-tuned the service with new firmware and diagnostic tools” to ratchet up speeds further. . Existing customers on Fios Instant Internet service will automatically receive Fios Gigabit Connection and also see their bills lowered (Verizon initially sold that 750 Meg offering for $149.99 a month as a standalone, and $169.99 a month as part of a triple-play bundle).

The new offering starts at $69.99 a month as a standalone, or as part of a triple-play bundle that starts at $79.99 a month, when ordered online.

Verizon said Fios Gigabit Connection is available to more than 8 million homes in parts of the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., Hampton Roads, Va., Boston, Providence and Washington, D.C. areas.

Verizon is launching the faster tier as it sees competitors such as Comcast and RCN deploy DOCSIS 3.1-based services that deliver up to 1 Gbps in the downstream, but paired with much slower upstream speeds. The cable industry is pursuing a Full Duplex annex to D3.1 that will enable symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds.

Verizon added 35,000 Fios Internet subs in Q1 2017, extending that total to 5.68 million.