Hawaii 5 O… O

Hawaiian Telcom is the latest US regional incumbent telco to upgrade to a 500Mbps (download) premium broadband access service, reports Fierce Wireless. In March the operator will also add additional speed tiers of 100Mbps and 300Mbps for residential customers, and said it will offer even higher speeds for businesses. ‘We’ve invested USD125 million in our next-generation fibre network and systems and there is more to come,’ said Eric Yeaman, Hawaiian Telcom’s CEO, although the announcement did not include price or confirm if the new service is based on fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture or another platform. Hawaiian Telcom currently offers standalone broadband download speeds ranging from 7Mbps to 50Mbps (with the premium package costing USD79.95 a month, with discounts available for bundling voice and/or IPTV). The Hawaiian firm had previously favoured a hybrid copper/fibre-based xDSL/fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) architecture. Its new higher speeds are aimed at taking market share from the state’s incumbent multi-service cableco Oceanic Time Warner Cable, which currently offers internet speeds up to 100Mbps.