Comcast is expanding its Gigabit Pro service to California, potentially hitting three million homes with its 2Gbps service. It is the first state to receive the gigabit service, although Comcast did originally announce it would be available in Atlanta, Georgia.

Gigabit Pro will be available in Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton, and Visalia. There are still a few major communities and cities missing from this list, but Comcast claims it will bring these speeds everywhere in the next five years.

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Only metro areas next to Comcast's fiber base will receive the upgraded 2Gbps service. Comcast is also hinting at a large fee for installation, claiming that professional grade equipment is needed to install the gigabit service.

Interestingly, Comcast currently offers 505Mbps for $399 per month in some cities, although the Internet service provider has confirmed the new service will be cheaper and it will lower prices in the areas with the 505Mbps service.

It will also launch a 250Mbps 'Extreme' tier for customers in California, alongside upping performance from 50 to 75Mbps on its 'Performance' tier and 105 to 150Mbps on its 'Blast' tier for free. This is similar to Time Warner Cable's recent free upgrades for customers in various packages, as the cable industry tries to keep customers loyal to their service.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable have a right to be worried. Google Fiber is ripping away subscribers from ISPs in places like Kansas City, Austin, Provo, Salt Lake City and other areas, where normal ISPs cannot compete on either speed or price.

Alongside the announcement by the Federal Communication Commission that community broadband is legal regardless of current laws, more Internet options are bound to become available to customers that only want fast speeds.

Comcast has still not detailed the price of the 2Gbps speed, but we expect it to be more than $200 per month, way above the budget of customers wanting to pay only $70 per month for Google Fiber's 1Gbps.

Expect more announcements like this one over the next six months, as Comcast and other ISPs start to anxiously win back customer loyalty through free upgrades, changes to service and leaning off anti-competitive business practices, which the U.S. have suffered through for more than a decade.

TagsComcast, california, Google Fiber