My Gigablast experience:
Before Installation: I called Cox and setup Gigablast installation as it was available in my area and I was very dis-satisfied with the preferred internet because of the frequent internet dropouts and issues with accessing HD video. Initially I got a phone call from COX representative explaining the process. Cox will have a hub near your house. At first Cox will send a representative to check if they need city Permits to get a line from the neightbourhood hub to your wall. They usually pull the new fiber connection right near where the cable connection ends -> it was near the electrical/ phone panels for me. The permit process (if required) can take up to three weeks which was right about the same in my case. Once the permit is obtained a cox technician first installs the connection from the hub to the box on your side wall. Thereafter COX representative will call and set up a 4 hour installation window. In my case it took 7 hours for the final install.
Installation day: I was apprehensive (and excited) about the installation as I have a big house which has 2 floors and I needed the connection to go to a diagonally opposite location downstairs in the house compared to where the side wall panel was. The cox technician arrived on time. We talked about the routing of the wires and he had couple of ideas on how to get the fiber cable to the required location. Route 1 (which we used): Up the wall-into the attic-down the wall-new modem hub on the wall near the router (This was feasible because I already had a hole in the wall (near the ceiling) downstairs as I was installing speakers for my new home theater system). Route 2 was to take the wires around the house and essentially staple them along the foundation. I did not like the second option as I wanted the wires to be mostly hidden. The cox technician was able to use his flexible drill bit to drill a hole through the studs and routed the wire (about 60-80 yards) from my media room up to the attic and then across the house down to the box on the side wall. They had to do multiple retries because any twist in the wire needs to be removed. Then they had to use their fancy splicer to make the connections in my media room (there is a new box that goes on the wall which essentially acts as a modem - this looks a little odd but thankfully it is behind a cupboard for me; this also needs a power source); near the sidewall box and then near the hub. Overall it took the technician 7 hours - with his supervisor and two other technicians joining halfway through the install. They also provided a dual band AC router (netgear 6300) and an AC wireless adapter for free!!!. I was really happy with the install.
After installation: So the actual speed that you get depends on a number of things (never heard that before, have you?). My experience:
Dell technicians laptop (with dualband ac adapter) on installation day:300 Mbps Download and 250 Mbps Upload on cox.com (their link).
Windows tablet with dualband adapter: 60 Mbps Download and 40Mbps Upload on speedtest,net and cox.com (speed check link in your account settings).
Laptop (Haswell I7) with single band (2.4) N wireless adapter: 80 Mbps Download and 80Mbps Upload on speedtest,net and cox.com . Same laptop with wired connection gives 250 Mbps Download and 90Mbps Upload on speedtest,net and 360Mbps download and 570Mbps upload on cox.com
laptop (sandybridge I5) with dualband adapter: 70 Mbps Download and 90 Mbps Upload on speedtest,net whereas 80 Mbps Download and 120 Mbps Upload on cox.com.
brand new ultrabook (Broadwell) with 867Mbps capable dualband wireless adapter: 80 Mbps Download and 90 Mbps Upload on speedtest,net whereas 180 Mbps Download and 320 Mbps Upload on cox.com.
I do feel Cox might be restricting the bandwidth somewhat given that the upload speeds I am getting are much higher compared to my download speeds. Also I still often have issues playing 4K content on youtube (videos stop because of buffer) on my latest laptop (which is powerful enough).
Overall I am glad that I switched to Gigabit and was very happy with the installation and the freebies but the speeds that I get are far away from advertised and still have problems playing UHD content.
