In April 2008, Comcast sued the Chattanooga Electric Power Board (EPB) to prevent it from building a fiber network to serve residents who were getting slow speeds from the incumbent cable provider.

Comcast claimed that EPB illegally subsidized the buildout with ratepayer funds, but it quickly lost in court, and EPB built its fiber network and began offering Internet, TV, and phone service. After EPB launched in 2009, incumbents Comcast and AT&T finally started upgrading their services, EPB officials told Ars when we interviewed them in 2013.

But not until this year has Comcast had an Internet offering that can match or beat EPB's $70 gigabit service. Comcast announced its 2Gbps fiber-to-the-home service on April 2, launching first in Atlanta, then in cities in Florida and California, and now in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"Comcast today announced it will offer residential multi-gigabit broadband service for up to 200,000 customers in Chattanooga beginning in June, and expects to expand availability locally over the next several months," Comcast said.

There's no word on Comcast pricing yet, but it could vary depending on the level of competition in each city. AT&T, for example, charges $70 a month for gigabit service in cities that have Google Fiber and as much as $40 more in cities that don't have Google.

Comcast has charged a whopping $399.95 a month for its existing 505Mbps service but says it will charge less for the 2Gbps plan, which it intends to roll out to 18 million homes nationwide by the end of this year.

Comcast had little interest in upgrading its Chattanooga network when it faced no real competition. "I think we would have welcomed the incumbents to come into town and to have done some of this work, but frankly no one was interested in doing it," EPB communications VP Danna Bailey told Ars long before Comcast announced its fiber intentions.

At least one customer who remembers Comcast's attempt to squash the EPB project will not be switching. An Ars reader known as "cdclndc" in our forums told us that he has EPB's gigabit service.

"I'm an EPB customer that had to sit on the sidelines while Comcast sued my city to halt the fiber rollout... I'm glad they lost as it was a total win for the community here," cdclndc told Ars, adding that Comcast has struggled to maintain Chattanooga customers since the EPB rollout. "I have EPB's 1/1Gbps service at home, and to be honest after all the shenanigans [Comcast] pulled here keeping our city tied up in court for the longest time trying to hold onto their monopoly, I wouldn't go back to them on principle alone."

EPB still faced another complication after fending off Comcast's lawsuit, in the form of a Tennessee state law that prevents it from expanding outside its electric service area, even though surrounding communities have requested Internet service. The law protects Internet providers from competition, but EPB petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to preempt that state law and won its case in February.

"EPB is an island of competitive high speed broadband service surrounded by areas for the most part with single or no provider of advanced broadband," FCC wireline competition official Gregory Kwan told commissioners before they voted to preempt the state law.

The fight isn't over, as Tennessee filed a lawsuit to overturn the FCC decision.

Comcast isn't necessarily finished with its attempts to fight off competition, either. Last year, CenturyLink accused Comcast of trying to prevent it from gaining reasonable franchise agreements in multiple cities where Comcast operates. Just this week, CenturyLink won an initial approval to compete against Comcast in Minneapolis, but the city's franchise agreement with CenturyLink indemnified the city against lawsuits in case Comcast decides to sue.