Andy Cable customers will begin to see changes like faster Internet speeds and an expanded product line as early as the second quarter of 2017, Mediacom officials said Friday.

Mediacom acquired TV Cable of Andalusia, which owns Andy Cable, in a deal that was finalized this week.

“Basically, we are interconnecting our cable service,” said Doug Frank, regional director of operations. “It’s about 25 to 30 miles of fiber.”

Once Andy Cable’s existing infrastructure is connected to Mediacom’s, Frank said, a number of different services will be available. One of those changes is a significant speed boost in Internet services.

“Our packaging and our speeds are really, really good,” he said.

“With what people do on the Internet today, and all the devices that are in use in a household, we have move up to 60 megs as our base threshold,” Frank said. “We offer lots of speeds faster than that.”

“Megs” refers to the megabits per second downloaded on a broadband network. For some local customers, he said, the speed will be a minimum of 20 times faster than existing service, for others, it could be 75 to 80 percent faster.

“It’s always been a real philosophical point for our CEO,” Frank said. “Communities with Mediacom service are not capitols of state, but they deserve speeds as fast as big cities. Our company has made a continuous reinvestment back into our network.

“As Andy Cable knew, that is an ongoing cost. What’s been done locally so far is great, but this will add a whole new dimension that is 20 times faster or even more.”

Those who have andycable.com email addresses will continue to receive communication at that address for several months, Phyllis Peters, communications director for Mediacom’s field operations group, said.

“Our Mediacom technology team is working on a process to make the changeover as seamless as possible,” she said. “We anticipate a transitional solution that will include some kind of forwarding from old address to new.  The email addresses will eventually switch – but the objective here is to provide a proper amount of transition time between old and new.”

Frank said the company will have approximately 120 high definition channels available, as well as other services. One is TV Everywhere.

“You won’t be attached to your TV anymore,” Frank said, adding that customers can use mobile devices to see more than 80 networks.

TiVo also is available, and customers with cable subscriptions will be able to stream HBO Go, as well as premium sports channels, at no additional cost. Frank said the new network line-up will be announced soon.

Mediacom also offers a Home Controller services, which allows customers to manage security like light settings or security cameras on their home broadband systems.

Telephone service also is available.

“People think that landline phone service is something of past,” Frank said. “It’s actually one of our fastest growing products.”

Frank said while the fiber is being constructed, Mediacom will train local employees about the splash of new services that will soon be available.

He also added that longtime Andy Cable owner and manager Ivan Bishop has been great to work with, as has Mike Russell, who will remain with the company. Bishop’s father founded Andy Cable 52 years ago.

Peters said that, like Andy Cable, Mediacom is family owned.

“It is not publicly-owned,” she said. “The individual who founded it is still CEO and chairman.”