CenturyLink – the third largest telecommunications company in the U.S. – announced today that it will expand its forthcoming gigabit fiber internet service into Las Vegas this fall.
Better yet, the company says it will keep expanding the service into other cities in early 2014. But no pricing has been announced, nor any specifics as to which parts of the city will receive the service, and CenturyLink describes the service as a "pilot program," implying that it may be a temporary offering. It does specify, however, that it will be a symmetrical service, meaning users will get 1 gigabit speeds for both uploads and downloads.
Last May, CenturyLink announced that it will offer its first gigabit internet pilot in Omaha, Nebraska. The company began building the network in May and hopes to offer the service to 48,000 customers by the end of this month.
Depending on where these connections are deployed, it could be big news for Las Vegas, as Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has been trying to turn its downtown into a tech startup hub.
Google's ultra-high-speed internet service originally launched in the Kansas City area this year. Last April, Google announced that it would expand its fiber service into Austin, Texas, and it acquired a Provo, Utah based fiber provider. Since then, we've seen more companies, from AT&T to mom and pop providers like Wicked Broadband, step up their offerings in anticipation of competition from Google.
