CenturyLink to bet on Vegas fiber

Last May Speed Matters reported that CenturyLink had begun wiring select areas of Omaha with 1Gbps service. This week, the company announced that it will soon begin a similar project in Las Vegas.

In Omaha CenturyLink was able to replace existing, but aging, cable with new fiber. But in Las Vegas, CenturyLink chose the strategy pioneered by Google in Kansas City: Get the city to facilitate the process to lower cost.

Although CTO Matt Beal declined to reveal the details, he did tell Gigaom that “The Las Vegas network was developed with concessions from the local government... He did say however that he saw a new strategy emerging between cities and broadband providers.”

Fiber may be key. Former computer scientist Beal said that “gigabit access means instant access to data — removing a bottleneck that has long frustrated technologists be they inside a data center or just sending instructions to a chip.”

Speed Matters believes that Americans deserve the best Internet connections and that fiber provides needed competition for the emerging cable monopoly.

CenturyLink offers 1 GB to Omaha (Speed matters, May 2, 2013)

What happens in Vegas will now happen at gigabit speeds (Gigaom, Oct. 9, 2013)

Getting to a gig: How CenturyLink is building out its network and why. (Gigaom, Oct. 15, 2013)