AT&T heats up battle with Google over ultra high-speed Internet

The battle for gigabit Internet is heating up in Austin, Texas, where AT&T announced Tuesday it will deploy its ultra high-speed Internet service in December.

The move is a direct shot at Google, which announced earlier this year that it would bring gigabit broadband Internet service to Austin in mid-2014. The search giant said its Google Fiber service is about 100 times faster than most American users’ current Internet speeds.

Google has been slowly spreading its service around the country. Google Fiber’s initial launch came in July 2012 in the Kansas City, Mo., metropolitan area. Next up is Provo, Utah, which will get Google Fiber this month.

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But when it announced in April that Fiber would be coming to Austin, it seems Dallas-based AT&T took offense at Google coming near its home turf. Just days after Google’s news, AT&T unveiled its own plans for an ultra high-speed Internet service in the Texas capital.

With its announcement, AT&T said its service “will initially reach tens of thousands of customer locations” in and around Austin. Service will reach more households in 2014, AT&T said.

However, AT&T won’t actually offer 1 gigabit Internet speeds until mid-2014, which is the same time frame Google has set for its launch in Austin.

At launch in December, AT&T’s service will provide speeds up to only 300 megabits per second. AT&T said those will be the fastest speeds available in Austin at that time.

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