Alcatel announces first 10Gig community internet service

After Comcast failed to block a municipal fiber broadband network, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, via EFB Fiber Optics, will offer what it bills as the fastest home Internet connection speed in the world. The 10 Gig residential service is available everywhere in EPB’s service area for United States dollars 299 per month with free installation, no contracts and no cancellation fees.

EPB’s service covers a 600 square mile area.

“If the people, acting through their elected local governments, want to pursue competitive community broadband, they shouldn’t be stopped by state laws promoted by cable and telephone companies that don’t want the competition”.

That’s 10 times the speeds Google has been offering through its Google Fiber ultra-high-speed service, and light years ahead of traditional Internet service providers.

Rather than using point-to-point commercial installations, EPB uses Alcatel-Lucent TWDM-PON broadband tech. The city cited a recent University of Tennessee study showing that the municipal broadband initiative has helped the Chattanooga area generate more than 2,800 new jobs and $865.3 million in economic and social benefits.

“Chattanooga is a city ready to compete in the 21st Century innovation economy”, said Mayor Andy Berke in the press release.

Do you think that other towns and cities should be considering offering high-speed internet to their citizens, too?

Since EPB first launched the fibre optic network, in September 2010, Chattanooga’s new economic profile has attracted new companies and enlivened the city’s entrepreneurial culture, the report claims. The only difference is that Chattanooga has a population of 170,000, while the other two cities only have a smaller scope to cater to.

Officials at EPB have announced that it’s now offering the world’s first 10-gigabit Internet service that will be made available across what it calls a “large, community-wide territory”.

The blazing speeds of Chattanooga internet make browsing faster and more convenient, but even more significant, it is a boon to the region in terms of STEM research.

Among a flutter of tweets coming from Startup Week Chattanooga today, hints of a big announcement from the Gig City began to surface in the late morning.