• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 1, 2013

Omaha, Neb. will soon be among the handful of U.S. cities where residents can surf the Web at speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, assuming things go according to plan.

The Internet service provider CenturyLink said today it will roll out a 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home network to 48,000 residents of West Omaha. The cost for consumers will range from $80 to month to $150 per month, depending on whether they purchase the service as part of a bundle, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. The rollout is expected to start this week.

The move comes several weeks after Google announced that it will create new 1 Gbps networks in Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah. The search giant rolled out its first ultra-high-speed network last year in Kansas City. Some cities also have created their own super-fast broadband networks. Chattanooga, Tenn. launched a 1 Gbps fiber network in 2010. Briston, Va. and Lafayette, La. both also offer 1 Gbps networks, according to a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

There's no question that the recent creation of new fiber networks have left incumbent providers on the defensive. Shortly after Google said it would create a fiber network in Texas, Time Warner announced that it would offer free WiFi in Austin. The timing wasn't a coincidence.

“We’ve been rolling out our free WiFi network across our footprint for some time now, as part of our larger strategy to offer significantly more value to our Internet subscribers. Austin was in the game plan for 2013,” Time Warner director of digital communications, Jeff Simmermon, wrote on the company blog. “But Google’s recent announcement encouraged us to deploy our network more aggressively now.”

And AT&T said it was “prepared” to build a 1 GB fiber network in Austin -- assuming that it was “granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.”

Of course, even if a small number of areas now offer 1 Gbps broadband service, most people in the U.S. don't have access to anything approaching that speed. The average reportedly remains less than 10 Mbps. CenturyLink itself isn't known for particularly speedy connections. Consider, Broadband Reports says that most CenturyLink customers “are fortunate to see speeds of 3 Mbps.”

Still, new fast broadband networks can only be a positive. Hopefully more are on the way.