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If they are willing to pay for it, residents of unincorporated Salt Lake County can sign up soon for a new high-speed Internet broadband service offered by CenturyLink, Inc.
The Salt Lake County Council this week approved the issuance of a license to CenturyLink so it can offer unincorporated-area residents and businesses expanded broadband choices — including access to cable television — and at speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.
Federal and state law authorizes the county to grant licenses to cable-television providers who require the use of public rights-of-way to install their fiber-optic lines, said Patrick Leary, director of the county's Office of Township Services, which oversees services to about 160,000 unincorporated-area residents.
"CenturyLink has invested a lot of money in the unincorporated area to unveil a new cable-TV product on the market [this spring]," he added.
"You'll be pleased with the investment," Georganne Weidenbach, CenturyLink's state and local government affairs director, told the council, citing the enhanced customer service that will result and the competition it brings to a market dominated by Comcast.
The county will receive a little revenue from the license agreement. Leary estimated the county will receive about $60,000 for every 1,000 new subscribers, "so I don't see a huge, positive budget outcome from this."
What's driving the county's interest, he said, is a desire to make sure valley residents have the technological capacity to thrive in an increasingly fast-paced world.
CenturyLink's new system accomplishes that, said spokesman Flemming Jensen, pointing to his company's recent announcement that it was providing its broadband service to residents of Daybreak, the planned community in South Jordan.
"It's all about the speed," Jensen said of the 1 gigabit-per-second offering, which is 100 times faster than average broadband.
Those higher speeds allow users to stream high-definition video content quickly, have enough capacity to handle multiple high-volume users in a single residence or business, and can support online gaming and home-automation systems, he added.
Customers can sign up for several options of higher-speed Internet access, when bundled with cable television, CenturyLink's website said. Packages vary from $30 a month for speeds of 40 megabits per second (average broadband Internet speeds in most American homes are around 10 megabits), to $50 for 100 megabits per second delivery and $80 a month for 1 gigabit per second of service.
Jensen said CenturyLink undoubtedly will approach other cities in the valley about extending its enhanced-service lines into their communities, but would not divulge "any specific plans of when and where we might bring additional services."
Concerned about the pace of technological change being so rapid that an agreement could become obsolete, the County Council shortened the license from 15 years to five and is requiring an annual report from Township Services.
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