AT&T aims to bring GigaPower service to Wichita area next year

AT&T said Monday it hopes to bring its 1 gigabit-per-second Internet service called GigaPower to parts of the Wichita area as early as next year.

The telecommunications giant said in a news release that the Wichita area is one of 38 new metro areas where it plans to expand the service beginning in 2016.

An AT&T official said the company doesn’t have an exact date for offering the service in the Wichita area.

“We do expect construction, and in some cases deployment, to begin in some communities in 2016,” AT&T spokesman Chris Lester said in an e-mail to The Eagle. “We will share more once we are closer to launching service in a metro.”

Lester said it took eight months from the announcement of GigaPower service in Overland Park to the time it had the network in place earlier this year to begin offering it.

The service will be available to residences and small businesses in select parts of metropolitan areas. AT&T chooses where in a metro area to offer GigaPower based on partly on where there is greatest demand for high-speed Internet as well as where there is a “solid investment case.”

The service is currently offered in 18 metros, including parts of the Kansas City area where it competes directly with Google Fiber. On Monday, it launched GigaPower in parts of metro Los Angeles and West Palm Beach, Fla.

AT&T claims that the service allows consumers to download 25 songs in less than a second and high-definition movies in less than 36 seconds.

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 12:26 PM with the headline "AT&T aims to bring GigaPower service to Wichita area next year."