1 Gbps Internet from France's Free and AT&T in Austin, Texas

The gigabit trend is catching on it seems. Google is famously offering a 1 Gbps internet connection for a reasonable price to its Fiber subscribers and the world is noticing. In France, Free is now offering a 1 Gbps fiber optics plan as well for an also reasonable price of €35 ($47.41).

The connection only comes with a 200 Mbps upload channel, but it's still much better than what the competition is offering in the country and pretty much everywhere else in the world. VDSL subscribers are also getting upgraded to a 100 Mbps connection. In the US, AT&T is feeling the heat from Google Fiber and is racing to launch its own gigabit connection possibly even ahead of Google in Austin where Fiber is supposed to become available in mid-2014.

"AT&T announced today it has begun deployment of a 100 percent fiber Internet broadband network in Austin that will deliver speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second. AT&T plans to begin delivering AT&T U-verse with GigaPower, the city’s fastest Internet available to consumers, along with more advanced TV services and features, in December," AT&T announced. One of Google's goals with its Fiber project was to spur the competition into action. The big incumbents, at the time, argued that people simply don't want faster internet connections. This while the US ranks among the slowest among the developed countries in terms of broadband speeds.

France's Free is offering a gigabit connection
Image credits to Free

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