Minneapolis residents to get 10-gigabit fiber, for $400 per month

While most parts of the US have to make do with Internet speeds of less than 100Mbps—in many cases much less than 100Mbps—some residents of Minneapolis will soon have access to a ludicrously fast fiber-to-the-home speed tier: 10 gigabits per second.

The service is offered by US Internet, the company that already provides “a couple thousand” Minneapolis residents with 1Gbps service for $ 65 per month. The 10Gbps service will be available immediately to existing customers willing to pay the $ 400-per-month fee, though US Internet expects the number of customers who take them up on the deal to be relatively small. All together, US Internet has “a little over 10,000” fiber-to-the-home customers at different speed tiers, all located on the west side of Interstate 35W.

This summer, the company plans to widen its service area to the east side of I-35W, which will encroach further into incumbent Comcast’s territory. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Comcast offers 50Mbps service for $ 77 and 25Mbps service for $ 65 in that area; US Internet by contrast prices its 100Mbps service tier—the company’s most popular—at just $ 45 per month. The gigabit plan at $ 65 gives customers about 40 times the bandwidth of Comcast’s 25Mbps plan for the same price.

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