Thanks to Ann Higgins on the heads up on a big announcement CenturyLink made this week…

CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) has completed an upgrade of its network and is now delivering speeds of 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps) nationwide across its backbone and in more than 50 metropolitan locations across the United States. The company also recently deployed 100 Gbps in Singapore and London, with more international cities planned for early 2013.

I asked them specifically about access in Minnesota…

We announced on Wednesday that our entire network is now 100G capable. That 100G service running across our backbone can also be delivered to POPs in our large metro markets and to customers through our Optical Wavelength Service. We could offer 100G into the Minneapolis metro if a large enterprise, wholesale or government customer were interested in our OWS service.

The 100G service we offer in the metros is designed for big businesses and agencies. However, CenturyLink High-Speed Internet customers will benefit from our network upgrade to 100G as there will be greater capacity and less congestion on our network. This should result in a more efficient broadband experience for them.

So it clearly isn’t made for the man of the street yet – but as they say, it should mean better service for all customers and I think it helps create a market and competition that should bring faster speeds closer to everyone. I will stipulate that at least at this point I mean everyone in a metro area.

I was curious about Optical Wavelength Service. Here is how they defined it…

CenturyLink uses state-of-the-art DWDM technology that enables several streams of digital information to be put on different wavelengths of light, eliminating interference with one another. This allows transport of up to 96 channels in a single strand of fiber and translates into higher capacity and lower cost.