CenturyLink is conducting 100 Mbps over copper trial in Salt Lake City

CenturyLink has begun trialing a new 100 Mbps service over its existing copper network for consumer and business customers in Salt Lake City (UT). Although it's still in the early stages, the company said that by using vectoring and bonding technology it can bring the service to a large portion of the city to complement its growing 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service.

Interestingly, in markets where it delivers 1 Gbps service such as Salt Lake City and Omaha (NE), it is seeing what it calls a "halo effect" of consumers purchasing other speed tiers it offers over its existing copper network. Within Omaha, one of its first FTTH markets, Ewing said that the 1 Gbps offering drove more customers to inquire about other speeds such as its 40 and 80 Mbps offerings. Overall, CenturyLink continues to enhance the speeds of its existing copper-based DSL and FTTH networks. Today, 56 percent of its customers can get access to 20 Mbps or higher, while 70 percent can get access to 10 Mbps or higher.