The city of Chatanooga, Tenn. on Monday unveiled what it said is the fastest Internet service in the U.S. The city-owned EPB Fiber Optics has partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to offer speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second.

The city of Chatanooga, Tenn. on Monday unveiled what it said is the fastest Internet service in the U.S. The city-owned EPB Fiber Optics has partnered with Alcatel-Lucent to offer speeds up to 1 gigabit per second.

The EPB utility now services more than 100,000 homes and businesses in the Chattanooga area, and the city said that every home and business within EPB's 600 square-mile, 9 county service area will be able to access speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

But it won't come cheap; Internet alone with speeds that high will cost $350 per month.

"Chattanooga is light years ahead when it comes to providing ultra fast broadband," Tom Edd Wilson, president and chief executive of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "By offering the fastest available speeds to a whole community comprising a diverse population living in both urban and rural areas, Chattanooga has become the living laboratory for today's innovations and tomorrow's companies."

EPB is a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network, which the city said provides greater power reliability. Officials started planning its system more than a decade ago, but a $111 million Department of Energy grant from the recent federal stimulus package helped make the project a reality. The system is built to run on the country's Smart Grid to offer Internet, video, and telephone service.

EPB offers tiers of Internet service: 30 Mbps up and down for $57.99; 50 Mbps per second for $69.99; 100 Mbps per month for $139.99; and 1 gigabit for $350 per month.

The Federal Communications Commission recently as 4 Mbits per second downstream and 1 Mbits per second upstream; Chattanooga's 1 Gbps service is 10 times faster, the city said.

In February, that it plans to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the U.S., and promised speeds up to 1 Gbps. Google asked interested communities to apply by late March, and the company . Google has not yet made any final announcements about which communities it will fund.