Austin, Texas, has always been an outlier in its own state, and the city's tech ambitions follow suit. So soon after Kansas City introduced Google fiber to the world in late 2012, the home of SXSW announced it would be bringing Google's lightning fast Internet service to the city by 2014. But AT&T wanted to speed up the city, and the telco came off a bit jealous when it announced it would also bring gigabit to Austin... if only it had the same "deal" as Google (both Google and Austin denied any special treatment was in play). Eventually, AT&T announced its own high-speed service called GigaPower, meaning Austin-ites would have two gigabit options by mid-2014.

Despite the heavyweight, high-speed arms race, neither Google nor AT&T will be the first provider to bring gigabit to Austin. According to Austin360, that honor belongs to the San Marcos, Texas-based Grande. The company today announced that it will begin offering gigabit service to parts of West Austin this week—months ahead of projected launch dates from the two Internet giants. For a glance at the company's scale, Austin360 reports Grande has about 150,000 customers (all in Texas) compared to AT&T's six million-plus Internet subscribers nationwide.

Grande’s service will cost $65 per month with no contract required, according to statements from Grande President Matt Murphy to the Austin American-Statesman. That's $5 less than what AT&T will charge. Austin360 also notes the Grande price will decrease when the Internet service is bundled with the company’s other services. And make no mistake about it, the company's new offering is absolutely an attempt to carve out a subscriber base ahead of its larger competition.

"There’s a certain sizzle to one gigabit that people are excited about,” Grande told Austin360. “We’re nimble and able to do things faster. We’re consciously doing this to beat Google."

Austin360 notes that Time Warner Cable is currently the dominant telco in Austin, but that company has no public plans yet to become the fourth gigabit service in town.