For those of you who want faster Internet speeds at your Lawrence home, here’s something to keep an eye on: AT&T has quietly begun offering gigabit Internet service in a few select Lawrence neighborhoods.

AT&T officials told me that the company recently began offering the service in a couple of newer neighborhoods on the western side of town, but they didn’t give me more precise details. Instead, the company has a website — att.com/gigapower — that allows you to check your address to see if the gigabit service is offered.

Most of you in Lawrence will find that it is not offered, yet. Chris Lester, a spokesman for AT&T, told me the Lawrence project is a more of a testing-of-the-waters type of effort rather than a large scale launch.

“It is in the hundreds,” Lester said of the number of Lawrence homes that are eligible for the super fast broadband speeds.

I realize some of you still may be confused about gigabit. (I saw Tom Silva on “This Old House” use one of them gigabits to drill through titanium bathroom tiles.) Gigabit service is the same type of super fast Internet speed that the much-touted Google Fiber project brought to parts of Kansas City. AT&T notes that with gigabit service that you can do things like download 25 songs in a single second, download your favorite TV show in about 3 seconds, and download an HD movie in about 35 seconds.

Quick download speeds and live streaming of video are a big selling point for the service right now. But home-based businesses that upload lots of content to the Web also have been clamoring for the service. Eventually, people believe the super fast Internet speeds also will lead to consumers having better access to things such as telemedicine, distance learning and other advancements that we haven’t even thought about yet.

If you remember, though, one of the debates at Lawrence City Hall is whether we’re on the cusp of another digital divide. In other words, will only the rich neighborhoods get access to this high-speed broadband service? Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband worked to get an incentives package to install gigabit service in parts of East Lawrence. Commissioners, though, balked at that idea after questions about the financial arrangement kept emerging. Some community leaders have mentioned the idea of the city providing broadband service, which has been done in a few communities. Others, though, have said to be patient and see if the large telecom utilities start offering the service on their own.

That’s why watching what AT&T does next will be important. Company officials didn’t provide me any details on how broadly they may offer the service in Lawrence in the future. But they did note that they have expanded the service in several other communities. The company has announced it is bringing the gigabit service to parts of Wichita, and is expanding its current offerings in the KC metro area to include parts of Belton, Blue Springs, Grain Valley, Lee’s Summit and Raymore. The company already offers the service in parts of Fairway, Leawood, Lenexa, Mission Hills, Olathe, Overland Park, Prairie Village and Shawnee.

One thing that seems likely is that Lawrence won’t be forgotten by company officials. AT&T’s Kansas president is a Lawrence resident.

“We think the service will get good use in Lawrence,” said Mike Scott, president of AT&T Kansas. “We certainly will keep our eyes open for other opportunities in Lawrence. We’re looking to expand, but it will depend on the response we get.”

AT&T officials said one of the reasons they chose the particular west Lawrence neighborhoods for the service is because they are newer neighborhoods that were built with fiber optic cable leading to each home. That’s not the case with some older neighborhoods. But as more neighborhoods are built with fiber to the home, the chances of gigabit service being expanded seem to increase. That, however, may lead some to become concerned again about that digital divide question. Will only newly built neighborhoods have that high-speed service?

There certainly has been talk by some companies, though, of retrofitting existing neighborhoods with the needed fiber. That is what is going in Baldwin City by RG Fiber. That Baldwin City-based company has agreements in place to do that type of work in Lawrence as well, but company officials have said Eudora is next on its list for expansion, in part because Eudora helped the company find a route for its key piece of fiber while Lawrence officials got caught up in a broader debate about what type of help it should provide to RG Fiber and Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband. RG Fiber has said it still plans to offer service in Lawrence, but not until it gets underway in Eudora.

As for AT&T’s current project — brand name GigaPower — it is advertising gigabit service for $120 month. That price includes a large package of cable television channels.

• I certainly do hear questions about gigabit service and its availability in Lawrence, but what I hear more frequently are questions about other options for cable television service. It looks like later this year that a significant option is going to arrive in the city.

Perhaps you remember something in the national news about AT&T and DirectTV merging. That happened a few months ago, but last month the combined company made another announcement that I didn’t fully grasp the significance of: AT&T plans on streaming DirectTV content.

What that means is that most of the channels you can get through a DirectTV subscription will be available without having to put up the DirectTV satellite dish. Instead, the channels simply will be delivered to your home through your Internet connection. The Internet connection doesn’t have to be one provided by AT&T. Some pundits are calling it BYOB: Bring your own broadband.

AT&T already offers cable television service in parts of Lawrence through its U-verse service. But that service is available only in select locations of the community. That has meant that WOW continues to be the dominant cable television and broadband provider in the city. But once this new program begins, you could use WOW broadband service to get AT&T cable television service.

The big question, though, is which cable networks will be part of the package. AT&T officials have said the channel offerings will be broad and large. But they haven’t provided details such as whether ESPN and other premium channels will be part of the package. Keep an eye out for those details, because depending on how they develop, Lawrence’s cable television market could be changing significantly.

AT&T plans to roll out the new service in the fourth quarter of this year.

In other news and notes from around town:

• I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited in a hot car outside the Hancock Fabrics location in south Lawrence. I can’t tell you because I usually black out. My water dish usually runs dry before my wife’s fabric shopping spree does.

Well, that scene soon will come to an end. Hancock Fabrics is closing its Lawrence store at 2108 W. 27th St. Those of you who read Town Talk perhaps were prepared for this. We reported in February that the Hancock Fabrics chain filed for bankruptcy protection and was closing 70 stores. The Lawrence store was not on that list of 70 store closures. But we also noted that there was speculation that the bankruptcy process would take a nasty turn and become a complete liquidation.

That is indeed what has happened. Great American Group, a company that specializes in liquidating failing businesses, ended up with the winning bid in the bankruptcy auction for Hancock. Great American Group has announced that it will close all 185 stores in the Hancock chain.

Going-out-of-business signs showed up in Lawrence over the weekend, and the store has begun discounting its merchandise. The company said it expects the going-out-of-business sales to last for “several weeks” before all the merchandise is gone.

View Map

Click here to see recent Town Talk columns