CenturyLink celebrates economic, community benefits of 1 Gbps service with #HereForGood campaign in Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY, July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In a move that underscores the economic and community benefits of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) fiber speeds, CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) is launching a #HereForGood celebration campaign July 27-29 in Salt Lake City to highlight the positive impact of the company's gigabit services in Utah.

A new study from the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council verifies what consumers, analysts and media have also acknowledged: There is strong economic benefit and steadily growing demand for high-speed Internet in areas where 1 gigabit bandwidth is present, even for the consumers who don't yet require gigabit access and the neighborhoods where gigabit service has not yet arrived.

CenturyLink is a national leader in the advancement of broadband fiber services and was recently given the 2015 FTTH Council's Chairman's Award in acknowledgement of the company's tremendous efforts to promote, educate and accelerate deployment of fiber-to-the-home. Since its initial announcement of gigabit capability in 2013, the company has made gigabit service available to residential and business customers in parts of 17 states, including Utah, where gigabit speeds are available to residents, businesses and educational institutions. CenturyLink currently provides gigabit broadband services to more than 20,000 Utah residential customers and will make the service available to 100,000 residential locations within the next 12 months. Gigabit service is also available to almost 20,000 Utah business locations.

"CenturyLink's significant investment in Internet speeds up to 1 gigabit per second is bringing great economic opportunities to Utah," said Jeremy Ferkin, CenturyLink vice president of operations for Utah. "For businesses, schools and homes, the benefits of the 'Gigabit Economy' are clear."

The FTTH study shows that access to gigabit networking can add more than $5,400 to the value of the average U.S. home, and that sales prices were seven percent higher than for homes with broadband speeds of 25 Mbps or lower.

"Our recent studies suggest that communities where gigabit service is broadly available have a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) that is 1.1 percent higher than communities with little or no access to gigabit services," said FTTH Council President and CEO Heather Gold. "In dollar terms, this has meant approximately $1.4 billion in additional GDP for the communities with broad access. Clearly, every community should be a gigabit community."

As the first provider to bring gigabit fiber service to Salt Lake City, CenturyLink is demonstrating its commitment and gratitude to Utahns by performing good deeds in Salt Lake City during the three-day celebration July 27-29. CenturyLink employees will perform a variety of scheduled and spontaneous acts of charity in Salt Lake City to celebrate that CenturyLink is #HereForGood: 

• On July 27, CenturyLink will provide free gigabit service to selected recipients in their home, donate Smart Classroom equipment to a school and will interview a business on the game changing benefits of gigabit service and how it has impacted their business.
• On July 28, company employees will celebrate the speed of 1 gigabit service, which is equivalent to 1,000 megabits per second, by providing 1,000 free juice smoothies at the City Creek Center in Salt Lake during the lunch hour. In addition, the company will give 1,000 tennis balls to the Liberty Park Tennis Center and donate 1,000 cans of food to the Utah Food Bank.
• On July 29, company employees will perform spontaneous good deeds throughout the city to promote the emphasis on not only being Salt Lake City's first provider of gigabit fiber services, but also to demonstrate the company's commitment to the Utah community, thus the campaign #HereForGood.

Business and residential customers can visit www.centurylink.com/saltlakecity to learn more about CenturyLink's fiber-based services, including speeds up to 1 Gbps, and to determine if service is available in their location.

About CenturyLink
CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses and their lives through innovative technology solutions. CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network. Visit CenturyLink for more information.

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SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.

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