Beginning in

January, high-speed Internet access will become available to some areas

of Peachtree City, even as employees of AT&T Broadband continue upgrading

the electronics throughout the county.

Kenny Faust,

general manager of AT&T Broadband, said yesterday that the entire

county should have access to the high-speed Internet service by June,

barring any complications. Instead of waiting until the entire county

is ready, the company will market the service to customers after hardware

upgrades are made in each area.

"We don't

want to hold it back," Faust noted.

The service

will give customers an Internet connection 50 to 100 times faster than

their current service, Faust said. Plus, computers are connected to the

network 24 hours a day, requiring no "dial-up" wait time to

be connected.

And since the

information is sent over existing coaxial cable lines, it frees up customers'

phone lines, Faust pointed out. "Those are the main attractions:

no dial-up time and you're not tying up your phone line," he said.

The system

upgrade will also allow for digital television: a package of up to 120

extra channels which are broadcast digitally, Faust added. That package

would be layered onto the current packages cable customers are getting,

Faust said.

The high-speed

Internet service is now being tested in Peachtree City and some local

residents will be selected to test the system and report any bugs. The

company is using the system at its offices and becoming familiar with

the technology, Faust said.

"We have

to do this right and launch a complete package that doesn't have a lot

of bugs," he said.

Each customer

will need a cable modem to access the service, which can be bought at

electronics stores or from AT&T, Faust said. The modems will be portable

so they can be used on other cable Internet systems, he added.

Peachtree City's

City Hall is already linked to the high-speed Internet service, and local

residents can test it out on a computer at the library, Faust said.

Although the

access allows for high connection speeds, the actual download speed depends

on the speed of the computer the information is being received from, Faust

said.

But AT&T

will "cache" some popular Internet sites on its computers so

customers can pull up the sites at the high-speed connection instead of

waiting for the regular site to respond, Faust added.