The competition for high-speed fiber optic Internet is escalating in 13 cities

The gigabit fiber war just got a little hotter. Louisiana-based broadband provider CenturyLink said that it's expanding its fiber optic service -- with speeds of 1 gigabit per second -- to 13 new cities. The speeds will be "symmetrical," meaning that users will get the same upload speeds as their download speeds.

The list of new cities getting CenturyLink residential fiber includes Seattle, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, and Columbia and Jefferson City (MO). Businesses will be able to take advantage of gigabit service in all those cities, as well as in Phoenix, Tuscon, Albuquerque, Spokane (WA), Colorado Springs, and Sioux Falls (SD).