AT&T said Tuesday that wireless veteran Dahna Hull will run its wideband Internet project in Austin, which it is calling "U-verse with GigaPower."

The telco, which announced in April that it would build a fiber-to-the-home network in Austin aimed at helping it compete with Google Fiber said it will initially offer speeds up to 300 Mbps beginning in December, and increase speeds up to 1 Gbps in mid-2014. While AT&T won't detail the price for the 300 Mbps service until later this year, the company noted that it'll upgrade subscribers who take the 300 Mbps service tier to 1-Gig speeds "at no extra cost." In addition, AT&T said it'll offer GigaPower customers who also subscribe to its wireless phone service free cloud storage space of 50 GB.

AT&T's GigaPower project could help the company stave off competition from Google Fiber, which has said it will launch its 1-Gig product in Austin in mid-2014. Austin incumbent cable MSO Time Warner Cable began offering cable modem subscribers in Austin free Wi-Fi service in April, but it hasn't announced plans to match the speeds that AT&T and Google plan to market to Austinites.

Last month, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said AT&T plans to expand its FTTH network and 1-Gig product to other markets. "The cost dynamics look good, the revenue implications look good, the market implications look good, so you're going to see more of this over time and I fully expect you'll see us doing markets like this over the next few years."

AT&T said Hull will hold the position of VP and GM of Austin, AT&T Services Inc. Hull worked previously at SBC Communications, the RBOC that acquired AT&T for $16 billion in stock and cash in 2005. SBC changed its name to AT&T after the deal closed. Before taking the GigaPower gig, Hull was VP and GM of AT&T Mobility, South Texas.