With competition heating up among telecom carriers to sign up more consumers for their service, AT&T (News - Alert) has started rolling out its high speed Internet Max Turbo to Houston, offering broadband speeds of up to 24 Mbps downstream and up to 3 Mbps upstream.

Initially launched in Austin, San Antonio and St. Louis in December 2009, Max Turbo is available as a bundle with AT&T U-verse TV.

Along with Houston, AT&T U-verse services are offered in 120 markets across 22 states.

“With a large majority of U-verse TV customers bundling U-verse Internet, we know we're giving our customers the broadband choice they want,” said Mark Collins (News - Alert), senior vice president of data and voice products, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.

Max Turbo is no doubt represents the fastest Internet package offered by AT&T and it is available to both residential and business customers in 22 states.

A&T is charging $95 a month for business customers and a monthly fee of $65 for residential customers. “Current U-verse Internet residential and small business customers can upgrade their package at any time,” the carrier stated in a press release. AT&T is the nation's largest provider of wireless and wireline broadband service, with 17.3 million broadband subscribers, including 2.1 million U-verse broadband connections as of the fourth quarter of 2009. More than 90 percent of U-verse TV customers bundle U-verse High Speed Internet.

Most of cable competitors to AT&T have upgraded their networks using a technology called Docsis 3.0, which allows them to put together channels and achieve higher speeds. Over the coming years, all cable operators are likely to adopt this technology to deliver faster and faster Internet speeds, forcing AT&T to leverage its entire muscle in telecom network to retain the customers.