Beep, Beep! Beep, Beep! Buffalo is about to become one of the first markets nationwide to get the fastest speed for Time Warner Cable’s Internet service, as the local battle between the dominant cable firm and telephone giant Verizon Communications heats up.

The nation’s No. 2 cable company is bringing its new Wideband Internet service to Western New York as of April 5, offering downloading speeds of up to 50 megabits per second for residential use.

That’s more than three times the speed currently available for its Road Runner Internet customers. And it now matches what Verizon already offers in Western New York at its highest speed through Verizon FiOS, perhaps making Buffalo one of the few cities in the country where such speeds are available from two competitors.

Time Warner has spent the last few years, and particularly the last few months, upgrading its infrastructure throughout its market area in preparation for launching Wideband, said Matthew Tremblay, a Time Warner spokesman based in Cheektowaga. So far, the new service is being used only by a small number of residential customers in parts of New York City. It’s also available for commercial customers in southeastern Ohio.

But as the company expands the service, “we are going to be one of the first areas that are getting it,” Tremblay said.

“A lot of our customers are asking for higher speed. They want to be able to do more and have the speeds for it,” he said. “Technology keeps advancing, and customers want the newest and the best, and we want to give that to our customers.”

Initially, the new service will be available in about two-thirds of the eight-county region, but it will eventually cover the whole area, Tremblay said. He could not say which cities or towns would be first, or when it would be extended to the rest.

However, the company signed up its first local customer Thursday, he said.

“This is seen as an area where there’s a lot of tech-savvy individuals who like their online applications and want the speed to back up what they’re doing,” Tremblay said. “There’s a lot of individuals we feel in this area that will like this service.”

The data duel between Time Warner and Verizon demonstrates the importance that consumers place on getting the most out of the Internet, as fast as they can, with the best technology. Cities nationwide are even vying aggressively over Google’s proposal to pick a handful of areas in which to build a new experimental fiber-optic network that it says is 100 times faster than most current Internet connections.

The local battle also shows the pressure that telecommunications providers face to ensure they have the latest and greatest options available — even if they’re being used by only a portion of the customer base.

For example, Tremblay acknowledged that such speeds are “more than the average user needs” for basic e-mailing and Web activities. Rather, they’re for people who “do a lot of online games or downloading of music and movies,” and who are “constantly drawing bandwidth for the Internet.”

“That’s what a speed like this is good for because it allows you to have plenty of speed for all of those applications,” he said.

The new Wideband service will offer 50 megabits-per-second for downloading data and 5 Mbps for uploading, at a cost of $99.95 per month. The next level down is Roadrunner Extreme, which is also new and features 30 Mbps for down-streaming and 5 Mbps for up-streaming, for $69.95 per month.

Previously, Time Warner’s fastest service locally, its Road Runner Turbo, operated at 15 Mbps for downloading and 2 Mbps for uploading, for $49.95 per month. Existing customers can upgrade just by swapping modems, Tremblay said.

Verizon FiOS offers 50 Mbps downloading and 20 Mbps uploading for $139.95 per month, and 25 Mbps downloading and 25 Mbps uploading for $64.99 per month.