google fiber

Competition keeps incumbent prices down and speeds up

9 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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There’s a reason Chicago sings the blues.

If you want faster and cheaper broadband service, the surest way to get it is to threaten incumbents with competition. We saw it in Santa Cruz where, after years of charging high speed prices for low speed bandwidth, Comcast suddenly upgraded its network to support Silicon Valley-levels of service. The spur was a combination of legislative pressure, in the form of new eligibility for infrastructure construction subsidies, a county plan to create a fiber backbone connecting key economic areas and, critically, the announcement of a city-backed fiber to the home project.… More

Google Fiber adds two California cities to the prospect list

13 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for a larger version.

Irvine and San Diego join San Jose (and surrounding Silicon Valley communities) as possible expansion targets for Google Fiber. The announcement, which was made in a blog post, also included Louisville, Kentucky.

All three are now “potential fiber cities”, which means that Google Fiber intends to talk with local officials about what’s needed to move it up the classification list to “upcoming fiber city”…

Our next step is to begin a joint planning process with city leaders, just as we did when we began working with nine metro areas last year.

… More

Alphabet restructuring positions Google Fiber to go big

16 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Google Fiber is about to become a standalone venture, owned by Alphabet. That’s the holding company announced last week by Google which will own the core business – still called Google – and a raft of separate entities that don’t have much in common with that core business. Things like Google Fiber, Nest, Calico and the Google X incubator that nurtures out of the box ideas like Project Loon.

For now, Alphabet will own 100% of all these companies.… More

San Antonio confirmed as Google Fiber's next stop

6 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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San Antonio opens the gate for Google.

San Antonio has officially gone from being a “potential” Google Fiber city to an “upcoming” one. Google made the announcement yesterday in its blog…

Fast growing cities need Internet speeds that can keep up with their progress. For the 1.4 million residents of San Antonio, one of the biggest and fastest growing cities in the country, this is truer than ever. Which is why, today, we’re proud to announce that Google Fiber is coming to San Antonio—the largest Fiber city to date…

Soon, we’ll enter the design phase of building our fiber network in San Antonio.

… More

Arizona appears to be next for Google Fiber expansion

4 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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So far, no love for the Pacific Time Zone.

Google continues to lay the groundwork for expanding its fiber to the home project into more metro areas. According to a story by Darren DaRonco and Parker Leavitt in the Arizona Republic, Google is negotiating agreements with cities in the Phoenix area to get access to public right of ways. The first city to approve a deal is Tempe…

The agreement “gives us approval to build a network in the city of Tempe,” said Angie Welling, Google’s public policy and government affairs manager.

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AT&T goes to the mattresses in North Carolina

21 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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AT&T is putting a move on Google Fiber and Frontier, inside of Frontier’s territory in Durham, North Carolina, according to a story by Lauren Ohnesorge in the Triangle Business Journal (h/t to Fierce Telecom for the pointer). The story quotes a local AT&T executive as saying that the company will soon be offering its Gigapower service, apparently via fiber to the premise technology and on what appears to be a limited basis…

AT&T has the resources to spread its technology more broadly.

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Texas regulators put Google Fiber in the fast lane

1 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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It seemed odd that San Antonio wasn’t on the list earlier this year when Google announced four new cities for its fiber to the home initiative. The city bent over backwards making Google welcome and it’s a short drive – less than a six pack, as they measure such things in Texas – from its current base in Austin.

Now it turns out that Google has been keeping its eye on the Alamo City. A story by Mark Reagan in the San Antonio Current says that Google asked for and quickly received permission to expand its fiber system from the Public Utility Commission of Texas.… More

Even Google needs video to compete against broadband incumbents

17 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Cut the cord carefully, if you bleed Dodger blue.

Video is an essential part of high speed broadband service. That’s the conclusion that Google has apparently reached. Google Fiber exec Milo Medin spoke at a conference in Florida earlier this week and, according to a story in Fierce Telecom, said…

What we have found is that while it’s not necessary to offer voice service because of wireless [substitution], if you don’t offer a good TV service your ability to compete with incumbents that bundle Internet and TV together is significantly impaired.

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Google Fiber likes Salt Lake, Utopia not so much

26 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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No room on the Google bus.

Google Fiber’s Utah expansion appears limited to Salt Lake City and, maybe, some surrounding areas. In its announcement and press event on Wednesday, the Google team talked about “metro area—Salt Lake City”, but the emphasis was on the city proper.

There’s also no prospect, at this point, for Google to step in and rescue the Utopia municipal fiber system, as it did in Provo. Six of the eleven cities in the consortium want to move ahead with a refinancing deal proposed by Macquarie Capital, but no promises have been made yet and final decisions are still months away.… More

Google Fiber expanding into Salt Lake area

25 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Salt Lake City will be the next stop for Google Fiber. According to a post on the Google Fiber blog yesterday…

“Now, another city in the Silicon Slopes is poised to show the world what’s possible with gigabit Internet. Today, we’re ready to bring Google Fiber to one more metro area—Salt Lake City”.

…It’s a logical expansion out of its nearby Provo base. One question to be answered: does the expansion into the metro area include the Utopia systems?… More