Google Explores Super-Speed Internet In Nine More Major Cities

A map showing current and possibly future locations for Google Fiber, the company’s super-high-speed internet service. Image: Google

Google may expand its ultra-high-speed internet service into several other major metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Jose, Portland, Salt Lake City, and San Antonio.
This morning, with a blog post, the company revealed that its considering the possibility of rolling its Google Fiber service into the regions surrounding these and four other larger American cities. The service is already up and running in Kansas City, Kansas, and it’s slated to move into Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah.
When the company first revealed its Google Fiber project in 2010, it described the service — which provides internet speeds that are about 100 times faster than today’s typical connections — as a mere experiment, a way of coaxing others towards faster speeds. But as Google moves to expand the service, it looks more and more like an effort to provide a very real alternative to internet connections from traditional communications giants such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.
Today’s news is particularly welcome because it comes on the heels of Comcast’s agreement to purchase Time Warner Cable, a merger that would combine the country’s two largest cable internet providers. In many ways, the Comcast deal threatens the evolution of an unfettered internet here in the U.S., but Google Fiber could provide a counter-balance, not only by improving internet speeds but by injecting some much needed competition into the market.
According to the blog post, from Google vice president of access service Milo Medin, the company is considering expansions into the greater metropolitan areas surrounding Atlanta, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Salt Late City, Utah; and San Antonio, Texas. In these areas, the service could eventually cover a total of 34 different cities.
But, as Google tells it, not all of these areas will necessarily receive Google Fiber. The company will work with leaders in each city to determine whether it can viably provie service to each. “We aim to provide updates by the end of the year about which cities will be getting Google Fiber,” Medin writes. “Between now and then, we’ll work closely with each city’s leaders on a joint planning process that will not only map out a Google Fiber network in detail, but also assess what unique local challenges we might face. Geography, housing density, and the condition of local infrastructure will all play a role in the decision.
According to Medin, cities will also complete a checklist of items that will “help them get ready for a project of this scale and speed.”
The wait may be tantalilizing, but Google is playing a long game. For example, even as it grooms the next batch of cities for its one gigabit connections, the company is Google is also working on technology capable of boosting speeds to 10 gigabits a second– about 1,000 times faster than today’s average connection. We’re still a long way from seeing those connections commercially, but it shows how far ahead Google is thinking.