Google Fiber arrived to stay at Salt Lake City, Utah, where the service is now available for signup. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) announced the expansion back in March 2015.
Google Fiber was already installed in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Kansas City, Nashville and neighbor city Provo, also in Utah. The latter was the first municipality in the state to launch the fiber-optic service in April 2013.
During a kickoff ceremony at the Google Fiber Space, Scott Tenney, head of Google Fiber business operations for Utah, announced that the fiber-optic service would be available to customers living in the downtown area and the University of Utah. Other parts of the city will get the service within months.
Parallel to Utah’s grand opening, though, Comcast, AT&T, and Google were unable to reach an agreement concerning Internet service in Nashville, Tennessee.
After a day of negotiations led by Mayor Megan Barry’s office, the three companies couldn’t decide what to do with Metro’s pole attachment processes and broadband internet deployment.
How fast and for how much
Google announced on Tuesday via a tweet that its Fiber service was live in Salt Lake City and ready to provide the Internet in Utah’s capital. The message also invited residents to check if the need-for-speed Internet and TV services were available at their address and sign up for service.
Google Fiber offers Gigabit Internet for $70 a month and 100Mbps for $50 a month for residential use. Gigabit Internet with TV service is $140 a month. There is no data limit in any of the plans. Phone service can be added for an extra $10. Meanwhile, prices range from $70 to $250 per month for commercial use.
Gigabit Internet reaches speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps, a lot faster than the average Internet connection or other similar Internet services offered in the market. The average broadband speed in the United States is 34 megabits per second, while with Google Fiber users get 1 gigabit per second or 1,000 megabits per second. However, rivals Comcast and AT&T’s services are cheaper.
About Google Fiber
Fiber is a Google-owned fiber-to-the-premises service in the United States. It provides broadband Internet and cable television. As of 2016, Google Fiber has 54,000 video subscribers and up to 120,000 customers.
In January 2015, Google announced that Google Fiber would expand into four additional markets: Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and Southern California. So far, the service has arrived at the first three, while California is in the works.
Last June, Google acquired Webpass, a 13-year-old Internet service provider which specializes in high-speed Internet for business and residential customers. Webpass has a significant presence in California (Bay Area and San Diego) as well as in Florida (Miami, Miami Beach and Coral Gables), Illinois (Chicago) and Massachusetts (Boston). Expansion to Huntsville, Alabama has also been announced.
Source: CNET