Google just announced a broad rollout plan for its Fiber ISP across the US with major rollouts in Raleigh Durham, NC, Atlanta, San Jose, CA, Phoenix, AZ and Portland, OR and surrounding areas.
Over the last few years, gigabit Internet has moved from idea to reality, withdozens of communities (PDF) working hard to build networks with speeds 100 times faster than what most of us live with today. People are hungrier than ever for faster Internet, and as a result, cities across America are making speed a priority. Hundreds of mayors from across the U.S. have stated (PDF) that abundant high-speed Internet access is essential for sparking innovation, driving economic growth and improving education. Portland, Nashville (PDF) and dozens of others have made high-speed broadband a pillar of their economic development plans. And Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, declared in June that every school should have access to gigabit speeds by 2020.
We’ve long believed that the Internet’s next chapter will be built on gigabit speeds, so it’s fantastic to see this momentum. And now that we’ve learned a lot from our Google Fiber projects in Kansas City, Austin and Provo, we want to help build more ultra-fast networks. So we’ve invited cities in nine metro areas around the U.S.—34 cities altogether—to work with us to explore what it would take to bring them Google Fiber.
It isn’t a done deal as Google notes and they will need help from municipalities. Obviously any local government that impedes Google fiber does so at its own Peril.
In the meantime, I’m not on the list in my New York City suburb so it is time to pack up the kids and call the moving truck.
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