Google Fiber

Google Fiber is Google's fiber-to-the-premises service in the United States, providing broadband internet and television to a small and slowly increasing number of locations.Th e service was first introduced to Kansas City, Kansas, and is being rolled out to Kansas City, Missouri, with plans for expansion to several other Kansas City area suburbs, as well as Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah. In February 2014, Google announced they had chosen another 34 cities in 9 metro areas as candidates for future expansion. In January 2015, Google selected Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, and Nashville as the next markets that will receive Google Fiber deployments.

Google Fiber offers three options: a free broadband internet option, a 1 Gbit/s internet option, and an option including television service (in addition to the 1 Gbit/s internet). The internet service includes one terabyte of Google Drive service; the television service includes a two terabyte DVR in addition to the Google Drive. The DVR can record up to eight live television shows simultaneously. In addition, television service will also stream live program content on iPad and Android tablet computers.

Google offers several different service plans to their customers:

Plan	Gigabit + TV	Gigabit	Free Internet
Internet bandwidth(download)	1 Gbit/s	1 Gbit/s	5 Mbit/s
Internet bandwidth (upload)	1 Gbit/s	1 Gbit/s	1 Mbit/s
TV service included	Yes	No	No
Storage included	2 TB DVR Storage (8 simultaneous recordings possible) 1 TB Google Drive	1 TB Google Drive	None
Hardware included	Remote control (TV) TV box Network box Storage box (DVR)	Network box	Network box
Price (not including taxes and fees)	~$120/month (extra for optional TV channels)	~$70/month	free for up to 10 years per address, after a $30-$300 one-time construction fee

Distribution

In order to avoid underground cabling complexity for the last mile, Google Fiber relies on aggregators dubbed Google Fiber Huts.

From these Google Fiber Huts, the fiber cables travel along utility poles into neighborhoods and homes, and stop at a Fiber Jack (an Optical Network Terminal or ONT) in each home.

Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, and Atlanta[edit]

On January 27, 2015 Google announced that Google Fiber would expand into four additional markets:

• Nashville, Tennessee
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
  • Cary
  • Chapel Hill
  • Carrboro
  • Morrisville
  • Garner
• Atlanta, Georgia
  • Avondale Estates
  • Brookhaven
  • College Park
  • Decatur
  • East Point
  • Hapeville
  • Sandy Springs
  • Smyrna

Possible future expansion[edit]

In February 2014, Google announced it had "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."

The nine metropolitan areas are: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and San Jose. Of these, five have yet to be selected by Google for fiber deployments. This includes the following cities:

• Arizona – Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe
• California – San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto
• Oregon – Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard
• Texas – San Antonio
• Utah – Salt Lake City

On April 15, 2014, Google began polling business users on their need for gigabit service, that they would be "conducting a pilot program where we'll connect a limited number of small businesses to our network."^[