Google Fiber is continuing its scattershot approach to bringing gigabit Internet access to the people. Google announced Wednesday that the company will bring new broadband service to San Francisco, but only to certain apartments and condos.
Unlike its other super-fast fiber deployments in places like Kansas City, Austin and Provo, Utah, Google will use existing dormant fiber optic cables in parts of San Francisco, an approach it's also considering for expanding its service in Atlanta.
Google says Fiber will be complementary to the city's existing plan to roll-out high speed access to its residents and will include a concerted effort to bring internet access to those that have never been online before.
One such initiative will connect public, affordable housing units to gigabit fiber for free. Google announced earlier this month that the program would kick off in the first Google Fiber city, Kansas City.
In the years since Fiber debuted, some cities and towns have moved forward with similar services on their own, like in Minnesota, where some neighborhoods already have access with 10 gigabit speed.
Google Fiber could become common in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the company is also looking at expanding the service into San Jose and smaller communities in Silicon Valley.
There's no information available just yet of specific addresses that will be served or when exactly fiber service will be lit up in San Francisco, but Google is urging interested residents to sign up for updates on its project website.
Source: Google
This is an important part of the deployment and good strategy on the part of Google. The municipality undergoes most the construction projects and heavy lifting to get all of the fiber in place and Google rolls out service within buildings that have existing fiber to reach them. Instead of being in the business of building huge expensive last mile networks they have the municipality do that part.
Because all the fiber already exists from tax funded municipal buildouts subscribers save a bunch of money by only paying the low monthly cost of the service from Google.
All the access ISPs today have a monopoly so hopefully a major tax sponsored effort to combine the forces of government with a smaller company like Google will put an end to the idea of big entrenched monopolies that are difficult to compete with once and for all.