Google Fiber Heads To San Francisco

Google’s gigabit internet service is slowly being expanded to more cities across the country. Google Fiber’s next destination is a bit closer to home. The company announced today that Google Fiber is coming to “a portion” of San Francisco, the service will initially be provided only to condos, apartments and affordable housing units.

Google hasn’t confirmed yet where and when the service will be available in San Francisco and it hints that we might have to wait for a considerable amount of time before we find out these details.

In other cities the company sets up a dedicated network for Google Fiber but it’s not going to do that in San Francisco. It’s going to use the existing fiber networks in the city to provide its gigabit internet service. This is obviously going to limit the areas in San Francisco where Google will be able to provide the service.

Given that the networks are already in place this will allow Google to rollout the service quickly. It’s a shift from Google’s earlier strategy of building fiber-optic networks from scratch. It’s doing the same in Hunstville, Alabama where Google Fiber will be launched using the city’s municipal network.

Comcast and AT&T have already announced their plans to launch gigabit internet in San Francisco so it’s not like Google Fiber won’t have any competition when it launches. Pricing for the service will be confirmed closer to launch.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: gigabit, Google, Google Fiber