Google Fiber expands to four additional cities

Google is expanding its super-fast Internet network to four more cities, the company announced Tuesday. 

The network called Google Fiber is expanding to Atlanta; Nashville, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The technology giant’s 1-gigabit network is already operational in Kansas City, Mo.; Provo, Utah; and Austin, Texas. 

Google did not say when the fiber networks would be operational since the company still must design and lay thousands of miles of cables to connect the four metro areas. One Google official in Charlotte said the process takes an “enormous” amount of time and detail. 

Google Fiber has sprung up in a number of cities, offering some of the fastest speeds in the United States, along with some municipally run Internet networks. 

In an announcement, Google made an allusion to President Obama, who used a portion of his State of the Union address to call for faster Internet speeds through the expansion of separate city-run networks. 

“Today, we aren’t the only ones talking about gigabit broadband. From the White House to main street, a chorus of new voices is standing up for speed,” Google Fiber’s Vice President Dennis Kish said in a statement. 

The Obama administration recently called for the Federal Communications Commission to use its authority to override some state laws that restrict the build out of city-run Internet networks. 

Some conservative critics of government run networks created to compete against traditional service providers have pointed to Google fiber as an alternative model.

Recent studies have found a lack of choice when customers are attempting to purchase Internet connections with faster speeds. A Commerce Department report last year found 41 percent of people do not have access to any provider that offers 100 Mbps speeds, while only 3 percent of the population has access to super-fast speeds of 1 gigabit per second, which Google is offering.  

Once installed, Google Fiber is regularly sold for about $70 per month. A slower Internet speed is offered for free — aside from an installation fee — to people in cities where Google Fiber is installed.

Google said it is still exploring whether to expand the network to five other cities — including Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Salt Lake City; San Antonio; and San Jose, Calif.