Thursday, February 20, 2014

Google Fiber May Expand To Salt Lake, Phoenix

Google said Wednesday that it has narrowed down its list of cities that may potentially get Google Fiber, the company's ultra-fast fiber network, including both Salt Lake City and Phoenix (including Scottsdale and Tempe). The cities were named in a big announcement of potential new cities to get Google's 1,000 Mbps Internet and television service, which already has rolled out in Provo, Utah.

Cities have been jockeying for position in Google's network rollout for the last year, hoping to use the availability of the ultra-fast access to give them a competitive edge and help expand their economies. Google Fiber is around 100 times faster than typical, basic broadband connectivity. The new list of 39 cities narrows what had been a list of around 1,000 cities hoping to get a chance at Google Fiber. Provo, Utah, was the third city in the nation to get Google Fiber a year ago, thanks in part to that city's early adoption of fiber in Provo by the city--which installed its own high speed fiber network, iProvo, in 2004. Provo sold its fiber network to Google last year.

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