Google Fiber Picks Austin, Promises Gigabit Speeds in 2014

"Central Texas is a perfect fit for Google Fiber,” Gov. Rick Perry told the crowd in Austin. “Efforts to serve the needs of the next generation of Texans are happening in the Lone Star State.” The Republican governor emphasized the innovation the network will make possible and said he wants the next Google to be born in his state. He wished the city luck in its implementation phase.

Google hasn’t set its gigabit prices for Austin, Vice President of Access Services Milo Medin said at the gathering. The company will start allowing people to sign up for Austin fiberhoods in early 2014, repeating the demand-based model it pioneered in the Kansas City area last year, he said. “We will bring service to any fiberhood that has a certain percentage of sign-ups in that neighborhood,” Medin said, and will connect that neighborhood’s public centers like libraries, hospitals and schools “all at a gigabit, and all at no charge.” In a blog post (http://bit.ly/1495j59), Medin said Google hopes to connect its first customers by mid-2014. The company will offer free 5 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload Internet for seven years to customers who pay the installation fee, he added, which may work better for residents not ready for a gigabit connection while giving them an easy path to upgrade to that speed if desired.

Meanwhile, AT&T proposed less than two hours after Google’s announcement expanding its own Austin network to gigabit speeds. The telco asked for the same terms and conditions Google will receive, echoing sentiments offered last month when Google Fiber reached an agreement with the Kansas municipality of Olathe (CD March 21 p6). “Most encouraging is the recognition by government officials that policies which eliminate unnecessary regulation, lower costs and speed infrastructure deployment, can be a meaningful catalyst to additional investment in advanced networks which drives employment and economic growth,” said AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson in a statement (http://soc.att.com/10QGROi). The company’s prepared to build an Austin fiber network capable of up to 1 Gbps, it said, saying the plans “anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives,” according to its press release. The plans won’t “materially alter” the telco’s planned capital costs for 2013, it added.

"Certainly I think that [Google agreement] would be applicable to others,” Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell told us during a press call. Google’s partnership with Austin wasn’t focused on economic incentives so much as the municipality committing to “expedite the bureaucratic process” on rights of way and other permitting issues, he said. “That’s our commitment. ... This is not a traditional economic incentive agreement.” He praised competition. There was nothing that was offered to Google that couldn’t be offered to any other franchise, said Austin City Council Member Laura Morrison on the same press call. She did point to Google’s pledges to serve Austin community anchor institutions as a positive commitment from the company as part of this agreement.

"We think it’s great that [AT&T executives] also are recognizing that people want a gig,” said Google Access General Manager Kevin Lo during the press call. He described Google planning and outreach efforts beginning in Austin as soon as Wednesday and spoke highly of what these speeds will mean for city residents. “We believe the future of the Internet will be built on gigabit speeds,” he said. “Our objective is to build as quickly as possible.”

"Speed matters,” Medin told gathered Austinites. “At Google, we've been obsessed with speed since the earliest days of Google search. ... But increasingly the source of slowness isn’t in the parts of the network that we usually build -- it’s in the connection to your home or business.” That slowness motivated Google’s entry into the business of providing broadband, he said. He praised Austin’s legacy of inspiring other parts of the country and said the addition of Google Fiber will help the city “to write the next chapter in the story of the Internet, not just in Texas but for the U.S. and the rest of the world."

Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin said in a statement: “This effort will pay enormous dividends for the country, as it will help develop the human capital America needs to lead a global economy that increasingly creates value with big data and big bandwidth.” The Austin announcement and the North Carolina Next Generation Networks project are a credit to “the innovative spirit and demand profiles of their residents,” he said. The Austin event showcased two videos, one featuring reactions from different Texas figures to the Google Fiber announcement and one showing potential applications for what Texas might do with faster Internet. In the first video, Lo said he has no doubt Austin will know exactly what to do with a gig. The other showed children watching videos, families sharing photos and musicians and startups making use of the Internet. On stage, the organizers presented the words “Hello Austin. Goodbye, loading bars.” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, said in a tweet the announcement was “more proof ATX is a new frontier for technology” (http://bit.ly/12EnZZi).

"Three years ago, we applied to become the first Google Fiber city in the United States,” Leffingwell said during the announcement. “We didn’t give up. We've been working on it ever since.” He praised the way the network will help the city’s possibilities to innovate and “make our economy even stronger” in different ways: “Google Fiber will change how we live, and how we work in ways we don’t even know about yet -- but it'll all be for the better.” Google’s Lo emphasized during the press call the way more Internet connections will help the country’s economy. Google has consistently stressed transparency as well as the user experience in its fiber efforts, he said. “We're on the right side of history,” Lo said.