Google Fiber heading to Austin, Texas

Google has confirmed that residents of the city of Austin, Texas will be next in line to benefit from its Google Fiber project, which delivers super-fast broadband speeds over a dedicated fibre-to-the-home network.

The company aims to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-214, and will offer a similar choice of services as those available in Kansas City, including 1Gbps broadband and an IPTV service called ‘Google Fiber TV’, which currently offers nearly 200 HD television channels. Prices will be “roughly similar” to those available in Kansas City.

Kevin Lo, General Manager of Google Fiber, commented: “In Kansas City we’ve been amazed to see how Gigabit connectivity has really been able to bring people together. We think its even more awesome if you can get multiple communities in multiple cities. That’s why we’re so excited to be here in Austin, Texas.”

Google will also offer customers in Austin the option of a “free” 5Mbps internet connection for seven years – provided they shoulder the one-off construction fee (which costs $300 in Kansas City) – and will connect many public institutions such as schools and hospitals with a 1Gbps connection for free.

Milo Medin, Vice President of Google Fiber, described Austin as a “mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism”, adding that the city has thriving artistic and tech communities, as well as the University of Texas and a new medical research hospital, and predicts that residents will “do amazing things with gigabit access”.

Google’s fibre ambitions do not appear to stop at Kansas City and Austin either: Medin added that he hopes this latest installation will “inspire communities across America to think about what ultrafast connectivity could mean for them”.

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Kevin Lo, General Manager of Google Fiber, will be a keynote speaker at the Broadband World Forum 2013, to be held in Amsterdam on 22nd-24th October. For more information and to register, please visit www.broadbandworldforum.com