HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — After nixing plans to expand into eight other major U.S. cities, Google Fiber confirmed that the tech giant still intents to offer the service in Huntsville as initially planned.
According to a report from Al.com, Huntsville Utilities spokesman Joe Gehrdes said the project is “Still good to go.”
Google Fiber is the ultra-high speed internet service offered in select cities by Alphabet, inc., the parent company of the Google search engine. The connection provides an Internet speed of up to one gigabit per second for both download and upload, which is roughly 100 times faster access than what most Americans have. To put that in perspective, such speed allows for the download of a full movie in less than two minutes.
In February, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle announced that his town would become a “Gig City” and be one of the select places across the country to have access to Google Fiber. Only seven other cities have access to the service, and big markets such as Dallas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix were just cut out of the expansion picture due to Google Fiber’s rollback.
“Google’s entrance into our market bolsters our high-tech legacy, energizes our entrepreneurs, tinkers and engineers, and supports the high quality of life Huntsville is known for delivering,” said Mayor Battle. “Fiber to the home is the Internet infrastructure for the 21st century. It is as vital to our quality of life as roads, water, sewer and electricity. It will become the benchmark for cities vying for talent.”\
Google also has one of its nine U.S. data centers in Jackson County, and the facility operates out of a converted Tennessee Valley Authority plant.
“We’re not here by accident,” said Google Data Center Energy and Location Strategy director of operations Gary Demasi at the announcement last year. “We found the right partners and the right community to meet our long term needs.”
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Google Fiber will be ready for use in Huntsville as early as March of 2017.
