Google is expanding its list of products even further with its new project; Google Fiber. Google has already begun implementing its new service to two towns: Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas.
What is Google Fiber? Google Fiber is the fastest internet available to homes in the United States. Google’s new product offers internet speeds of up to a gigabit per second.
How fast is a Gigabit? A gigabit is one thousand megabits per second, and that’s one hundred times faster than the average national internet speed of ten megabits per second (and one thousand times the speed of internet offered to students at Union this term).
However, not only is Google offering this high-speed internet, but it is also providing high definition television.
Google Fiber offers customers three options: 1- high-speed internet and TV for $120 a month, 2- high-speed internet alone for $70 a month or 3- Google’s “Free Internet” option.
The free internet option has no month fee, but does include a $300 installation cost. The free option also does not offer gigabit speeds, but instead 5 mbps. However, Google does guarantee you will receive “free service for at least 7 years” according to its website.
Google wants to be both your internet and TV provider. But will they be successful?
Google Fiber is only offered in two towns across the country currently, and they went through an extensive process to choose those two.
Google released applications for communities to apply for Google Fiber in their own town, “[Google] received applications from over 1,100 communities and 200,000 individuals. Kansas City clearly stood out during that process, and we’re excited to be here.” according to fiber.google.com.
Google met with local governments to determine the exact area it would install its high-speed cables into.
By the time the vetting process concluded, Google had outlined exactly which communities would receive their service and where its boundaries would end.
Google will also have to deal with current TV and internet providers, like the telecom giants: Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner and Comcast, all which offer TV/Internet combination packages as well.
However, hope for Google Fiber’s success is not hard to find. Google released the first phone with its Android operating software in October 2008, by 2010’s end, it was the world’s leading smartphone operating system and by 2012, it has a 64.1% share of the smartphone market.
When will you get Google Fiber?
There really isn’t a timetable yet. Google is focusing on Kansas City and fully implementing Google Fiber to not only Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS, but also to: Kansas City North, MO, Kansas City South, MO, Westwood, KS, Westwood Hills, KS and Mission Woods, KS.
Google seems to be starting off slow with Google Fiber in an attempt to analyze how it can offer its new service while maintaining profitability.
Google Fiber also offers some bonus-additions. Ever think that TV remotes are outdated?
Google does. The remote used for Google Fiber’s television component is a free Nexus 7 tablet, one of Google’s newest tablet computers. Customers will be able to browse channels, set up DVR recordings and more using the “remote.”
Google Fiber will also offer cloud-based networking and a specially made firewall for its customers. The Google Fiber package also comes with a terabyte (1000 gigabytes) of cloud storage so users can keep their content safe.
While Google Fiber has quite a few impressive offerings, it still remains to be seen how quickly, and to what extent Google plans on expanding its Google Fiber project.
For more information on Google Fiber and its implementation, go to fiber.google.com.
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Excuse me, sir. You need to adjust your numbers in this article. 1 gigabit does not equal 1000 megabytes. 1 gigabit equals 128 megabytes. This is not 100 times faster than the national average. Maybe 13. Sorry to troll, Google.
The numbers were correct. Just need to replace all reference to megabytes with megabits. The national average speed is 10 megabits per second (Mb/s) not 10 megabytes per second (MB/s), so 1 Gb/s is indeed 100 times 10 Mb/s.
One gigabit = 1024 megabits(your mbps is megabits per second, not megabytes.) what I pay for 50 mbps is around 70 per month, google offers 20 x that for 10 to 20 dollars more per month. 1 gigabyte is 8192 megabits. See how off your numbers get if you use the wrong format, Jim? If you haven’t realized it yet, mbps == megabits per second.
Yes, 20 times 50 Mbps for the same amount you’re paying now, not more.
There are no such cities named “Kansas City North, MO, Kansas City South, MO.”
Next time, don’t be so intellectually lazy. It’s called Google Maps, or Wikipedia, or an atlas, or an almanac.
Kansas City happens to be quite a large city (spanning four counties), and the “North” and “South” are arbitrary designations that Google drew to divide the target areas by deployment.
Perhaps our toothless po-dunk town was picked by Google because we can use resources to determine the geography of a place, unlike you folks up in Princeton, New York.