Google Fiber coming to town (Huntsville, Madison: lease, utilities, live)

[djmaxwell]

Google Fiber to Huntsville: Everything you need to know about the Gig City announcement | WHNT.com

[Satertek]

I think we got the perfect deal for Huntsville. Huntsville Utilities builds and owns the fiber network, Google pays for pole-to-home connection. Most importantly there is no exclusivity agreement so any other competitor can come in, lease space on the fiber, and do the same thing. Other Fiber cites are stuck with a Google monopoly, which may be great now, but who knows what the future holds.

Very excited to see this next year.

Huntsville Utilities, along with the City of Huntsville, will be building their own fiber network for the city.

We’re working with them to bring more residents access to super fast Internet, and to make the city’s vision for a more connected community a reality. When the network is done, we’ll use part of it to bring Gigabit Internet to residents and small businesses.

We’d love to keep you updated on progress. Check your address to be among the first to know when there’s more to share.

https://fiber.google.com/cities/huntsville/

[rock90]

This is great news. I'm seeing the announcement on quite a few tech websites already. Google Fiber announcements are still rare enough to be considered national news. More good publicity for Huntsville and more encouragement for technology companies and employees to locate here. And yeah, residents will be able to get an HD Netflix stream that won't buffer (and the same for 4K and eventually 8K streams...)

[zenjenn]

I welcome our Google Overlords! Yay!

[guxu]

But when will it reach Madison city?

[djmaxwell]

Originally Posted by guxu

But when will it reach Madison city?

Probably before it reaches HSV/Limestone CO...

[cnygreek]

You can't downplay what Hunstville has managed to accomplish here with a municipally owned broadband system. This is what ISPs fight tooth and nail all across the country and Mayor Battle and the HUB should be give major kudos for what they could potentially accomplish here.

This provides a real opportunity for competition in the internet access tradespace.

From what I read on the reddit forum the initial build out will be in the city of Huntsville and then depending on how that goes building out into the city of Madison and then into the county. HUB has made no on the record commitments beyond the city of Huntsville, but since HUB is building the network I would be surprised if they didn't extend it throughout their service area. There is too much for them to gain by running fiber everywhere they provide service.

[weaverra]

Originally Posted by rock90

More good publicity for Huntsville and more encouragement for technology companies and employees to locate here.

This is not going to bring more technology companies here. Google is not providing service for businesses. It's mainly for residential and small mom and pop shops. The major companies already have access to bandwidth far greater that what Google is going to offer.

[Becky2517]

This is great news for me as self-employed & 100% of my work is done online...

[rock90]

Originally Posted by weaverra

This is not going to bring more technology companies here. Google is not providing service for businesses. It's mainly for residential and small mom and pop shops. The major companies already have access to bandwidth far greater that what Google is going to offer.

Yes it will. Companies look at more than just business Internet service when considering where to relocate. You know, the whole quality-of-life, liveable city thing. Well, that got a nice boost today.