GOOGLE FIBER IS COMING

TIME WARNER & ATT RESPOND

Internet giant Google is bringing its super-fast Internet service to a number of cities this year.

Google announced last February that it had picked Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham as two of nine metropolitan areas where it next hoped to deploy its “Google Fiber” networks. In December, the company said it wouldn’t update cities on its plans until early this year.

Google Fiber, which is already located in three other U.S. cities, features speeds up to 100 times faster than broadband. After Google put Charlotte on its possible list, the city submitted a formal application requesting Google to install the service.

In April, the city released a list of 31 sites for so-called “Fiber Huts,” which Google would build to help bring the service to people’s homes. The huts would be located on sites such as city-owned fire stations, water tanks, the police and fire academy, a landfill and even Evergreen Cemetery in east Charlotte.

Soon after Google began looking at Charlotte, competitors Time Warner Cable and AT&T jumped in with their own plans to bring faster Internet speeds to the city.

Google first built a fiber network in Kansas City, has bought an existing one in Provo, Utah, and has started offering service in Austin, Texas. But the deployment hasn’t been problem-free: In Kansas City, some residents raised concern over decades-old trees that were cut down and gas leaks inadvertently caused by construction crews, according to news accounts.

ARE YOU A CERTIFIED FIBER TECHNICIAN?

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