Google Fiber has announced that it is making its way into yet another market — Salt Lake City. This will be the second city in Utah that Google Fiber has ventured into.
Google Fiber has expanded considerably fast over the past year, being confirmed to come to a total of eight cities on top of the three that it's already in.
"Salt Lake City will join the Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham metro areas in the design phase of building our fiber network. Over the coming months, we'll work closely with these cities to map out just where to lay our fiber-optic cables," said Devin Baer, Associate City Manager of Google Fiber in Salt Lake City. "There's a lot of work ahead; as the new Associate City Manager for Google Fiber in Salt Lake City, I can't wait to see what the city does with superfast Internet."
Google Fiber could have a significant impact on the wireless industry. For one, it is far faster than other wireless services, such as that from the likes of Comcast. While Comcast offers up to around 150 Mbps, Google Fiber offers almost seven times this speed, at 1 gigabit per second. Not only that, but Comcast's Internet Extreme costs around $115. Google Fiber, on the other hand, costs $70. Google even goes as far as to offer free Internet access at 5 Mbps. Clearly, Google offers far better Internet for the price.
Because of this, Google clearly has a chance to rock the wireless industry. Consumers have long been tired of Comcast's highly variable Internet speeds and below par customer service. Comcast has also been trying to push a merger between it and Time Warner Cable, which would solidify its dominance and monopoly in the wireless industry.
Hopefully, Google will help put an end to this monopoly. Not only will this give customers more options, but it will also give them a solid, cheaper and better Internet option.
Ideally, it will also jumpstart the industry. Google's Internet service is growing fast enough to be a threat to the likes of Comcast, meaning that Comcast will have to eventually offer better Internet speeds at better prices.
The process of designing and building the infrastructure for Google Fiber is expected to take at least a few months, however with the service growing as quickly as it is, it is likely that in the meantime, Google will announced more cities for it to expand into. Only time will tell what kind of an impact it will have on the industry.
