Newsletter
Google launched their cable and broadband internet service about 5 years ago, it’s called Google Fiber and while it started as an experiment the company has seen a viable business model. What made it interesting is that the internet access was extremely fast offering rates up to 1 gigabit per second for downloading and uploading all sorts of files, for example, a complete movie could be downloaded less than two minutes. Their TV service offers more than 150 channels, with less compression thanks to the broadband access and the DVR capabilities offer to record up to 8 shows at the same time and 500 hours of video can be stored in the receiver. With the companion app, which can be downloaded to a smartphone or tablet, users can control their TV in an easier way as they could search for a specific program or even stream live TV into these devices.
The company selects some cities to build their so-called fiberhoods in. These cities are typically decided on using a variety of factors including the interest shown by their residents and the actual conditions of the city to make sure that no infrastructure would interfere with theirs. Since 2013, Austin, Texas, was announced to be a city that would get this service and in December 2014, residents and small businesses started the registration process, but some regions have not been able to register. Apparently the process has not been very easy as the links for signing up have been on and off during this time. Today, Google announced on their official Google Fiber Twitter account that sign-ups are open again for the Southeast region and it seems that it will stay open for those interested in order to get chosen by Google.
Still, the company is committed to providing the service and without leaving any user without internet connection, so some emails have been sent to potential customers so that they could plan ahead their move to switch internet providers. The company also has many attempts to provide internet connectivity to some regions that don’t have the necessary infrastructure to support it with their Project Loon, so more people can get connected using their services.