Jim Burress

The promise and reality of Google Fiber

In the Kansas City region, Austin (TX), and Provo (UT), Google Fiber did something almost too good to be true. It handed out free internet (for up to seven years) to anyone willing to pay a one-time installation fee of $300. Sure, the gratis package was one-200th the speed of Google Fiber’s drool-inducing gigabit plan. But free is free. By the time Google Fiber put out its shingle in Atlanta, it had dropped the on-the-house option in favor of a $50 (and much faster) monthly plan.

Google Fiber’s Unfulfilled Promise In Atlanta

Google has released little public information about the Atlanta rollout delays. But it’s possible that, in the time it has taken Google Fiber to figure out how to travel the last mile to people’s homes, fiber optic technology may no longer be the best way to get there. Atlanta isn’t the only city to see Google Fiber falter. In Nashville, big telecom operators sued and all but blocked Google Fiber from tapping half of the city’s 88,000 utility poles — essential for completing the backbone of its last-mile delivery.