Google delays Austin fiber launch plans and offers a look at future service areas

[Commentary] Well this is disappointing. Google is telling a local Austin news station that it plans to open signups for Google’s fiber-to-the-home service this summer, putting off the launch of the service until “later this year.”

KXAN, an NBC affiliate, also looked at some of the permits that Google has filed to see where it might be planning to lay fiber first. Google must apply for right of way in areas where it wants to dig and string fiber. So far, the map included with the story shows the current permits filed for areas south of the Colorado River (which is confusingly called Lady Bird Johnson Lake).

Delays aren’t unusual for Google’s gigabit network deployment, but it is nice to have a new deadline. When Google said last April it was bringing fiber to Austin it had planned to connect the customers by mid-2014 and open up the signups sometime around the first of the year. It doesn’t seem like the date has slipped too far, and I was wondering what the holdup was.