Google Fiber to Huntsville (AL)
Huntsville (AL) city leaders and Google representatives announced that Google Fiber will bring its service to Huntsville. The announcement ends years of searching for an Internet provider to help the city accomplish Mayor Tommy Battle’s goal of ensuring all citizens have access to gigabit Internet. Huntsville's unique approach to partnership may have sealed the deal. In every other established Google Fiber market, Google owns the fiber network. In Atlanta (GA), Google built out a portion of the infrastructure and shared with a municipal network to expand their reach. In Huntsville, Huntsville Utilities will build out the entire fiber backbone. It will then lease space on the network to Google, who will connect it to individual addresses. Huntsville Utilities already planned on building out a fiber network to monitor their own systems. Now, it'll speed that process up, so they can lease space to Google. Of course, that requires a big spend up front for the utility company. Huntsville Utilities President and CEO Jay Stowe says its current plan is estimated at $57 million. It sees it as a low-risk investment, as compared to administering the gigabit Internet themselves, which would require a massive increase in personnel in an arena where they have limited expertise.
Joanne Hovis, president of communications and IT engineering consulting firm CTC Technology & Energy, who advised Huntsville on the project, said, "With today’s news that Huntsville, Alabama will build fiber optics throughout its community, and that Google Fiber will lease much of that fiber in order to provide gigabit services to residences and small businesses, communities throughout the United States have entered into a new era of possibility — that of robust, sustainable broadband public-private partnerships."
Google Fiber to Huntsville (AL) The Emerging World of Broadband Public–Private Partnerships: A Business Strategy and Legal Guide (Benton Broadband Public-Private Partnerships Report) Working with Huntsville to connect more people (Google) New FTTP Partnership Emerges in Alabama—a Public-Private Innovation (CTC Technology & Energy) Google Fiber to Ride Muni-Owned Huntsville Network (Multichannel News)