Google Gets Beaten to the Punch by AT&T on Super-Fast Broadband

Google Fiber has yet to bring its super-fast broadband service to the city of Atlanta. But Comcast and AT&T know it’s coming, and they’re offering the 1 gigabit Internet speed Google promised -- and signing up new customers. It’s been six years since Google announced it would lay a fiber network to compete with cable providers and telephone companies.

Although it’s now in only four markets, competitors are lowering rates and building faster lines to keep customers from defecting to the technology giant. Because Google needs consumers to have robust Internet speed in order to sell more expensive ads on its search engine, that may be what it had in mind all along.

“There’s a lot more bark than bite” behind Google’s strategy, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC. When Google first announced its plans, 1 gigabit speed was a novelty. “The gigabit movement has become stronger,” said Kamalini Ganguly, an analyst at researcher Ovum. “Google is feeling a little bit of competitive heat as a result.” While Google has only entered four cities serving fewer than 100,000 customers combined, according to Entner, AT&T now offers its GigaPower service in 20 metro areas. Including AT&T, the nation’s other carriers now have as many as 1 million gigabit users, he said. “Any time Google is doing three, AT&T is doing 30 cities,” Entner said.