In Austin, Texas the perception is ‘When Google comes to town, it's bad news for its rivals but good news for consumers.’
The search engine giant aims to shake up the rural Internet providing monopolies that are often the sole providers in one area – much like the UK. The announcement of Google Fibre in Austin has inspired other American providers to declare new packages and faster speeds.
Google has the intention of serving roughly three million people with speeds of up to 1 Gb/s – severally faster than the American national average. Google prices threaten to offer three times the highest tiered Internet speeds of its rivals in the area for a significantly lower price.
Obama administration pledged to end laws that allow some rural Internet providers to own monopolies in certain areas - he called for an end to laws in 19 states that prevent towns and cities from starting up their own high-speed Internet services, while at the same time "protecting incumbent providers from competition." The ever inventive company wants to bring high-speed Internet to the masses at a competitive price in America and in true Google style, it is only time until they make their way to the UK. Google is understood to have held talks with Fluidata partner CityFibre, a company who provides fibre infrastructure for Tier II cities in the UK, over bringing the Google Fibre project to the UK.
Google Fibre currently operates in four US cities and plans to expand to a further 34 cities. It uses a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connection, which enables faster speeds than the network that BT is deploying across the UK, which uses a mixture of fibre and copper called fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC). Google wants to bring high-speed Internet to the masses and not by offering a better overall service, just by announcing its way into the market seem s to be enough.
America is expecting big changes from the Internet provider market in the coming months and years and the tides are shifting in favour of the powerful underdog, Google. Let’s hope they’re on their way to the UK sooner than expected.
