Google Fiber for Austin Confirmed, Rollout to Occur in Mid-2014

We posted a rumor over the weekend that Google's high-speed Fiber Internet service should be hitting up Austin soon, and today, the company confirms it. The announcement was made in the city today, along with mayor Lee Leffingwell, and Google's decision to choose Austin to follow-up to the dual Kansas City's can be summed up in one sentence: "[Austin is] a mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism, with thriving artistic and tech communities, as well as the University of Texas and its new medical research hospital."

While that's all fine and good, there's little doubt that the jealousy of those not in Austin or Kansas City has just been amplified. However, it's great to see another rollout come so soon, as the completed rollout for KC only completed a couple of months ago.

To help put Google's Fiber into perspective, a single HD movie through Netflix weighs about 2GBs. With a 1Gbit/s connection, that entire 2GB could be downloaded in 16 seconds - if the server allowed it. This is based on the simple conversion of 1,000Mbit/s equaling 125MB/s (1Mbit = 1.25MB/s). At 1Gbit/s, Google's Internet package is rated at least 20x faster than most fiber connections everyone else around the US has been able to get up to this point. In many ways, it's speeds that many of us hoped to see in the future way back when 3Mbit/s packages were considered the norm.

Like Kansas City, Austin will be able to partake in the same available packages; Internet and Internet + TV. Interestingly, pricing hasn't been established yet, which leads us to believe that it could wind up being more expensive than what KC pays. Undoubtedly, current pricing from other ISPs in the area will lend itself to the final pricing for Google's service. However, for what Google Fiber actually offers, it seems unlikely too many would mind paying a couple of extra dollars for the privilege of having it.