Google has invited San Jose and four other cities in Silicon Valley to be part of their nationwide push to bring ultra-high speed Google Fiber broadband to 34 cities across the country.
The average American broadband speed today is 9.8 Megabits per second. In contrast, Google Fiber could bring Silicon Valley residents access to “Gigabit” Internet connections up to 1,000 Megabits per second – or up to 100 times faster than basic broadband.
Google Fiber is currently available in in Kansas City, Kan., Kansas City, Miss., and Provo, Utah, and will be available in Austin, Texas, later this year.
Over the next few months, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Palo Alto will explore what it will take to build a brand new fiber-optic network capable of delivering these gigabit speeds.
“It’s very exciting,” Sunnyvale communications officer Jennifer Garnett said. “Google will be working with each city to see if this will be possible. Having that kind of access is going to keep Sunnyvale in the forefront of innovation.”
What gigabit speeds mean for consumers is that they will be able to play games, watch movies and video chat over the Internet much faster: No more waiting for pages to load or videos to buffer.
“Communities with abundant high-speed Internet grow stronger because there’s greater potential to create jobs, drive economic growth, and help students and families get access to essential resources” Kevin Lo, general manager for Google Fiber, said in a statement.
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Garnett said that Google will provide an update on which cities make the cut for Google Fiber by the end of the year.
“Google of course would like every city on the list to have it, but they need to figure out if it will be viable first,” she said.
Google isn't talking about how much this would cost you yet, but in the first city that got fiber, Kansas City, the service cost $70 a month, $120 a month for a video package.
