Google Fiber Changes Tack with Upcoming Huntsville, Ala. Roll Out [telecom]

open original image

By Diana Goovaerts, CED, 02/22/2016

Google Fiber announced Monday it will be coming to Huntsville, Ala., but -- in a change of strategy from previous offerings -- said it won't be building its own fiber network in the city.

The move marks a change of strategy for Google, which has heretofore built out its own fiber networks in select cities across the country.

"To date, we've built the majority of our Google Fiber networks from scratch," Google Fiber's Director of Expansion Jill Szuchmacher wrote in a Monday blog post. "But over the past five years, we've repeatedly seen that every city is unique. Now, due to the leadership of the Mayor and Huntsville Utilities CEO Jay Stowe, we'll be working with a muni-owned network to bring our high speed service to Huntsville."

-or-

Another network that Google didn't build from scratch: the City of Provo's "iProvo" fiber network. It acquired it for $1.00 after the city lost several million dollars on the project.

Neal McLain