Google Fiber announced Tuesday that it will bring its mix of 1-Gig broadband and pay-TV services to Salt Lake City, where it will compete with incumbent providers Comcast and CenturyLink Communications.
Google Fiber, which is expected to replicate its demand-driven "Fiber Rally" deployment model there, has completed the “exploration phase” in Salt Lake City, and has now moved on to the design phase of the project. Google Fiber has not yet pinpointed when it expects to launch services in Salt Lake City.
“It will take some time before we begin signups and installations in Salt Lake City,” a Google spokesperson said via email. “We estimate it will take several months of planning our network before we start construction. We will keep the city updated along the way.”
The addition of Salt Lake City comes almost two months after Google Fiber announced that it would extend service to 18 new cities across four metro areas in the Southeast U.S. – Atlanta, Ga.; Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Google Fiber has already launched service or begun network rollouts Kansas City, Kan.; Kansas City, Mo.; Provo, Utah (via its acquisition of iProvo); and Austin, Texas.
In Utah, a multi-city initiative called UTOPIA delivers services over a fiber network in partnership with several "residential service partners" such as Beehive Broadband, Fibernet, and Veracity Networks, but does not reach into Provo or Salt Lake City. UTOPIA's 15 member cities are: Brigham City, Cedar City, Cedar Hills, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Orem, Payson, Perry, Riverton, Tremonton, Vineyard, and West Valley City, though services have been launched only to a subset of that group.
On Tuesday, Google Fiber said it is still working with city leaders to bring service to another four metro areas – Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio and San Jose, and hopes to offer a status report later this year.
Google Fiber has not announced how many customers are getting 1-Gig or its free 5Mbps down/1 Mbps upstream service, but MoffetNathanson, citing figures released by the U.S. Copyright Office, found that the provider ended 2014 with about 28,867 video subs.
