I have two good options for internet service at my home in the Fresno High area: AT&T DSL which tops out at 1.5Mbits at my location or comcast which is much faster but can’t be unbundled from cable TV service which I don’t want and costs almost $80 / month. This is not attractive to a young professional like myself and doesn’t score the city any points when trying to attract other young professionals to the area.
This is why I was excited to see Google’s announcement today about offering its own internet service to interested municipalities. What’s more, they want residents and city officials to nominate their own communities to be among the first on Google’s rollout list. If we can get enough interest going, perhaps we can be one of the first cities on Google’s new internet service area plus it would get us some national attention and in a good way. Can we do it?
The service Google will be offering is 1Gb on an all-fiber network which is many hundreds of times more than my current service with AT&T. Lets force AT&T and Comcast into a real competition for once. I’m tired of crappy internet service and sometimes it makes me wish I lived elsewhere.