Google Fiber Comes to Salt Lake City

Mayor Ralph Becker and Google

Mayor Ralph Becker announced that Google Fiber is coming to Salt Lake City

Mayor Google
Photo Courtesy of Salt Lake Mayors office

SALT LAKE CITY, March 24, 2015 – Improving broadband speed and choice for our residents has been a priority for Salt Lake City for years. Today’s average American broadband speed is 11.5 Megabits per second. In contrast, Google Fiber will bring Salt Lake City residents access to “Gigabit” Internet connections up to 1,000 Megabits per second.

“We could not be more excited to have Google Fiber coming to Salt Lake City,” said Mayor Becker. “It makes perfect sense for our community, a growing leader in the areas of technology and innovation, partnering with the world’s leader in digital technology on this great new service. “

The Mayor went on to say, “Our residents value education and entrepreneurship and we recognize the value of connecting people with big ideas and with each other, whether across town or around the world. There is no question that abundant, ultra-high speed Internet access makes our community stronger and lays the groundwork for continued vibrancy and opportunity for all.”

“City leaders in Salt Lake have stepped up and shown an extraordinary commitment to bringing fiber-optic networks to the community,” said Devin Baer, Associate City Manager for Google Fiber in Salt Lake City.

“Between the city’s booming tech sector, world-renowned universities and vibrant local culture, Salt Lake City is poised to do incredible things with gigabit Internet. There is a lot of work still ahead, but we’re excited to bring Google Fiber to Salt Lake City and build the next chapter of the Internet together, on gigabit speeds.”

There is huge demand for faster Internet speeds, because no one likes to wait on the web. Unfortunately, many of the things people love to do online require a lot of bandwidth, which means that, using today’s connections, people often get stuck waiting for pages to load or for videos to buffer.

Statistics show that people walk away from slow-loading sites. And gig networks aren’t just about meeting today’s speed needs. The next leap in broadband speeds — to gigabit Internet — will lead to innovation that’s unimaginable today, just as the shift from dial-up to broadband did.

Google will be working closely with Mayor Becker and city leaders on the next steps to build a brand new fiber-optic network capable of delivering these gigabit speeds throughout Salt Lake City.

The next stage of work includes designing and planning a new fiber-optic network down to a very detailed level. After this process, which will take several months, Google Fiber and Salt Lake City will begin constructing the network.

Google Fiber is an Internet and TV service that provides Internet speeds up to one gigabit per second — that’s 1,000 Megabits per second, compared to the average Internet speed in America today of 11.5 Mbps — along with hundreds of HD TV channels.

Google Fiber is currently available in Kansas City, KS., Kansas City, MO., Provo, UT., and Austin, Texas.

Google SLC 02

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