From InfoWorld: A new, refreshing development is beginning to ripple through the broadband world. We're finally seeing a glimmer of true competition -- and it's giving telecom giants the jitters.
When Google Fiber was first announced in 2012, Wall Street analysts dismissed the upstart, saying it would be prohibitively expensive to roll out new fiber nationwide. Four years later, the naysayers are singing a different tune.
It turns out Google doesn't necessarily need to build its own networks from scratch. In Provo, Utah, service is delivered over a network Google purchased from the city. In Atlanta, the company is taking a hybrid approach: both constructing its own network and using existing apartment building fiber. And in San Francisco, Google announced this week, the company will use existing fiber cables -- although it hasn't revealed whose -- to bring service to the city, thus avoiding the construction nuisances it's experienced in Austin, Texas.
San Francisco wasn't the only piggyback venture Google announced this week. Huntsville, Ala., also laid out the welcome mat to Google Fiber service, which will be provided over a network being built by city-owned Huntsville Utilities and leased to Google. City officials saw the network as "a low-risk investment, as compared to administering the gigabit Internet themselves, which would require a massive increase in personnel in an arena where they have limited expertise," a local news station reported.
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