It’s official: High-speed Google Fiber heads to Texas

Google Fiber, the ultra-fast broadband Internet service developed by the search-engine company, will be expanding to Austin, Texas, in 2014.

In a widely expected move, Austin city officials and Google on Tuesday morning announced the expansion of Fiber. The service is already live in the Kansas City area and provides users with Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, which Google says is about 100 times faster than most American users’ Internet speeds.

“With a population of innovators and early adopters, Austin has always welcomed and embraced forward-thinking ideas,” the Austin Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday in a statement. “Google Fiber’s expanded access to ultra high-speed networks will support Austin’s ‘quality of place’ and will be a great resource for our students, entrepreneurs and businesses.”

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Google said Austin residents can begin to sign up for information about Fiber online. The company said it will services similar to those it provides in the Kansas City area.

In Kansas City, Google offers a $70 per month option for its gigabit Internet service. It also sells users a $120 per month option so they can receive TV service with more than 200 HD channels. Google did say that users in Austin can also sign up for free Internet service, which will give them Internet speeds of 5 megabits per second for seven years.

Austin is “a mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism, with thriving artistic and tech communities, as well as the University of Texas and its new medical research hospital,” Google said. “We’re sure these folks will do amazing things with gigabit access, and we feel very privileged to have been welcomed to their community.”

Besides providing residents with Fiber, Google said it will also connect many public institutions for free. These will include schools, hospitals and community centers, among others.

For now, Google hasn’t said exactly when Fiber will arrive in Austin except for a vague “coming 2014.”

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