Looking back on an interesting year

2021 is coming to a close, and what a year it has been. 

As the pandemic has continued to shape what normal looks like and we all figure out how to work, learn, connect, and be in the world now, quality internet and ensuring access for more people has become a central focus not just for Google Fiber, but for many of our communities across the country. That’s a huge opportunity and responsibility for us and we’re working to make 2022 and beyond even more connected.

Taking it farther faster

In 2021, we built to more households than in any other year. Many of the communities we announced this year around the country already have service, including South Salt Lake, Holladay, Taylorsville, Millcreek and North Salt Lake in Utah; Concord and Matthews in North Carolina; and Leon Valley in Texas. 

While we still have a lot of work to do in many of our communities to bring access to as many people as possible, we continue to make our build processes more efficient and less disruptive. This will be a focus area for our teams across the country leading into 2022, as we expect to expand even more next year.

More internet for everything

In 2021, the rollout of our new 2 Gig service demonstrated just how much demand for internet had increased. It wasn’t just those working at home and gamers opting to up to double their download speeds (although they liked it, too!), we saw households of all varieties taking advantage of the opportunity to get more out of their internet. 

With increased demand across all our products, we worked to ensure our network was there when our customers needed it, increasing capacity across all points of the network right up to improving the in-home Wi-Fi experience. In 2022, we’ll continue to work to make our customers’ fast, reliable internet even better.

Helping communities thrive

While a lot of great things happened in 2021, the pandemic continued to pose challenges for many of our customers and our cities. With the internet’s increasingly central role in our daily lives, we saw many more organizations stepping into digital equity work. To meet that demand, we expanded our partnership with NTEN to support 11 fellows in eight Google Fiber cities. We’ve continued to work with partners across the country to help more people access the internet and develop the skills to take advantage of online opportunities. 

This year, thousands of people participated in Google Fiber-funded programs in our communities through over 170 different local organizations across the country, from trainings to device distributions to STEM events. 

We also provided gigabit internet at no cost to more than 440 organizations this year to allow them to meet the needs of their clients and their work in the community through our Community Connections program, and provided gigabit internet at no cost to over 3,500 households through the Gigabit Community program. 

Growing the Google Fiber team

This year, we’ve grown both our central and our local city teams to help keep up with our expanded efforts across the country. We recently launched a new Google Fiber careers site to help candidates find us, and we’re still hiring! We have hundreds of open roles, so if all this sounds like an interesting, rewarding way to make a difference, then maybe you should join us. One thing is certain, 2022 is not going to be dull around here. 

Posted by the Google Fiber Team