Fast Forward: The future is multi-gig

Last month, we shared some news about the places that Google Fiber is focused on building in next. We talked about where — but not how — we plan to build fiber-to-the-home networks for the next generation of internet users.

Google Fiber’s differentiating factor has long been our vision that the internet should be measured in gigs, not megs. We’ve always believed that the internet would depend on faster and faster speeds, and symmetrically fast speeds at that. And at a price of just $70/month — which has never gone up in over a dozen years — meant that we were serious about getting that speed into people’s homes.

We used to get asked, “who needs a gig?” Today it's no longer a question. Every major provider in the U.S. seems to have now gotten the gigabit memo, and it’s only going up from there — some providers are already offering 2, 5, 8, even 10 gig products.

We began raising that bar even further in 2021 with the launch of a 2 Gig product (2 gig down; 1 gig up) at just $100 a month, but we knew that was just the next step in this journey of making multi-gig speeds widely available and accessible. In the coming months, we’ll have announcements to dramatically expand our multi-gigabit tiers. These will be critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical internet.

We’re already closer than you might think. This month, we took our testing out of the lab and into the home, starting with our first trusted tester, Nick Saporito, the Head of Commercial Strategy for GFiber. Look closely at that speed test below from Nick’s house in Kansas City — yes, that’s 20.2 gig download you’re seeing!

20 Gig speed test in the field - 20.2 Gig download speed (RxRate)

But just being fast (even the fastest) is not enough. It’s about all the aspects of providing multi-gig service to customers: pricing; value; simplicity and reliability of the product. That’s the highly curated customer experience that we’ve been working toward for years.

We believe that many, if not most, communities across America will ultimately have at least two, if not three, fiber providers and an incumbent coax provider. We see it in communities we plan to build in, and expect investment in the industry to continue.

This means that a fiber network alone will no longer be the differentiating factor it once was for internet providers. The unique selling points will be how that network is built to deliver symmetrical multi-gig speed at accessible pricing — all with a focus on enabling service that takes advantage of that speed not just to the home but in the home, as well.

And one that comes with an obsessive focus on providing the best customer experience possible at all points along the way.

Over the next few weeks, the Google Fiber blog will explore how we’re building our networks to enable our ultimate vision of the future of speed, from network infrastructure to content delivery to how to maximize speed inside your home.

The next big step in the speed space race is just around the corner, and Google Fiber is preparing to help you make the jump to hyperdrive.

Posted by Dinni Jain, CEO