My family loves TV. Seriously, any one of us would be a stellar entertainment trivia partner. But we don’t watch anything over cable. Why? Because we know the best way to watch TV is over the internet — especially over internet that’s both fast and reliable (hint: no buffering, low resolution, or data overages). 

Check out each of our streaming setups.



My ad-averse mom

My mom’s movie-obsessed and commercial-averse. She doesn’t believe that critically acclaimed work should be interrupted by a 30-second plea for you to buy something. Which is why she doesn’t mind paying the extra bucks for commercial-free services like Netflix for her binge-watching ways. 

She also recently discovered the highly curated movie streaming service: The Criterion Channel — essentially her very own equivalent to striking gold. Her next mission is finding a service that delivers popcorn to couches.

 

Some other good services if you love film and TV without commercials:

• Hulu
• Disney+
• Peacock

 

My major league stepdad

My stepdad’s from Boston, translation: He has never missed an important baseball game in what I’m assuming is his entire life. Aside from a well-grilled quesadilla, there’s nothing he cares about more than sports. 

That’s why he’s big on services like Fubo TV and ESPN+. And even if he’s not home to catch the game, these services make it so that he can stay up on every play from his phone.

 

Some other good services if you love live, local, and sometimes not-so-local sports:

• MLB Network
• B/R Live

 

My money-conscious girlfriend

My partner is the financial-minded person in our relationship. She saves way more than she spends and is always looking for new ways to stay budget-friendly. That’s why she prefers free streaming services like Pluto TV. She also genuinely enjoys watching commercials … I know — I don’t get it, either.

 

Some other good services if you don’t love spending money:

• Crackle
• Tubi TV

 

My on-the-go bro

My brother is graduating from college this year and will likely be moving around a lot, which makes being roped into a cable bundle way less than ideal. That’s part of why he watches live TV with YouTube TV. It has every major channel he wants to watch and then some — plus, he can watch from anywhere. 

And if he’s studying for a test (which he’d better be) and has to miss a live premiere, he can record it with unlimited DVR space and watch it later.

 

Some other good services if you love live TV without forced bundles:

• SlingTV
• Philo

 

As for me, I like a lot of different things

From horror, to drag competitions, to documentaries, I like it all. That’s why I go with a few low-cost, channel-specific streaming services like Shudder, World of Wonder Presents Plus, and HBO Max. And since they’re all month-to-month services, I can always cancel if I want a different mix of streaming services for the month.

 

Some other good services if you love to mix it up:

• Discovery+
• Paramount+
• CuriosityStream

 

Oh, and I didn’t forget about my little snack stealer

My dog Vero (a very fluffy Bernedoodle) doesn’t care what’s on TV as long as there’s a spot for him on the couch. Which there always is. There’s usually a few pieces of popcorn for him, too. 

 

Posted by Talia Bootz, Creative and Social Content Manager. When she’s not streaming her faves, she’s likely kayaking, skating around town, or cooking up some vegetarian food.

The Triangle isn’t just a Google Fiber city — it’s our East Coast hub, and we’ve got a lot going on across the region. Right now, customers can sign up for 1 Gig and 2 Gig in Morrisville and Carrboro, and parts of Cary, Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. And we’re continuing to expand our network across the region. Construction is underway in all of the cities we’re still working to complete our network build, including Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Cary. 

With all that activity, our team is also growing. Just before the pandemic, we’d expanded our downtown Durham offices on Chapel Hill Street to make room for our expanding team, but we haven’t yet gotten the chance to properly move in. We’re looking forward to doing that later this year. Plans for the new space include a lobby featuring the work of our incredible non-profit partners’ digital equity work across the Triangle. Once we’re back in the office, we hope you’ll come and get to know these organizations, whose work has only become even more critical.

And if you’re looking for your next opportunity, we’d love to have you join the Google Fiber team and help us connect more customers in our area and across the country to great internet. We have both local and central roles open in the Triangle, and, just like Google, we’re growing here and need your help! 

Serving our community

Despite the weirdness of the last year — or maybe because of its challenges — our community impact work continued to grow over the last year. Google Fiber is a lead sponsor of “Building a New Digital Economy” (BAND-NC), created by the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State  and the Broadband Infrastructure Office at the NC Department of Information Technology. This initiative provides mini-grants to communities to implement digital inclusion plans, begin a digital inclusion planning process, or meet immediate digital needs, with the ultimate goal of making North Carolina the first state with a digital inclusion plan for each county.

Earlier this spring, Google Fiber partner RIoT, along with Facebook Reality Labs and US Ignite launched an augmented reality challenge called RIoT Your Reality. Google Fiber teamed up with  The City of Raleigh and the Town of Cary to sponsor an opportunity challenge, "Improving Inclusivity and Accessibility for City Programs & Services," focusing on using augmented reality to make our cities more inclusive and accessible. The applications are in and candidates are currently going through the pitch process — winners will be announced in July, so stay tuned! 

2020 challenged many of our local institutions to find new ways to connect and engage our communities, and Google Fiber was proud to be able to support these efforts. The Museum of Life & Science brought STEM programming to life during quarantine by creating Field Trip Fridays, behind the scenes visits to see science at work at local businesses throughout Durham and the Triangle. You can take the journey yourself by watching the 2020 recap video or any of the Field Trip Friday Episodes.

We continue to focus on our traditional areas of digital inclusion and STEM education, but also added a new focus this year, racial justice and equity. Google Fiber sponsored the United Way of the Greater Triangle’s Anti-Racism Fund, with a clear vision that our work on digital equity is a piece of a much larger puzzle. Creating anti-racist capacity across our community will provide the opportunities for our entire region to grow and thrive.

Faster and farther

The Triangle is growing in leaps and bounds, and Google Fiber is so excited to keep working towards connecting the region to the fastest internet in town. 

Posted by Spencer Walston, Head of Sales; Jason Smith, Head of Metro Technical Operations, & Jess George, Government & Community Affairs Manager

In February, we asked our TV customers in Huntsville, Alabama, to help us test an upgraded TV experience. We had over 50 households sign up as trusted testers, making the switch to a better TV experience with Chromecast with Google TV, the live streaming services of their choice, and upgraded home Wi-Fi with Google Wifi. 

Thanks to our testers, we’ve learned a lot about how to make this process easy for our customers. So today, we’re making this offer available to all existing Fiber TV customers in every Google Fiber city. 

Customers who are ready to get more out of their TV can chat with one of our customer service team members to upgrade to the best viewing experience the internet has to offer over the fastest internet available (yes, that’s Google Fiber). 

The best TV is already online. With Chromecast with Google TV, customers get all the features they’ve come to expect and more, including a voice remote control, 4K Ultra HD support, personal recommendations, and easy search across apps, with access to many different streaming services at a significantly lower cost than they currently pay for their Fiber TV service. 

Whether you are into movies, local or national news, live sports, or something more niche, there’s a place to watch it online. Google Fiber wants to help Fiber TV customers find their perfect TV experience with streaming TV, and we’re starting right now. 

Ready to switch? We’re ready to make it happen! And if you still want to learn a little more first, check out fiber.google.com/tv/.

Posted by Liz Hsu, Director of Product Strategy

Google Fiber has always focused on helping communities take on the very real digital equity challenges they grapple with every day. We’ve been lucky to partner with some incredible organizations over the past decade, working to make each of our Fiber cities more digitally inclusive places. The past year has magnified the importance of these efforts, with the pandemic and the related changes to our daily lives having an outsized impact on disadvantaged communities.  

PCs for the People in Kansas City

As Google Fiber worked to adapt to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized many of our local non-profit partners, and the people they serve, were working overtime to do the same. So we adjusted our approach over the last year to help those organizations serve their communities’ most immediate needs, whether that was internet access for learning or work, devices to get online, unemployment, or food insecurity. 

Given the enormous challenges of 2020, Google Fiber increased our community impact investments across the country. As we do every year, we recently surveyed our non-profit partners about their experience and their impact. We’re so inspired by what they were able to achieve in the face of the incredible adversity during 2020:

• Over 250,000 people participated in programming funded by Google Fiber 
• Even with the challenges of the pandemic, partners provided 124,000 hours of digital literacy training both virtually and in person, and prepared more than 3,000 new volunteer trainers to pay this work forward
• Partners distributed over 8,500 devices to help people get online
• More than 700 job seekers gained employment through funded programming
• Entrepreneurship programs led to 43 new businesses
• More than 6,000 people connected new internet service in their homes

Libraries without Borders in San Antonio

Additionally, we supported organizations focused on racial justice and equity at a new level this year to help many of our communities bridge not just the digital divide, but the other issues that divide our communities. A little bit more about who our partners serve:

• 92% work with underrepresented groups
• 79% work with children or seniors
• 52% work with the LGBTQ+ community
• 51% work with individuals with disabilities
• 36% work with veterans
• 31% work with previously incarcerated individuals

Goodwill of Western Missouri & Eastern Kansas

Every day, these groups are making change happen in our communities, creating a more equitable, just, and connected place that will create a lasting and exponential difference to our cities and our world. Thank you to all our partners! 



Posted by Rachel Merlo, Government & Community Affairs Manager, Kansas City

To do everything you need to do - working, learning, staying healthy, having entertainment options, finding jobs, starting businesses, doing business, creating communities, connecting to loved ones - you don’t just need internet, you need fast internet. You need enough internet for everyone in your home. And internet that’s open, without data caps or hidden fees. And you need all of that internet at a fair price.

At Google Fiber and Google Fiber Webpass, we believe that everyone, in every community — big, small, urban, rural, and everywhere in between — deserves access to internet that’s fast, reliable, fairly priced, and open.

Since our start in 2011 in Kansas City, that’s been our goal. We know we can’t do it alone, no one company, organization, or type of network can or ever will. But we know that there are lots of companies, organizations, and cities working to make this vision a reality across our country. And we believe that if we work together, we can make faster, better internet happen for more people. 

In the last few years, we’ve worked to live up to this vision for better internet in more places: raising the bar for customer service, strengthening networks, improving equipment and experience, building for the future, expanding in the cities we’re in, and working with cities in new ways to expand.

We‘ve got a long way to go. We’re humbled by the recognition we’ve received over the past year for speed and for customer service and satisfaction. But we’re still working on making our customers even happier, reaching more people, making our products easier, better, and faster, and finding new ways to keep moving towards what we believe internet access should be.

And we’re working on new ways to tell our story. If you’re in a city served by Google Fiber and/or Google Fiber Webpass, you also might notice that we’re telling our story in ads, in mailers, and with local internet reps in Google Fiber spaces and in your neighborhood.

A small part of that storytelling is a new icon for Google Fiber and Google Fiber Webpass.



As the design team at Google’s Brand Studio explained, “The icon represents two key concepts, core to Google Fiber’s mission. The first is that of a catalyst. The dynamic shape upon which the icon is built inspires a feeling of movement in its upward arcing motion. The second concept is scalable impact, represented through its modular pattern. This new icon acts as the cornerstone upon which the brand is built, signaling the ambition to galvanize and uplift communities: from the single family home or small business, through to an entire city”  

The shapes can represent being fast, fairly priced, reliable, and open — critical pieces of our mission. Or they could be communities of all shapes and sizes: big, small, urban, rural.  Or all of the different things you do with your internet.  Or how your internet throughput is divvied up across everything you and your household is doing - not just fast internet for a single fast connection.  Or even how it’s going to take all of us, coming together, to make sure everyone has access to the fast, reliable internet we think everyone deserves.  Or, maybe it’s just a fun, colorful shape. 

In any case, we hope you like it. And, even more, we hope that, whether it’s in an ad, on social media, in our app, or anywhere else you see it, you know it’s Google Fiber, and that there’s more of our story on its way.

Posted by Amanda Peterson, Head of Brand and Product Marketing





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author: Amanda Peterson

title: Head of Brand and Product Marketing

category: company_news

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Our city updates continue, checking in with our team in West Des Moines. If you missed our first one, you can find out more about what’s going on in Austin here.

There is a lot happening in West Des Moines as we move toward bringing our first customers online later this year. Google Fiber has already started our engineering and planning efforts, and we recently signed a lease for our local West Des Moines offices and retail space. We’ve also started the renovation process in our Valley Junction location (check out what’s coming below) and plan to settle in sometime in early fall.



While we’re waiting to move in, our team is hard at work from home. Our sales team has been talking to apartment and condominium managers across the city to get their buildings ready for Google Fiber. If you are interested in getting your community wired for Google Fiber, please email us.

There are still a few things that have to happen before we can serve customers. Most importantly, the city of West Des Moines recently started construction on their conduit network. Once they’ve completed the first area, we’ll start pulling fiber through it to bring fast, reliable internet to your homes, and testing to make sure everything works the way it should. Once that’s done we’ll be ready to open our doors (and our website) for customers.

So what can you do to get ready? As we shared back in October, local residents can see the city’s build schedule and sign up to connect to the conduit network on the city’s Plant the Speed site. And if you are looking for more information about what’s going on with Google Fiber in West Des Moines, you can also sign up for Google Fiber email updates for the latest news and availability.

Things are happening fast, so stay tuned!

Posted by Rachel Merlo, Government & Community Affairs Manager

Since the first cohort of NTEN’s Digital Inclusion Fellowship in 2015, Google Fiber has supported this innovative program which supports nonprofit professionals with deep connections to digitally distressed communities in their efforts to launch or expand digital inclusion  programs. As a former fellow with Austin Free-Net, I’ve seen firsthand the impact that a focused staff member can have on connecting more people to the skills and resources people need to navigate our digital world. 



The pandemic has emphasized the necessity of access to fast, reliable internet. Organizations that once considered digital equity and literacy tangential to their mission now find it essential to helping the communities they serve. 

Stephanie De Leon, our Digital Inclusion Fellow with AVANCE-Austin, shared, “I can proudly say that all 240 families served in the AVANCE-Austin Parent-Child Education Program received brand new tablets with internet connectivity and resources plus 1-on-1 training on how to use them to help close the gap in digital inequity.”

Over the past six years, Google Fiber has funded 59 fellows across the country, and these extraordinary individuals and organizations are making a huge difference in the everyday lives of their constituents. 

Kayla Bradshaw, a fellow with the United Way of Utah County in Provo, Utah, said: “Typically, we hold in-person trainings for our volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) program. Most of our volunteers are elderly and do not want to meet in person. We developed an online training distributed through YouTube to train all volunteers. The volunteers then receive technical support through the tax season as they assist low-income families in filing their taxes.”

Think a staff member in your organization could benefit from being a Digital Inclusion Fellow? Applications are open now for the next cohort (lucky number 7!). We hope you’ll consider joining the group, or pass this on to an organization that needs their own fellow. 

Posted by Daniel Lucio, Community Impact Manager

Ookla recently released its Q1 2021 data for internet speeds, and we're happy to see that Google Fiber tops that list in all of our cities across the country. We're slowing down for a moment to look at how we got here by looking back at what 2020’s challenges meant for our customers and how we helped meet the increased demand for internet as everyone moved their world online — school, work, connecting with family and friends, streaming, gaming, shopping, and so much more. 

The demand for internet has never been greater. At Google Fiber, we saw about a 32% uptick in demand across our network in all our cities throughout the pandemic. While our network is definitely built to handle this, we wanted to make sure that our customers never feel the squeeze.

To handle the additional traffic, not just for now, but the future as well, especially as we have more customers opting for 2 Gig as it rolls out across the country, we took several actions over the last year to improve both network capacity and resiliency. That’s why our internet was able to meet the increased demand for bandwidth, and we were able to reduce latency (the time it takes for your internet to load) for our customers as well. 

Internet speeds from January to June 2020*



Increasing Capacity

In 2020, we increased capacity at every point in our network, from support facilities right into our customers’ homes. By working to increase throughput across our network, we’re ensuring that you have the fastest internet coming into your house. 

But we all know that’s only as good as your Wi-Fi, since most internet usage in our homes is over Wi-Fi rather than wired ethernet. So we worked to improve Wi-Fi performance for Google Fiber customers, launching use your own router as an option for customers who know what they want and incorporating Google Wifi devices to provide more options for customers to adapt their Wi-Fi coverage  to the layout and needs of their homes.

Improving Resiliency

Availability and resiliency is about making it easier to get where you are going on the internet. As demand for teleconferencing services and online learning platforms soared, Google Fiber worked with such providers to optimize network traffic to ensure our customers don’t experience glitchy meetings or disrupted student lessons regardless of how many people are learning or working on the network. And that wasn’t just true for work —as demand for streaming video for news and entertainment and online gaming rose, we also made sure that content came through without buffering or lag. 

All this backend work was designed so that our customers just didn’t have to think about their internet connection. The goal was to make internet one less thing for customers to have to think about — especially this past year when we all had plenty to take up brain space.

We’re continuing to look at new ways to improve our network and meet what’s coming next in 2021 and beyond. Internet demand is only going to increase as we can do more and more online, and Google Fiber will be ready to help you make that journey.

Posted by Terrill Gosa, Senior Director, Engineering & Operations

* All data is from Speedtest by Ookla.

Starting today, Kansas City customers can sign up for our new 2 Gig service and put all that download speed to use whether working, playing, or watching over the internet. No matter how smart your home is, if your household needs 70 simultaneous 4K streams (yes, we said 70), or if most of your reality is virtual these days, 2 Gig can keep up.

We already know that KC moves fast. Now we can do it double time! 

Posted by Carlos Casas, Head of Sales, Kansas City

We heard you, Charlotte, and we’re happy to say that as of today all new and existing Google Fiber customers in the Queen City can get our new 2 Gig service! 

You can now sign up on our website and see for yourself the difference that doubling your download speed can make. There are a few things you need to know to make sure your home is ready for 2 Gig — check out this blog post for more information. 

Posted by the Mary Ellen Player, Head of Sales Charlotte