Google won't reveal any fiber communities until 2011

Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) community Fiber to the Home project may be the biggest news on the broadband front this year, but if you're a community waiting to hear if your proposal won over the Internet search giant, you're going to have to wait until next year.

With a glut of applicants to sort through, Google won't make a decision on what community or communities it will use to test its 1 Gbps fiber-based broadband network until early next year. In total, 1,100 communities and 194,000 individuals applied to take part in the program.

After Google announced its 1 Gbps plans in February, a number of local community politicians conducted various publicity stunts that ranged from one town in Kansas renaming itself Google to swimming with sharks.     

That's not to say that Google isn't making progress with its FTTH plans.

In fact, the search engine giant made two moves this week. First, it chose competitive service provider Sonic.net to run its pilot FTTH network at Stanford University. Then, Google hired Internet pioneer Milo Medin, who is perhaps best known as the founder of ISP @Home, as vice president of access services. Medin is charged with managing the Google Fiber team, and overseeing what Google said will be "the build-out of our ultra high-speed network."

For more:
- Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones has this article
- eWeek has this article

Related articles:
Google brings on Milo Medin to lead high-speed broadband demo launch
Google taps Sonic.net to operate its Stanford FTTH network
Google conducts FTTX network dress rehearsal at Stanford University
600 communities vie for Google's Gbps Fiber-to-the-home program
Google launches open access FTTH network trial
Google plans 1 gigabit Internet service test
Cisco steps aboard the ultra-broadband train