San Antonio has signed an agreement with Google Fiber (Nasdaq: GOOG) for the preliminary placement of "fiber huts" throughout the city, reports the San Antonio Express-News.
Earlier this year, San Antonio was named as one of the 34 new cities that Google Fiber cited as a possible destination for its 1 Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH) service.
The City Council said that the master-lease agreement with Google Fiber Texas will give the service provider the ability to deploy about 40 "fiber huts"--12-by-26-foot communications shelters that house tech infrastructure for its 1 Gbps service. During the first year of its contract with the city, Google would pay an annual rate of $2,250 per site.
San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro said the contract approval lays the legal framework needed for Google to move forward with its network in San Antonio.
"What we've seen in other communities in which Google Fiber has moved in is that it lowers the cost of Internet access for everyday consumers," Castro said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News. "And that's a great thing in a place like San Antonio, where we do still see a significant digital divide."
One catch here is that Google Fiber maintains that none of the 34 cities that it has cited as targets have been officially selected yet. However, Castro said that he's confident that San Antonio will be named as a Google Fiber city.
What does make San Antonio an attractive city to Google Fiber is that it owns CPS Energy. That could help it avoid some of the red tape it has encountered in other cities to get access to utility poles that would be used to string its fiber cabling.
For more:
- San Antonio Express-News has this article
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