Yet another big announcement this week just went official as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) confirmed during a joint community-press session that it will be bringing Google Fiber to Austin, Texas.
Live blogging from the event, GigaOM's Stacey Higginbotham quoted Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell as she wrote, "People are asking for this particular resource that will make our economy stronger--Google Fiber is coming to austin Texas!!!! Crowd goes wild."
Google released the official announcement on its blog shortly after noon E.T.
"It's a mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism, with thriving artistic and tech communities, as well as the University of Texas and its new medical research hospital," wrote Milo Medin, VP of access services for Google Fiber, in the post. "We're sure these folks will do amazing things with gigabit access, and we feel very privileged to have been welcomed to their community."
Google said it plans to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014, offering the same service options that Kansas City residents currently choose from.
Speculation started late last week that Google would be making "America's weirdest city" its next fiber stop, with confidence so high by Monday that publications like engadget were declaring "it's official" and organizations like Gig.U were sending out congratulatory statements well before the Tuesday morning conference.
Kansas City beat out Austin in the initial race to be selected as the site of Google's first citywide buildout of its 1 Gbps fiber service. The service is being gradually rolled out to neighborhoods ("fiberhoods") in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.
For more:
- GigaOM is live blogging the event here
- Google Fiber has this blog post
- here's FierceCable's perspective
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