Google Fiber adds Chicago, Los Angeles to 'maybe' list

Google Fiber says it has "invited" Chicago and Los Angeles to discuss bringing the company's gigabit broadband services to their cities. Adding the two cities – the largest with which Google Fiber has engaged so far – brings to 18 the number of markets Google Fiber is active at some level. However, it is actually supplying services in parts of three of them – Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas), Austin, TX, and Provo, UT.

Los Angeles and Chicago join Irvine, San Diego, and San Jose, CA; Portland, OR; Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; Louisville, KY; and Jackson and Tampa, FL, on Google Fiber's list of "potential" markets (see map above). As with these other cities, Google Fiber has a checklist of information it needs and tasks it would like city leadership to perform to help the company determine whether it will move forward with fiber to the home (FTTH) deployments.

The company did not provide status information on these potential markets, or updates on roll out dates for the markets in the "upcoming" list – Atlanta, GA; Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, NC; Nashville, TN; San Antonio, TX; and Salt Lake City, UT.

The announcement came shortly after rival AT&T announced that it will roll out its gigabit FTTH service in an additional 38 markets (see "AT&T announces gigabit broadband expansion to 38 markets"). While Google Fiber captured significant early mindshare with its gigabit initiative, it has subsequently been surpassed in terms of actual deployments by such major service providers as AT&T and Comcast (see "Comcast markets 2-Gbps Gigabit Pro in seven states"). These providers, of course, often have the advantage of existing conduit and in-place pole attachment agreements that they can leverage to streamline deployments.

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