Highlights:

  • Google Fiber, a division of Alphabet whose primary focus is on providing high-speed internet access in the United States, has ambitions to extend its fiber services within the next three to five years.
  • The announcement of Google Fiber’s growth ambitions comes at a time when the company, as well as the whole technology industry, are making cuts to their budgets.

According to an announcement by the firm, Google Fiber, a division of Alphabet whose primary focus is on providing high-speed internet access in the United States, is ambitious to extend its fiber services within the next three to five years. It has already announced ambitions to enter Arizona and Colorado, and now it intends to introduce fiber services in Nebraska, Nevada, and Idaho. These are the five additional states where it wants to provide these services. Google Fiber plans to increase its coverage to a total of 22 metropolitan regions, up from 17 at present.

It is a remarkable reversal from 2016 when the business allegedly laid off nine percent of its personnel and halted plans to offer services in over half a dozen locations. In subsequent years, it was reported that the company was canceling hundreds of installations in existing metropolitan areas such as Kansas City and that it had wholly abandoned Louisville, Kentucky, after a botched experiment in which it attempted to lay fiber cabling in extremely shallow trenches.

However, things have changed, and it appears that the company is now in a position to expand. The company’s CEO, Dinni Jain, said that the team is prepared to “add a little bit more build velocity.” In March, it had not expanded to a new state in the previous five years until it started operations in West Des Moines, Iowa. The following month, the company announced that it would expand to Des Moines. Google Fiber completed more construction in 2021 than “the aggregate total of the preceding few years.”

Google Fiber was initially established in 2010 with the intention of helping to push the adoption of higher internet speeds at lower costs. This was accomplished partly by delivering it directly and pressing existing internet service providers in the United States to compete. Jain claims he has experienced pressure from Google as an executive at Time Warner. According to what he told Reuters, “We Were So Paranoid.”

The announcement of Google Fiber’s growth ambitions comes at a time when the company, as well as the whole technology industry, is making cuts to their budgets. The business imposed a two-week hiring hold at the end of the previous month as it evaluated its workforce requirements, making it the most recent IT behemoth to take stock in the middle of a deteriorating economic climate. Over the past several years, Alphabet has shown a greater willingness to terminate experimental ventures. Last year, it discontinued its balloon internet service known as Loon, and in 2020, it will end operations in its energy kite sector.