Google and the city of Austin, TX plan on making a major announcement on Tuesday, April 9, and speculators say that announcement will involve the arrival of Google Fiber in the Texas capital.
As the home of Samsung, Dell, Blizzard Entertainment, AMD, Intel, an Apple call center, and others along with hosting such tech-fueled events like SXSW Interactive, it’s not a big leap to assume the upcoming press conference by Google and the city will involve bringing the much sought after Google Fiber to the Lonestar State. Google Fiber allows its users to have internet speeds up to 100 times the current fastest speeds to achieve gigabit upload and downloads for no more than average rates. The company is seeking to do more the change the internet landscape though and also offers a package with a full TV channel lineup, a HD-ready TV box, and a free Nexus 7 to use as the remote for $120.
Techcitement will keep you updated on this announcement, and what this could mean for other cities, when the press conference happens on Tuesday. Here’s the full release from Austin and Google:
On Tuesday, April 9, at 11 a.m., the City of Austin and Google will make a very important announcement that will have a positive impact on Austinites and the future of the city. We anticipate more than 100 community leaders and elected officials to be in attendance to celebrate this announcement. The event invitation is attached for your convenience. Although we cannot share the details of the announcement with you in advance, we know readers will want to learn more, so we encourage you to join us on Tuesday.
My concern with everything Google is that they’re collecting data on me. Or, I’m just paranoid?
Hmmm, 2 things. First I remember when I couldn’t get DSL due to the fact that my home phone was connected to fiber under the street (that baffled me). Second, does this mean that Google is the next major utility and will it be regulated by the PUC? Sounds like yes, and that it should be.
Ben, I don’t think your paranoid, even if you are it may be justified. I trust Yahoo more than Google these days as far as my privacy goes, and that’s bad. Also, I remember when Jenn forgot her password for one of the Google services that she used, they wanted to charge her for password recovery when she couldn’t remember the answer to one of the security questions. So what were they saying, they respect our security for free, but if someone pays then it’s no holds barred? That’s what it sounds like to me.