Google Plans to Bring Ultra-Fast Internet to More Than 30 Cities

Feb. 20, 2014— -- Google Fiber is devoted to making the Internet a hundred times faster than it is for most of the United States. On Feb. 19, the company announced plans to bring the Google upgrade to several cities spread across nine different metropolitan areas, including Atlanta and Nashville.

"People are hungrier than ever for faster Internet, and as a result, cities across America are making speed a priority," Milo Medin, the VP of Google Access Services, said in a company blog. "Now that we've learned a lot from our Google Fiber projects in Kansas City, Austin and Provo, we want to help build more ultra-fast networks."

But those eager to ditch their current service providers for Google may want to wait before pulling the trigger. Google will work with the cities to evaluate exactly how it would install its fiber-optic network. "While we do want to bring Fiber to every one of these cities, it might not work out for everyone," Medin said.

Teresa Mastrangelo, the principal analyst at Broadbandtrends, said the length of the evaluation phase varies from city to city. "In Kansas City, it took about six months," she told ABC News. "Austin is taking longer, since they announced in April 2013 and [the city] hasn't asked the community yet to start pre-registering."

The mere mention of Google Fiber may be enough to get other Internet service providers in the area to step it up.

"In Austin, after Google said they were deploying Google Fiber, AT&T said that they would be putting in a fiber network too," said Mastrangelo. "Google is definitely trying to stir up some activity to get operators ... to take a deeper look at what they can do with a broadband network."

Regardless of what it does for the broadband industry, Mastrangelo sees it as a win-win situation for the city. "Kansas City is very happy with Google Fiber," she said. "It's great for the consumer, no doubt."

The following metropolitan areas are Google Fiber's latest candidates.