Internet connections in Durham are about to get faster.
Google officials announced Tuesday afternoon that the Raleigh-Durham area would be among the next to acquire the company's ultra-fast Internet service Google Fiber, which promises connections 100 times faster than the existing broadband. Design on the network will begin soon, with construction set to start in several months.
The announcement came at a news conference at the North Carolina Museum of History, where Governor Pat McCrory was joined by local mayors and Google officials. The service is planned for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Morrisville, Carrboro, Garner and Cary.
“We’re happy to know that we’re going to be one of the areas that’s able to offer this to our residents and businesses,” said Beverly Thompson, director of public affairs Durham. “It’s great in terms of what it means for jobs coming to this area, it just means good news for the entire region. We’ll be right up there with some of the other cities across the United States in terms of technology.”
The announcement comes almost five years after Google first began exploring the idea of high-speed fiber optic networks in U.S. cities. Kansas City, Mo., Provo, Utah, and Austin, Texas, were the first cities to receive Google Fiber. Now, the service will expand to the Southeast—with Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn. announced as Fiber locations Tuesday along with Raleigh-Durham.
Google has been working with city planners and managers from Durham for a year now in order to launch the Internet service and design the network around Durham’s infrastructure. Thompson, along with deputy city managers Wanda Page and Bowman Ferguson, have been providing city-planning information to Google to assist them.
“People here are very excited about the prospects of [Google] even looking at Durham and the surrounding area, and just the many possibilities of Google Fiber,” Thompson said.
Google describes the Fiber installation as a five-step process. Tuesday's announcement puts the Triangle in the "design" step, with Google officials working to decide the location for thousands of miles of fiber. Construction is expected to follow in "a few months," though the company did not specify an exact timeline for when the service might come online.
“We’re going to be working closely with them over the next few months to make sure that things run smoothly,” said Thompson.
The announcement was met with fanfare from the community, particularly on social media, with many Triangle residents expressing excitement.
"This means that Time Warner is in trouble. I already pay $72.51 a month for crappy customer service, really slow Internet and terrible TV channels. Now Google Fiber comes in and Time Warner Cable is going to have some competition," said Amber Harold, a graduate student and Durham resident who said she is excited about the Google fiber offer.
Grace Wang contributed reporting.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.