S.A. says 'Bienvenidos' to Google Fiber

Google Fiber’s ultra fast internet makes its way to the fast-growing city of San Antonio, Texas.

Mayor Ivy Taylor made the googly-announcement this past Wednesday.

This fairly new internet service is said to bring 1,000 megabits per second which exceeds the average American broadband speed currently at 11.9 megabits per second. Google Fiber offers Internet service alone at $70 per month. However, it also has one gigabit Internet service and a little more than 150 cable TV channels for $130 per month.

The Alamo city is one of the 12 “fiber” cities and is the largest to land Google Fiber. The words “a city on the rise” were echoed throughout the announcement.

“San Antonio is  a city on the rise, it is a city that you can build,” Geekdom director Lorenzo Gomez said. “Very few people can build a city in their lifetime.”

Gomez is an advocate for Google Fiber because it fulfills every need in the 80/20 foundation, a private foundation which invests in programs to encourage entrepreneurship, STEM education, and development in downtown San Antonio.

Gomez aspires that Fiber becomes the catalyst in placing Geekdom on the levels of Rackspace. He called Fiber a “game changer.”

San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor, who has pushed for Fiber since becoming mayor, shared her thoughts on the “historic” moment.

"As the seventh largest city in America, San Antonio has worked closely with Fiber to plan a network that will attract and retain the next generation of innovators,” Taylor said.

Taylor added, “Our residents, neighborhoods and businesses will benefit greatly from having access to ultra high-speed internet and our becoming a Google Fiber community brings us a giant step closer to becoming a community where all our residents are connected to opportunity."

Kansas City was the first city to land Google Fiber in 2011. Kyle Ginavan is the CEO of tech company Nexas HQ, and in a Skype interview with KSAT 12 he said, “Overall, it's been real positive from a consumer perspective, also from a business perspective.”

He continued, “For small businesses, these Internet providers will tax businesses extreme amounts for Internet. So now prices are getting much more competitive."

Approximately 80 percent of San Antonio  is made up of small businesses. Wes Baerga, who is one of six business employees at Vuepoint Creative, believes small business will get a leg up on bigger businesses.

Mark Strama, head of Google Fiber, talked about how lengthy the process will be. Furthermore he advised that implementing the network in San Antonio will take 4,000 miles of fiber-optic cables. Since Texas is full of limestone, local citizens won’t see this high speed internet in the very near future.

Justin Perkins, an Austin citizen who lives in a “Fiberhood” signed up for the service, however, hasn’t seen any noticeable progress. In an interview earlier this week with Austin’s KVUE, he shared his frustration.

“‘I moved from a city that had fiber -- a much smaller city -- so it's kind of laughable that it wasn't here already," he said. "We were told construction was going to begin in June of this year and I have seen nothing to indicate that."

As for San Antonio, Taylor tried to answer questions about what part of town will receive the service first and when construction would start.

“I dont know what part of town they are looking at starting first,” Taylor said.  “It’s going to be based on engineering but we are very sensitive to the idea that we want to be available.”

The super fast internet will alter this, however, it will be a super slow procedure that can take years to come to fruition.