Provo City Mayor John Curtis and Utah Governor Gary Herbert announced today that Google Fiber, a broadband Internet network project, will be introduced in the city this year.
The introduction of the new Internet project came a few weeks after news releases announcing an “epic announcement in Provo” were given to the public; many guesses were offered as to what it could be.
“We are excited to announce we have reached an agreement with Google Fiber to bring this technology to Provo,” Curtis said.
Provo becomes just the third city in the United States to introduce Google Fiber. The other two are Austin, Texas, and the Kansas City area. The technology allows its users to connect to the Internet at around one gigabit per second, which is roughly 100 times faster than many broadband Internet connections.
“We value technology, and we embrace it like no other state in the country has done so,” Herbert said. “We are the best state currently in the area of business.”
The announcement comes after more than a year of debate over whether this type of technology would come to Provo. Likewise, Provo began to build a fiber-optic ring that connected utilities in 2004, but the first city to include this technology as a city-wide broadband network was Kansas City in early 2011.
“We have an unparalleled quality of life,” Herbert said. “People will be attracted here because of that.”
In addition to Curtis and Herbert, several Utah senators, the Utah Speaker of the House Rebecca Lockhart and Google Fiber General Manager Kevin Lowe attended the announcement at the Utah Valley Convention Center. Lowe also addressed the hundreds of people gathered on the third-floor balcony.
“We believe that speed matters,” Lowe said. “Provo will be one of the first cities in the world where access to basic broadband will flow like water or electricity.”
As a benefit to having Google Fiber in Provo, every home in the city will receive a free connection to broadband Internet service and have access to the network.
