Google Fiber Coming to One Lucky Community in 2011

Google’s ambitious high-speed Internet project, Fiber, will be coming to one of more than 1,100 applying communities sometime in early 2011.

The company was to announce the lucky community by the end of this year; however, the demand to be part of the Fiber project was so great that plans have been slightly postponed.

Fiber was announced back in February. The project had the search giant venturing into ISP territory by delivering broadband to between 50,000 and 500,000 users — and broadband such as the world has not yet seen, reportedly around 100 times faster than typical Internet access.

The goal was to create an at-scale testing ground for better, faster web apps. An unintended consequence was the rush of pitches from communities around the United States. One city even changed its name to Google to better its chances of getting Fiber. By March, more than 600 communities had applied.

Now, with almost double that number of applying communities, Google is finding it needs a bit more time to choose the right environment for Google Fiber. The application process is closed, but the selection process is being extended into the beginning of next year.

Here’s a map of communities that have applied. The small beige dots represent governments that have applied, and the large brown dots represent communities where more than 1,000 residents have applied.

Google Fiber has already been implemented in around 850 homes of staff and faculty at Stanford University. Google says this trial is showing broadband speeds of up to one gigabit per second.
source: Mashable