By Kirk Bradford | [email protected]

Millcreek City Council announced Google Fiber will be expanding to Millcreek on July 13 as the newest location to receive their services. The website read, “While we love all of our Fiber locations equally, Utah has always been special to us. Provo was one of the earliest Google Fiber cities — there, we built great relationships grounded in the city’s vision to connect an entire community to high-speed internet. 

“That experience led us north to Salt Lake City, where we’ve been building, in the more traditional sense, a from-scratch fiber network to deliver gigabit internet to homes and businesses across Utah’s capital city.

“As we finally near completion of construction in Salt Lake City, we’re not ready to stop growing in Utah. So, we’re excited to announce that we’ll continue to build our network into the neighboring city of Millcreek.”

Millcreek Mayor Jeff Silvestrini and the Millcreek City Council approved a license agreement giving Google Fiber access to rights of way to begin construction in the city later this year. 

After meeting with the council, Google officials said, “We’re excited to work with the city of Millcreek under the leadership of Mayor Silvestrini to bring fast, reliable gigabit internet to residents in this first expansion along the Wasatch Front. The approval vote allows us to continue the project into Millcreek without delay, with the goal of serving our first Millcreek customers in early 2021.”

Millcreek will be the third city in Utah to receive Google Fiber. 

“We’re pleased by Google’s dedication to advance digital equity within Millcreek,” Silvestrini said in city press release. “Residents of Millcreek that have not had adequate access to the internet in the past will soon benefit from fast, reliable broadband internet through Google Fiber."

Google Fiber is a fiber optic-based broadband internet service that debuted back in 2010. Explaining the new service as, "fiber-to-the-premises" service that delivers high-speed connectivity to businesses and individuals in select cities.

At the time it appeared Google planned a massive roll out across the entire country but in 2016 they hit the brakes nationwide. They didn’t announce plans for further expansion beyond its 18 cities already set up. Google made a statement to Business Insider saying, “We do not have anything to share on expanding beyond our current markets at this time. We are currently, focused on providing a great customer service experience for customers in the areas where we are available."

Neither Millcreek nor Google Fiber released the details on its pricing for Millcreek residents but their website states home connections with 1 gigabit transfer rates per second typically cost $70 per month. Many residents took to social media to vent because many are already served by several other internet providers like Comcast, CenturyLink and others who renewed many residents current accounts for yearly contracts. 

Resident Brian Prince said, “I’ve been on their notification list for about three years. I got tired of waiting and just renewed my contract with Comcast for another year...Figures.”

What Does Google Fiber Offer?

Google Fibers service consists of three techs pitches their website. “Gigabit internet, streaming television and a phone. No hidden fees. Just a straightforward price: $70/month.”

The national average for internet access is about 11.5 Mbps, according to multiple tech websites.  Google Fiber also says their top speed is 1,000 Mbps or 1 gigabyte per second at the highest tier of service. 

This makes their service potentially 10x faster than cable’s average download speeds, and 86x faster than the average upload speed their website shows.

Like most broadband internet services, Google Fiber is a shared network, which means that the speed you can achieve depends upon how much data your neighbors are using at the same time. But because Google Fiber is built to support 1000 Mbps, the bandwidth is so high that it's unlikely any individual customer's bandwidth would be affected by other customers.

The cost of the service did vary by region, but most Google Fiber customers can, “expect to pay about $50/month for 100 Mbps service and $70/month for 1000 Mbps. Google Fiber also includes an option for cable television, which adds about $90/month to the basic plan. In all cases, the pricing is all-inclusive and billed month-to-month, with no annual service contracts, fees for rental equipment, or monthly data caps.”

The service also allows you to have advanced home automation. Connect your home together from your smart doorbell, a smart fridge, smart TVs, tablets, cameras, monitors, smart thermometer, smart security devices, a voice-activated light system, and much more. With a gig, it allows much more space for your internet. 

The service provides a streaming video without the cable box and phone service similar to having a landline without the actual “land” part. This is made possible through their internet. The privacy controls can turn voicemails into emails and texts, you can record and save all your calls or you can even forward calls to any of your devices. For more information, you can visit google fibers main website and see all the other options and services coming to Millcreek.