Give an assist to Huntsville Utilities

Slowly but surely, Google continues to expand its 1Gbps fiber Internet service to more areas around the country, including locations on virtually both sides of the coasts and several in between. Next up is Huntsville, Alabama, Google announced in a blog post.

In most cases, rolling out Google Fiber means building the infrastructure from the ground up. But in Huntsville, Google is getting a major assist from the local municipality, Huntsville Utilities, which is building out a fiber network of its own. Google Fiber will use part of that network infrastructure.

"To date, we’ve built the majority of our Google Fiber networks from scratch. But over the past five years, we’ve repeatedly seen that every city is unique. So in order to bring Fiber to more people, we’ve taken different approaches in different places," Google said.

To give some examples, Google purchased an existing fiber network in Provo, Utah, and in Atlanta, Georgia, Google's both constructing its own network and tapping into existing fiber to bring its Google Fiber service to apartment buildings.

Huntsville holds a lot of appeal for Google. For one, Huntsville Utilities is already committed to building a fiber network. Beyond that, the so-called "Rocket City" has the highest concentration of engineers in the country, Google said. Huntsville also ranks as one of the best places in the country for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) workers.

Once Huntsville Utilities is finished building out its fiber network, Google (and any other company) can tap into it to offer high-speed Internet service to the city. As for when it will happen, Google said it's too early to tell—this is all in the approval stage at the moment.

Google Fiber is currently deployed in four cities. There are plans to expand Google Fiber into half a dozen other locations, with another 11 places identified as potential spots.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook