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San Francisco* to get 1Gbps Google Fiber

* Probably not you, though

Google has announced that its Fiber gigabit internet service will finally be arriving in San Francisco.

Sort of.

The Mountain View advertising broker said that it has signed on to be the ISP for a handful of apartments and condos where fiber lines have already been laid. The move will likely limit the reach of Fiber service in San Francisco early on.

Google said the Fiber service will also be running to some affordable housing projects where the service will be offered free of charge.

Despite being a major tech hub, San Francisco itself presents a challenge for companies who would run fiber lines in the hilly terrain, unique architecture, and densely-packed clusters of houses and apartments in many of the city's neighborhoods, where ripping up copper wiring and installing new lines can be a painful and costly endeavor.

Sadly, the Reg SF office does not appear to be eligible for the Google gigabit broadband service right now.

The move does, however, mark the first time Fiber has been offered within San Francisco, and the place you should never call "Frisco" is now the 22nd market for the Google broadband service.

Users can check if their apartment or condo is wired for Fiber on Google's website, and property owners can check for the specifications needed to run the service.

"By using existing fiber to connect some apartments and condos, as we've done before, we can bring service to residents more quickly," wrote Google Fiber director of business operations Michael Slinger.

"This approach will allow us to serve a portion of San Francisco, complementing the city's ongoing efforts to bring abundant, high-speed Internet to the City by the Bay."

The leasing or selling of existing fiber lines for the service benefits both Google and the cities, as it avoids high costs and logistical headaches from having to lay thousands of miles of new cable, and saves cities and utilities from having to run their own consumer ISP on top of municipal services.

Such was the approach the Chocolate Factory took with Huntsville, Alabama. Earlier this week, the city said it would be leasing out bandwidth on its new municipal fiber network to Google, who will in turn use those lines to offer Fiber to residents. ®

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