IRVINE – Irvine apartment residents and businesses will likely be the first in Southern California to enjoy Google Fiber, a high-speed network provided by tech giant Google.

Google announced Tuesday that it has teamed up with Irvine Co. to bring the gigabit network to apartment, commercial and retail properties in Irvine. The two companies are deciding which properties will receive the service, said Pete Albers, Google Fiber’s head of real estate partnerships.

“We’re planning to begin work installing our infrastructure in buildings in the next month with the goal of delivering Google Fiber service in the coming months,” Albers said in an email. “This work does take time, but we’ll move as quickly as we’re able, and the infrastructure investments Irvine Co. has made allow us to significantly speed up our time-to-deployment.”

Irvine Co. has been installing empty conduit between and in its properties since the mid-1980s, so the master planner could one day deliver future technology, according to its news release. This infrastructure was a key to bringing Google Fiber to Irvine, the release stated.

“We weren’t sure exactly what the future would hold, but we wanted to be ready for it,” Timothy McClain, Irvine Co. vice president of technology and innovation, said in the release.

Google is also working with the city and other real estate owners and developers to bring the service to other types of buildings, such as single-family homes, Albers said.

The company’s Google Fiber division announced in September that it added Irvine, a city known for its tech industry and educated and affluent residents, to its list of possible expansion cities.

Google Fiber offers broadband speeds up to 1 gigabit, or 1000 megabits, per second. That means downloading a movie in seconds, rather than minutes (or longer).

The average internet connection speed in the United States is about 15 megabits, according to Akamai Technologies’ State of the Internet report.

Google Fiber is currently available in Atlanta, Austin in Texas, Kansas City in Missouri and Kansas, Provo and Salt Lake City in Utah, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn. Prices are $50 per month for 100 megabits internet, $70 for 1 gigabit internet and $130 for internet and cable TV.

Google already has a presence in Irvine with an office at 19510 Jamboree Road. The office houses Google’s engineering and sales teams working on Google Analytics, as well as a suite of revenue and reporting projects that underpin the AdWords platform, according to the company website.

Irvine residents can visit fiber.google.com/cities/irvine to get the latest information on Google Fiber.

Contact the writer: 949-445-6397 or tshimura@ocregister.com