Google Fiber Eyes Louisville, Irvine and San Diego Expansions

Google today confirmed the company is "exploring" three new cities for Google Fiber: Irvine, California, Louisville, Kentucky, and San Diego, California. According to Google, it's working with Irvine, Louisville and San Diego to "conduct a detailed study of factors that affect construction," including local topography, housing density, and the condition of existing infrastructure.

From there, Google says, those cities will be completing Google's checklist of items (which we've published previously ) -- such as providing a map of utility lines -- that will prepare them for a large-scale fiber build.

"It’s clear that Irvine, Louisville and San Diego have strong leaders at city hall, who are passionate about bringing fiber to their communities and making the Internet more accessible for everyone," Google's Jill Szuchmacher said in a blog post.

"From Code Louisville to San Diego’s startup scene to Irvine’s collaborative workplaces, these cities are growing tech hubs with entrepreneurial cultures—great places to show us what’s possible with gigabit speeds.

The three cities join already under construction Google cities (Austin, Provo, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Nashville) as well as Google's other planned city expansions (Phoenix, San Antonio, Portland, San Jose). Despite all of these announced cities, the actual number of served Google Fiber customers (which Google doesn't disclose) likely remains relatively small.

Still, the speed and price have forced legacy ISPs to at least pretend to keep pace, and it has lit a fire under the conversation about the lack of real US broadband competition. All cities have (or will eventually have) access to symmetrical gigabit fiber for $70 a month, or symmetrical fiber and TV service for $130 a month. There's also a "free for life" 5 Mbps option for those who pay a $300 installation fee.

Google doesn't specifically say that San Diego, Louisville and Irvine willget service, but barring some major screw up (or city resistance to Google's demands, which can be deadly ), these cities will probably see construction begin sometime in 2016.