Finally?

Google Fiber may at last be on the cusp of committing to Portland.

A tech organization in Charlotte, North Carolina - one of the cities where Google Fiber is already building its hyperfast Internet service - says Google managers told them following an event there this week that Portland is on deck.

"We were talking afterward and they came right out and said Portland is going to be the next city," said Alan Fitzpatrick, a North Carolina entrepreneur and co-founder of Charlotte Hearts Gigabit, which promotes high-speed Internet service in the region.

There were six people in the conversation, Fitzpatrick said - him, one of his co-founders and four Google Fiber managers. He declined to name the individuals from Google but said they were all senior managers in a position to know the company's plans.

"It kind of caught me off guard," Fitzpatrick said. "I almost thought one of them told me something they weren't supposed to."

Good news for Portland - they will be the next city selected for Google Fiber. Announcement forthcoming. — Clt Hearts Gigabit (@CltHeartsGb) June 12, 2015

"It's great to see people excited about what's next for Fiber, but we don't have any announcements for now," Google said in a written statement. "We continue to work with Portland-area cities to explore bringing Google Fiber to the region."

Take the conversation for whatever it's worth, then, and add it to a sizable pile of tea leaves suggesting it's only a matter of time before Google Fiber makes its Portland plans official.

Google has been scouting the Portland area for 16 months and has already won a franchise agreement with the city and other accommodations, plus a change in state law to exempt its service from an unusual Oregon property tax.

Google Fiber also posted a series of Portland job openings over the past year, including many top posts. And Portland General Electric, which owns most of the utility poles in the city, said Friday it's negotiating to give Google Fiber access to those poles for its fiber-optic lines.

In addition to Portland, Google Fiber is also considering service in Gresham, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Beaverton and Hillsboro. The company sent representatives to meet with a number of Portland suburbs last month.

Google Fiber offers Internet connections at 1 gigabit per second - 40 times faster than the current broadband standard - for $70 a month. Cable TV service through Google costs an additional $60 a month.

The landscape of Internet service in Portland has changed dramatically since Google Fiber first began courting the city in February 2014. At that time, no major company offered residential gigabit connections

If Google Fiber proceeds now, though, it would be the fourth.

CenturyLink and Frontier Communications each began offering gigabit connections in parts of their service territories last year, and Comcast says it will offer 2-gigabit connections in Portland later this year. Google's gigabit connections are cheaper than its rivals' but the company would already be playing catch-up as it starts a buildout that would surely take years.

Meanwhile, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego and other cities are contemplating their own residential fiber networks - more potential competition for Google Fiber, though the company says it welcomes anything that expands broadband access.

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway