Cincinnati community group vies for Google Fiber

Cincinnati is the latest city to lobby Google Fiber (Nasdaq: GOOG) to be the next destination for its 1 Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH) service, reports WLWT News 5.

PG Sittenfeld, a Cincinnati councilman who briefly worked at Google, introduced a campaign earlier this week to get Google to consider it as a Google Fiber city. Fellow council members have encouraged other city leaders to sell the city as a potential target in the service provider's next build-out phase.

Like other U.S. cities, Cincinnati unsuccessfully applied to become a Google Fiber city.

"We want to make sure that we are giving Cincinnati the tools and connectivity that are needed to move at the speed of business and to fulfill our potential as a city of dreamers and a city where dreams come true," Sittenfeld said.

In February, Google Fiber announced it is exploring the idea of bringing its 1 Gbps FTTH service to an additional 34 cities across 9 U.S. metro areas, a move the provider decided to make in the wake of the experience it gained through deployments in Kansas City, Austin and Provo.

Today, Cincinnati can choose from either local incumbent telco Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) or Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), which entered the market when it purchased Insight Communications in 2011.

Leveraging a mix of FTTH and fiber to the node (FTTN), Cincinnati Bell's Fioptics service can provide speeds from 5 to 100 Mbps. However, it has not indicated whether it would provide a 1 Gbps offering.

Earlier this week, Cincinnati Bell's CFO Leigh Fox said during the Raymond James 35th Annual Institutional Investors Conference that it plans to pass 60-70 percent of the city's homes with its fiber to the home (FTTH)-based Fioptics product by 2017.

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- WLWT News 5 has this article

Related articles:
Google Fiber targets 34 more cities as potential FTTH recipients
Cincinnati Bell's Fox: We'll pass 60-70% of homes with Fioptics by 2017