SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Google Fiber plans to bring high-speed Internet to San Francisco using the city's existing fiber-optic cable network.
In a post on the Google Fiber blog by Michael Slinger, Google Fiber's Director of Business Operations on Wednesday, the Google Fiber team says that while they have been focused on building fiber-optic cable networks from scratch, they've decided to bring Google Fiber services to places such as San Francisco and Huntsville, Alabama that already have municipal fiber networks.
The post said Google Fiber plans to "bring service to some apartments, condos, and affordable housing properties, using existing fiber" in the city.
The Google Fiber team says they are focusing on bringing "gigabit speed Internet -- for free" to public and affordable housing properties in San Francisco.
Google Fiber is supposed to run roughly 100 times faster than broadband connections, which travel through copper cables instead of fiber-optic cables.
Provo, Kansas City, Atlanta and Austin already have Google Fiber up and running.
More Google Fiber projects are underway in Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Huntsville.
Google Fiber released this map Wednesday to show where they're operating or plan to operate.
Google Fiber is also looking for non-profit organizations in San Francisco that are interested in hosting Google Fiber fellows. The fellows will teach residents how to use, and take advantage of, the Internet.
The company said they cannot offer details regarding when the high-speed Internet service will be up and running, or which locations might receive the free service.
In December, a San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Legislative Analyst report on the city's fiber network asset management showed that the city doesn't have a map or much information regarding its existing fiber-optic cable network.
The report states, "it is not easy to report the extent of City network assets that could potentially be used to expand the City's network for non-municipal use in the future."The 2015 report does however, estimate that the city has over 260 miles of fiber-optic cables.
Google Fiber isn't the only company working to bring 1-gigabit per second Internet speeds to San Francisco. In December, AT&T announced that AT&T GigaPower will soon come to San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee took to Twitter Wednesday to express his support of Google Fiber in the city.
By Hannah Albarazi - Follow her on Twitter: @hannahalbarazi
