Google delays decision on faster metro Atlanta Internet service

Google is going slower in its push to put super-fast Internet connections around the nation.

The company said Thursday that it has delayed plans to announce this year the next round of cities where it will install residential service connections 100 times faster than the average for U.S. homes.

The city of Atlanta and eight other cities locally are among those Google has been considering.

“While we were hoping to have an update for cities before the holidays, we have a bit more work to wrap up; we’ll be back in touch sometime early next year,” spokesperson Kelly Mason wrote in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“We’ve been working closely with cities in metro Atlanta to figure out how we could bring them Google Fiber, and we’re grateful for their vision, commitment, and plain old hard work.”

Google is already deploying fiber in Austin, Kansas City and Provo, Utah, and is considering doing so in other areas, including the cities of Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs and Smyrna.

Rival AT&T announced in October that it will deploy its own gigabit-per-second speeds to homes inside the city limits of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Decatur and Newnan. But it hasn’t disclosed when it will roll out the service or how much it will charge.

AT&T also is still considering whether to provide the fast residential connections inside the city limits of Alpharetta, Duluth, Lawrenceville, Lithonia, McDonough, Marietta, Norcross, Woodstock as well as a number of other U.S. communities.

Atlanta-based Cox Communications, whose parent company owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, launched gigabit service in Phoenix in October.