San Antonio, Texas, just took one giant step into the future.
Mayor Ivy Taylor announced Wednesday that Google Fiber, a high-speed Internet and TV service that offers considerably faster connections than typical broadband, is coming to the Southwest city.
San Antonio is the ninth location in the United States to receive the service. It's long been considered a possible location for Google Fiber, though the city's size and terrain apparently presented a challenge.
"This could mean amazing things for increasing access for affordable internet services throughout our community," Taylor said, according to local TV station KENS 5.
Superfast, gigabit-per-second connections are very much an emerging product for service providers like Google and AT&T. As detailed in a Google blog post, fiber connections require infrastructure beyond typical connections to operate.
"We’ll work closely with city leaders over the next several months to plan the layout of over 4,000 miles of fiber-optic cables -- enough to stretch to Canada and back -- across the metro area," Mark Strama, the head of Google Fiber's Texas division, wrote in the blog post.
The price for superfast Internet services can vary depending on location, as The Huffington Post reported in March. There aren't many competitors, so companies can charge a premium if they're the only game in town.
That said, Google Fiber appears to have consistent prices city-to-city -- at least for now. Customers can expect to pay $70 a month for the Internet-only service, or $130 for Internet and TV.