POCATELLO — Residents of the Gate City area can now experience breakneck internet speeds after Google Fiber announced it has serviced its first official customer and debuted its speedy fiber optic internet service in Pocatello.
Previously, residents of Pocatello and Chubbuck were limited to a few cable or satellite internet providers available in the area. Now, locals can not only seek a new alternative to these services but also access the new technology, which is faster and generally more reliable.
Representatives of Google Fiber assembled at Lookout Point in Historic Downtown Pocatello on Thursday to commemorate the services unveiling.
“Today is a celebration of our first customer served in the entire state of Idaho, right here in Pocatello,” said Alberto Garcia, the government and community affairs manager at Google Fiber. “This was the first city (in Idaho) that we signed and we have been working on construction for about a year or so. This week, we started serving our first customers in the Alameda neighborhood and we are just going to expand out from there.”
For the uninitiated, Google Fiber is an internet service provider that provides access to their network of fiber optic cables in a similar sense to the functionality of cable internet service providers.
“Our base price is one gigabit of service for $70 a month and that’s up and down speeds,” Garcia said. “It’s going to be faster, it’s going to be more reliable, it’s going to be cheaper. The other component of that is customer service. When you call if you have an issue, if you have a problem, you call that 1-800 number you’re not going to press seven different numbers and then never get to talk to somebody. You’re going to have somebody who answers the phone within 60 seconds and you can address your issues.”
Garcia continued, “You’re going to get fast, reliable internet service. You’re going to get good customer service. That’s why we’re really excited to be here in Pocatello. We are bringing competition to the city. So even if you don’t come with us, we think that it’s just going to make everybody here better. It’s going to make the existing providers have to up their game and they’re going to have to offer faster services and more affordable prices.”
The Gate City area, specifically Pocatello, is the first city within Idaho to receive Google Fiber and it even beat out metropolitan cities in places like Oregon, Montana and Colorado.
While many locals have been looking forward to Google Fiber since its announcement last year, the construction crews laying the fiber cables have created some discontent among the residents of these various neighborhoods as they await the completion of these fiber projects.
“It’s a construction project when we put our infrastructure into the ground,” Garcia said. “I’m sure residents have seen that there’s been construction in either their neighborhood streets, or maybe some of the bigger streets, the connectors. Once we get our fiber into the ground, it’s usually about 30 days to six weeks that you will have access to be able to get the service, just because there’s a lot of technology that goes into it.”
Garcia continued, “We want to make this as seamless as possible because, one, we don’t want to disrupt residents, and two, that’s a potential customer. We want you to eventually be our customers. It’s in our best interest to just keep minimizing disruption, mitigating what’s happening in the neighborhoods and to just be as quick and as efficient as possible.”
In any of the neighborhoods that Google Fiber services, they provide an 800 number on a door hanger that announces their arrival in the area and gives a point of contact for any questions or concerns.
“We want you to call us,” Garcia said. “The city’s a great partner, but it’s our construction project and we want to be responsible for that. We want to take care of these issues. There is a 1-800 number where they can call and they can get that information.”
For anyone interested in finding out if they have Google Fiber coverage in their area, they can visit gfiber.com, submit their address and sign up for updates. While there is still more work to be done across Pocatello to fully install and integrate the fiber cables, the goal is to connect all of Pocatello over the next few years.
“I just want to thank the city of Pocatello,” Garcia said. “The city of Pocatello has been incredible collaborators and supporters throughout this process and there’s a reason Pocatello is the first city in Idaho to get Google Fiber service. That’s because you have a city staff, a city council and a mayor who were innovative in their leadership and said, our residents need more options, and we’re going to give it to them.”
Garcia continued, “I want to thank the city for their collaboration through this process, because it’s a massive construction project. I’m sure people have seen that and we’re going to be constructing for the next year and more. Our goal is to connect the entire city of Pocatello, there may be eventually some obstacles that prevent us from doing that, whether it’s a railroad crossing or a water easement, but even in those instances we’re going to work with the city we’re going to work with other jurisdictions who may have control over that right away to make sure we can get to as many places in Pocatello as possible.”
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