Google's Access: With Fiber And Its Other Projects
Four years ago, around the unveiling of Google Fiber, Google's leaders have considered spinning out a high-speed internet offering as their own business. This plan never materialized and was eventually scrapped. This notion did open up the merits of providing broadband service that can take on the likes of AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.
Two years later, Fiber went under SVP Craig Baratt, the former Qualcomm exec that joined Google in 2013, along with group of initiatives on clean energy, broadband infrastructure, and wireless communications. Now Baratt is an Alphabet CEO but his subsidiary contains a patchwork of the company's projects on Internet Access, robotics, energy and telecommunications.
Access includes Fiber and it might be the most developed business that is outside of Google's core. It might also be the most capital intensive as CFO Ruth Porat has named it as the spending priority. Reports say that eventually, Access and Energy will soon be re-branded under a new name.
Access has several projects under its belt and it includes Fiber, OnHub, Project Link, RailTel partnership, Project Sunroof, and Project Titan. Today, Fiber is Google's fiber-optic broadband and TV provider that runs in Kansas City, Austin and Provo, Utah. There are plans for it to be launched in nine different cities as well.
Project link, on the other hand, is the Fiber for emerging markets project which was announced two years ago and started in Kampala, Uganda. Just last month, it has been reported that it has already built 700 km of Fiber across the said city and has now added a new one in Ghana.
Meanwhile, last September the tech giant announced that they will be joining a partnership with Indian public broadband provider RailTel. The partnership hopes to outfit the country's 400 railway stations with Wi-Fi.
Project Sunroof, on the other hand, is one of the few energy projects that Google has made public. It is also in a partnership with SolarCity which the company has also invested on. The project, for now, is all about how Google can personalize roof analysis that makes it easier to buy solar panels.
And last but not the least, is Titan. This project is a product of the tech company's purchase of the solar-powered drone maker, Titan Aerospace. Though there is not much progress known, last month, it has been revealed that a paper was filed with the FAA for registering two unmanned vehicles.
Access' most advance and probably most expensive project is Fiber. And if it fully joins the broadband and TV industry, it might prove to be quite the competitor. Analysts have already pegged its reach within the three cities where it has 427,000 households and 96,000 businesses. This might be the beginnings of a big competitor that can provide services for a cheaper price.