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from the I-have-good-news-and-I-have-bad-news dept.

El Reg reports [theregister.co.uk]

[Google] said that it has signed on to be the ISP for a handful of apartments and condos where fiber lines have already been laid. The move will likely limit the reach of Fiber service in San Francisco early on.

Google said [blogspot.com] [1] [archive.is] the Fiber service will also be running to some affordable housing projects where the service will be offered free of charge.

Despite being a major tech hub, San Francisco itself presents a challenge for companies who would run fiber lines in the hilly terrain, unique architecture, and densely-packed clusters of houses and apartments in many of the city's neighborhoods, where ripping up copper wiring and installing new lines can be a painful and costly endeavor.

[...][Area residents] can check if their apartment or condo is wired for Fiber on Google's website [google.com], and property owners can check for the specifications [google.com] needed to run the service.

This use-what's-already-there approach is what Google announced some days ago for Huntsville, Alabama in contrast to the difficulties and public relations headache they have experienced with excavation in Austin, Texas.

[1] The content is behind scripts. archive.is cures that problem.

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