Category Archives: Google Fiber

The latest news from the Google Fiber team

Melani Griffith appointed as Chief Growth Officer for Google Fiber

Google Fiber is proud to announce Melani Griffith as the company’s first-ever Chief Growth Officer (CGO). In this role, Melani will continue to set the course for GFiber’s continued customer growth, overseeing the entire customer lifespan from brand and marketing, sales, digital, customer service, and public relations.

Thumbnail

Melani’s strategic leadership and customer advocacy set the stage for GFiber to be one of the most awarded internet companies ever — most recently from JD Power as the top internet service provider in the South Region, with a score of 839, which significantly outperformed any other company in any region in the survey. As Vice President of Customer Engagement, her organization has more than doubled our customer base over the past five years, and established a standard for customer service that is unparalleled in our industry.

As CGO, Melani will continue to lead this charge for GFiber, reshaping the customer experience to provide truly differentiated services that make it easier for them on every front. These efforts include innovative self-driven, real time options; AI integration for more personalized interactions; an upgraded, engaging app experience; and continued focus on the human side of the customer service experience as well. GFiber doesn’t want our customers to ever HAVE to call us, but when they do we want to make sure that it’s notably easy and seamless. This will continue to drive our approach to customer engagement under Melani’s ongoing leadership.
Melani and her leadership team

Melani has over three decades of experience in the telecommunications industry, serving in senior leadership positions at Rogers Communications, Time Warner, Insight Communications, and AMC Networks among others, in a number of different departments including sales, marketing, and content acquisition. She has served on the board for CTAM (Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing) and the national board of directors for Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT). 

“Our goal at GFiber is to redefine customer experience — providing customers with service that’s not just different but unparalleled,” said Dinni Jain, CEO. “Melani is exactly the right leader to bring that vision to life. Her pursuit of operational excellence is matched only by her dedication to our customers. It’s that tenacity that will lead to the type of operational excellence and continuous improvement that our customers should expect from us.”

Posted by the GFiber Team

Getting to work in Bellevue, Nebraska

In September, Google Fiber announced that we are planning to bring fast, reliable internet to Bellevue, Nebraska. We’re currently in the planning process and intend to start construction this winter with the goal of starting to offer service to our first customers in the city by the middle of the year.


In Bellevue, we’re working with a new construction vendor for us — ALLO Fiber — to build our network. A Nebraska-based company, ALLO Fiber has connected residents in the state for the past 20 years, and is ready to hit the ground running. In fact, that’s why we’re able to start building the network so quickly — matching our fastest time from announcement to construction ever in Mesa, AZ! We’re looking forward to working together to bring GFiber’s award-winning internet service into homes across the city.


The City of Bellevue is committed to bringing better internet to their residents, and GFiber is looking forward to being a part of that connected future. We’re excited to be working with an innovative, like-minded local company to make it happen. We’ll continue to look for new ways to deliver quality internet services to communities ever more rapidly. If you are interested in updates on our progress in Bellevue and availability in your area, sign up here.


Posted by Andy Simpson, General Manager - Central Region

San Antonio’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy (YWLA) empowering young women with the support of Google Fiber

Google Fiber is committed to supporting women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). As part of that commitment, we have supported the San Antonio Young Women's Leadership Academy Robotics program for the past several years with a grant that enables more young women at the academy to participate in the program. With the success of the program and the team winning their first competition this year, Ignacia Negrete Kilgore, YWLA CTE Departmental Chair shares the impact the program is making and how grateful she is for the sponsorships and partnerships that resulted in the success of the program so far.




Young Women’s Leadership Academy (YWLA) is a nonprofit STEM-focused organization in San Antonio, Texas. The entirety of what we do is dedicated to supporting young women by providing them with the necessary academic skills in STEM to achieve success in college — and it’s an organization I’m proud to be a part of. Right now, we serve over 500 female students, the majority of whom are Latina, live in low income households, and soon will become first generation college students.

Thumbnail

But before we get into the heart of the work we do at YWLA, I want to tell you a bit about how I fit into all of this. 

I started my engineering journey at Texas Tech University. I didn't know much about engineering at all — but I knew I wanted to learn. At first, it was very challenging, especially being one of the few women in the mechanical engineering program, and a Latina who was still learning English. I knew during my time there that I wanted to help change this feeling of “outsiderness” for future female engineers.

Soon after I graduated from Texas Tech, I was approached by a representative of YWLA with the opportunity to teach engineering to young women in their program. Just as I’d hoped, my doorway to make a difference in my field opened up. That was 8 years ago — and I’m still here, doing the work that I love by serving the future of women in STEM. 

Shortly after I started teaching, I began envisioning where I wanted my engineering program to go. That’s when the transformation of San Antonio’s only all-girl  FRC  Robotics program came into play.  

I got to work with my team and quickly added courses that would give our students certifications like AutoCAD, Inventor, and college credits for Computer Science, which led to the Robotics team qualifying for competitions. It was a big moment for our program and our students. But we had another massive hurdle to overcome -a stark lack of funding. 

Simply put, though we began to qualify for state competitions, we couldn’t afford to attend them. This felt incredibly unfair to our hardworking students, so once again… we got to work.

I put together a sponsorship package and was grateful to connect with a local member of the GFiber team, who understood the importance of the program and knew it was the type of digital Inclusion and equity initiative that GFiber works to support. 



That connection changed everything for us. Thanks to GFiber, we've been able to grow the program, provide better equipment, and not only qualify for competitions, but attend them (with multiple students)!  

Last year, the program was able to pay for additional hotel rooms, food, and rent an additional vehicle to carry a total of 14 students (almost the entire team) to the competition. This was a game changer for our  kids. Now, they could do the work and see their work in a competitive environment. This excitement from our students has radiated outwards. Our program is growing like never before and our graduates are ascending to new heights — attending prestigious engineering schools. 

We've had students go to MIT, Brown University,  Rice University, Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin, among others. In addition to getting into these competitive programs, the girls who participate in the robotics program are persisting through their rigorous engineering and stem degree programs to earn their degrees. The demands of the competitive robotic environment helps them build foundational skills for navigating these male-dominated spaces at the college level and beyond. This is the kind of impact that the YWLA Robotics program is making with the support of GFiber.



The achievements of our Robotics program would not be possible without a supportive team of people contributing to our success. We are truly blessed to have mentors and volunteers with great skills and experience. I am also thankful for my Head of School, Delia Montelongo, and my mentor and friend, Ashley Cash; these two inspiring women have taught me the skills needed to advocate for female STEM education and have always trusted and given me the freedom to go out there and find sponsors and partners like GFiber. It is amazing to see the growth and success that has come about due to all the support. I look forward to the continuous success of the Robotics program to educate and impact many more young girls, making great strides towards digital equity and inclusion.

Posted By Ignacia Kilgore, CTE Departmental Chair - San Antonio YWLA



8 Gig taking off now in Huntsville!

Less than a month ago we rolled out 5 Gig service in Huntsville, and Google Fiber is ready to turn the speed up once again for our customers in Alabama! As of today, you can sign up for our symmetrical 8 Gig service in the Rocket City for just $150 a month. 

The 8 Gig plan includes symmetrical upload and download speeds up to 8,000 Mbps, a Wi-Fi 6 router (or you can use your own), up to 2 mesh extenders for strong WI-Fi coverage, and professional installation with GFiber’s dedicated customer service.


Thumbnail


Huntsville is a city that’s always been on the cutting edge of technology, and GFiber has loved being a part of the story of innovation that drives the city. We can’t wait to see what happens when our customers put all that speed to use, whether it’s multi-stream streaming, speed-of-thought gaming, big data uploads and downloads, or something we can’t even imagine. We know big things are happening in Huntsville — and they can happen even faster with GFiber 8 Gig.


Posted by Nick Saporito, Head of Product

Wi-Fi Focus: How Does Wi-Fi Work?

Have you ever wondered how Wi-Fi makes it possible to connect to the internet without any wires at all? Wi-Fi is often an abstract concept, but we think it’s important that you understand what it is and exactly how it works — so you can make the most of your wireless connection.

Thumbnail

Let’s start with the basics: What is Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to give you internet access. Through Wi-Fi, you can connect devices within a limited range like in your home, office or a coffee shop — all without a wired ethernet cord.

You can think of your Wi-Fi like a highway. Similar to a highway, Wi-Fi is made up of a network of roads that allow data to travel from one place to another. The wider and more lanes there are on a highway, the more traffic it can handle. Likewise, the more bandwidth your Wi-Fi has, the more traffic (or data packets) it can support. The amount of bandwidth your Wi-Fi can support will largely depend on which Wi-Fi technology your device is equipped with — like Wi-Fi 5, 6 or 6E.



What are data packets?

When you’re playing an online game or downloading files to your laptop, you are doing that through data packets. Data packets are small units of data transmitted over a network. You can think of them like vehicles on the internet highway.

These packets contain information such as text, images, videos and more. They move along the internet highway guided by specific addresses and routes (like your gaming console) to reach their destinations. In the same way larger trucks might travel more slowly on a highway, the bigger the data packet, the slower it might travel.

How does the Wi-Fi router come into play?

Your Wi-Fi router allows your devices to access the internet, and to send and receive data. It acts like an exit ramp on the internet highway, connecting your devices to the broader internet by using wireless signals. Your router makes sure the data packets from your devices know how to enter and exit the local network and connect to the right lanes on the highway.





Configuring your Wi-Fi router’s settings

Your router's settings allow you to control various aspects of your network. You can specify which devices have priority (like HOV lanes), set up firewalls (like roadblocks) and manage the overall flow of data (like controlling the speed limit).

You should keep in mind that Wi-Fi routers have a limited range — like how an onramp can only serve a certain area. The strength of the wireless signals gets weaker as you move farther away from the router.

Understanding slowdowns over Wi-Fi

Lastly, we’ll go over why you might sometimes experience slower speeds than usual. In the same way a highway can experience traffic congestion, your Wi-Fi network may slow down when too many devices are using it at once. This is because the data packets (vehicles) have to share the available bandwidth (lanes), leading to slower speeds. To learn how you can maximize your Wi-Fi speeds, check out our other blog post.

Now that you’ve learned the ins and outs of Wi-Fi and how it gets your devices online, we hope you’re able to use this knowledge to drive safely and have a smooth commute on the internet superhighway.

Posted By Ishan Patel, Product Manager

Google Fiber Webpass now available in Charlotte


Google Fiber Webpass has made its grand entrance in Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte joins Austin,TX and Nashville,TN as locations where we offer two different options for fast, reliable internet- available either through our fiber-to-the-home network or a simple but powerful combination of fiber-optic and wireless technology.


Thumbnail

Google Fiber Webpass is a point to point wireless technology that links apartments, condominiums and offices through millimeter wave and wireless radio technology connecting more people to high speed internet in a concentrated populated area. This option offers browsing speeds of up to 1 Gig through a mesh network that utilizes both wireless and fiber optic components.


Charlotte, NC has become a thriving city and is ranked high as one of the best places to live and also one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. Access to fast and reliable internet will provide enhanced opportunities for residents to study and work from home, stream favorite shows and enjoy gaming online. Condominiums like The Madison have started enjoying the benefits of Google Fiber Webpass. We will continue converting one Ethernet-wired building at a time- allowing more and more residents to stay connected, furthering our commitment towards fast and reliable internet service for everyone.


The Google Fiber Charlotte Team is excited to bring the option of high speed internet service via Google Fiber Webpass to Charlotteans. To find out if service will be available in your building, check availability here.


Posted by David Scott, Senior Real Estate Partnership Lead Google Fiber


How to make your home network more secure and less scary


October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month- a month dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of cybersecurity. Because nothing is scarier than having your Wi-Fi hacked, we've updated this classic blog to help you keep your network safer everyday. No need to feel any deja boo, keeping your Wi-Fi security up-to-date can help keep internet boogeymen at bay.


Thumbnail


Most of us use Wi-Fi networks to connect to the Internet. It’s so easy to get online over Wi-Fi that  it can be easy to overlook Wi-Fi security, and that can cause some problems from the minorly scary (think Haunted Mansion) to majorly terrifying (Shining-level).


Why do we care?


In almost every security presentation or document, there is a “scare the user” section … and this is that section. Here we’ll list all the horrible things that can happen if you don’t secure your Wi-Fi network. They’re listed from just annoying to horrifying.


 1. Piggybacking:

Simply put, someone else can use your home Wi-Fi to access the internet. In most cases, this will merely increase the use of your network bandwidth (which, if  you are using a network provider other than GFiber, may also impact your bill). But if they use your network connection to perform illegal activities, it can make your life very difficult. The last thing anyone wants is a knock on the door from the police due to illegal activity traced to your house. Or more likely receiving a copyright violation notice from your ISP or possibly having your service terminated for copyright infringement.


2. Network capture/sniffing:

Looking at what someone else is doing on a computer network requires two things: access to that network and the ability to decode the traffic once you have that access. With Wi-Fi, access is easy … no physical connection is required, just someone close enough to access the radio signal (and with modern antennas, that can be surprisingly far away — up to a mile). As for decoding what you are up to online, while most internet traffic is encrypted by the application (thank you TLS, not everything is protected … and you’d be surprised how much metadata about someone’s activities you can get from the unencrypted traffic. You can potentially tell what websites someone is visiting, even if you can’t see the web traffic itself.


3. Abusing network services:

Many people have network attached printers, file servers, cameras, home security systems, and other smart home devices. Most of these devices try very hard to make using them easy and intuitive … the last thing manufacturers want is to annoy their customers with too many steps. But the same features that make it easy for you to use may make it easy for an attacker to use as well. This can range from printing garbage to stealing data from your file servers to watching people via the camera and even unlocking your front door.


But there are ways to prevent all these problems. Below you’ll find ways to make your home network more secure. We’ve listed them from easy to hard, from most important to least important. At a high level, everyone should do steps 1 & 2, and should think about step 3. If you’re especially tech savvy, then step 4 is a good step to take, although it can make troubleshooting access issues a bit more difficult. Finally, step 5 isn’t a technical step, but is standard maintenance that everyone should consider.


 

 Step 1: Encryption


The first step, and one that is more and more common by default on Wi-Fi devices, is to enable encryption. There are several Wi-Fi encryption standards, with different levels of rigor and difficulty to break. Starting with WEP, then came WPA, WPA2, and WPA3. As these levels have evolved, they’ve gotten harder and harder to crack, using the latest in cryptographic standards.


Setting up Wi-Fi encryption is a fairly straightforward task. For Google Fiber devices, the online support pages walk you through enabling WPA3 encryption on the network box (and here’s how to do it on Google WiFi). Other manufacturers will have other processes to enable Wi-Fi encryption, and if it isn’t done by default, it should be the first step you take when setting up your home network (search online if instructions are not included in the box).



Step 2: Obfuscation

Almost every Wi-Fi access point that ships today comes with a default SSID and default login credentials (aka admin password). This is handy and helpful for launching the device, but these defaults are often easily determined, printed on the side of the device, or both. As such, changing them to something you know that’s hard for others to guess is a great way to prevent someone easily figuring out the credentials and taking over your Wi-Fi device.


The same page that shows how to set up encryption on the Google Fiber network box also walks through changing the SSID and password (check here for how to do this on Google WiFi).


 

Step 3: Separation

Do you have smart home devices at home? Does half your house chirp if you say “Hey Google” or “Alexa”? Maybe an Android TV device for watching YouTube TV on your main set? If so, often these devices don’t need to be on the same network as your home computers, phones, tablets, and other computer devices.


Many newer Wi-Fi routers allow you to set up multiple SSIDs, sometimes also referred to as setting up a guest network in addition to your main one. In this way, you can separate your smart home devices from your main household network, isolating devices that don’t need to talk to the printer or file servers or the like off into their own space. With the explosion of devices that simply connect to the internet, there is no reason to allow them to access other local devices.



Step 4: Authorization


Most Wi-Fi routers have the ability to lock down an SSID so that only devices with approved MAC addresses can use them. At a high level, a MAC address is a unique* identifier that every network device has for identifying it on the local network. While the IP address assigned to that device may change, the MAC will stay the same*.


Given this, if you know the MAC addresses of the devices in your house, you can lock your Wi-Fi so that ONLY those devices can access the network. So even if an attacker was able to get the SSID and encryption information, they still couldn’t access the network as their device wouldn’t be on the approved list.






Step 5: Rotation/Validation

So at this point, you’ve set up your home router: It is encrypted, with a personalized SSID, and has new admin credentials. You may also have set up multiple networks to separate devices that don’t need to talk to each other. Perhaps you’ve even gone to the effort of locking devices by MAC address. You’ve done the key technical steps, and now it’s time to think about maintenance. 


Just like you change the oil in your car, the filters in your furnace/AC, or the batteries in your smoke detectors, so you also need to update and change the settings of your Wi-Fi every 6 months or so:


  • unchecked

    The first thing to do is check for updates. Similar to how the OS on your phone/computer/etc receives new versions, there will also be new versions of the firmware that runs your Wi-Fi router. Check to make sure you’re running the latest version — if you aren’t sure how to do this for your device, do an online search with your model name/number and “firmware update.”

  • unchecked

    Review your router logs. Check to make sure you know all the devices that are on your network. If you set up MAC address filtering, verify all those devices are still in use. If you threw something out, then make sure you’ve removed it from the approved address list.

  • unchecked

    Rotate the encryption key. This is going to be annoying, there is no way to get around that. Every device on that SSID will need to be updated with the new key. But if you did have someone who had figured out the key and was surreptitiously using your Wi-Fi, rotating the key will knock them off your network.

  • unchecked

    Change the admin credentials. Similar to underwear, passwords should not be shared and should be changed regularly.


Wi-Fi is here to stay and will remain the main way we’ll be getting online for the foreseeable future. By taking a little bit of time, you can make sure that there are no security surprises lurking on your home network.


Posted by Chris Roosenraad, Head of Security, Privacy, & Trust.


* Yes, MAC addresses can be changed, but that is rare, and highly unusual.

Google Fiber officially names Rocco Laurenzano Chief Operating Officer

Google Fiber is proud to announce Rocco Laurenzano as Chief Operating Officer. In his five and a half years with GFiber, Rocco’s leadership has been instrumental in establishing the operational excellence that has set the stage for our current expansion and growth. Rocco has been serving in the role unofficially for some time now. In his role as Vice President of Operations, he was already overseeing expansion, build, customer operations, and project management.


Thumbnail

The results of these efforts have fueled GFiber’s incredible growth over the past few years — creating a construction organization that has almost tripled build volume over the last four years and increased our service footprint by almost 2x over the same period. A key architect of the company’s expansion strategy, Rocco has led our expansion to new states and more fully building out our existing cities. He’ll continue to lead all of these efforts in his new role as COO.


Prior to joining GFiber, Rocco served in senior operations leadership roles at Altice USA, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, and Insight Communications. 


Rocco with his leadership team


“I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of working with Rocco over many years and in many capacities,” said Dinni Jain, CEO. “What he brings to any team is operational excellence, balanced with a clear appreciation for the people he works with, and the understanding of how to create a culture of accountability and constant improvement with a strong foundation of trust. This is truly a case of the right leader at the right time for a company.”


Posted by the GFiber Team

Mesa pursues digital equity and literacy

The City of Mesa’s strong commitment to digital equity played a key role in Google Fiber coming to town. The city is working towards connecting their residents to quality internet and the digital skills they need to navigate the world we live in, and their efforts are garnering national attention. Mesa was recently named a BroadLAND City USA by INCOMPAS. The award recognizes cities dedicated to speeding up deployment of new broadband networks in their local community. The city aims to create opportunities and promote competition- which bridges the digital divide for families and businesses in the community. 

thumbnail

This commitment is exactly why GFiber recently invested in furthering these goals with a $25,000 donation to the Mesa College Promise program. The money will go to students working to obtain an associate’s degree in the STEM field of their choice from Mesa Community College (MCC). Graduates from eligible schools can go to MCC for two years with Arizona resident tuition and fees fully funded.The program supports students who have not received enough financial aid or other scholarships to completely cover the cost of college. 



Nearly 600 Mesa high school students have benefited from the Mesa College Promise program since its inception in 2021. College Promise students also receive a stipend each semester for up to two years to use for books, transportation or other educational expenses and have a dedicated MCC advisor to provide academic and personal support. Those wanting to learn more about the Mesa College Promise can visit mesacc.edu/mesa-promise. 

GFiber is intentional in making investments that positively impact the communities we serve- supporting STEM, digital equity and digital literacy programs and initiatives. Find out more information about the local alliances and partnerships we have and projects we support here

Posted by Will Novak, Government and Community Affairs Manager 


Mesa pursues digital equity and literacy

The City of Mesa’s strong commitment to digital equity played a key role in Google Fiber coming to town. The city is working towards connecting their residents to quality internet and the digital skills they need to navigate the world we live in, and their efforts are garnering national attention. Mesa was recently named a BroadLAND City USA by INCOMPAS. The award recognizes cities dedicated to speeding up deployment of new broadband networks in their local community. The city aims to create opportunities and promote competition- which bridges the digital divide for families and businesses in the community. 

thumbnail

This commitment is exactly why GFiber recently invested in furthering these goals with a $25,000 donation to the Mesa College Promise program. The money will go to students working to obtain an associate’s degree in the STEM field of their choice from Mesa Community College (MCC). Graduates from eligible schools can go to MCC for two years with Arizona resident tuition and fees fully funded.The program supports students who have not received enough financial aid or other scholarships to completely cover the cost of college. 



Nearly 600 Mesa high school students have benefited from the Mesa College Promise program since its inception in 2021. College Promise students also receive a stipend each semester for up to two years to use for books, transportation or other educational expenses and have a dedicated MCC advisor to provide academic and personal support. Those wanting to learn more about the Mesa College Promise can visit mesacc.edu/mesa-promise. 

GFiber is intentional in making investments that positively impact the communities we serve- supporting STEM, digital equity and digital literacy programs and initiatives. Find out more information about the local alliances and partnerships we have and projects we support here

Posted by Will Novak, Government and Community Affairs Manager