Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and City Councilmember Laura Morrison, along with other City of Austin officials, announced today that Google, Inc., is bringing its 100x faster Internet connectivity—Google Fiber—to Austin, making the city the second in the nation to have this service.

Google Fiber is Google’s Gigabit Internet service that offers Internet connection speeds for homes and businesses up to 100 times faster than today’s average broadband, as well as TV service with hundreds of high-definition channels.

“Three years ago, the City of Austin expressed a desire to have Google’s revolutionary fiber-optic communication infrastructure in Austin,” Mayor Leffingwell said. “We are a city of early adopters and entrepreneurs, and as such, offer the perfect environment for Google Fiber.”

Google will start working immediately to build the infrastructure of the network throughout the Austin city limits. Surveyors and engineers will put together a plan for crews to attach fiber on utility poles and bury it underground to create the local fiber ring. After this process is complete, Google anticipates connecting the first homes by mid-2014. The City of Austin will work with Google to identify 100 public institutions that will receive free Gigabit connections.

“It is an exciting day for our city to welcome Google Fiber to Austin,” Councilmember Morrison said. “The high-speed connectivity will have a great impact on our diverse groups of creative and entrepreneurial citizens, educators and businesses allowing them to develop and execute their concepts at a much faster speed.”

In 2011, after more than 1,100 communities applied to be the first recipient of the Google Fiber technology, Google announced that Kansas City, Kan., would be the first city to receive the technology.

“When Google was originally choosing where to bring fiber, Austin had one of the most enthusiastic responses,” Milo Medin, Vice President of Access Services at Google, Inc., said. “We are excited to see what Austinites can do with Fiber, and we appreciate the work of the city leaders to make it all possible.”

For more information on Google Fiber and to receive updates, please visit the Google Fiber blog and sign up to learn more. For more information about Austin, please contact 512-974-2220.