Google today disappointed many who were eagerly awaiting its announcement of the winner of the Google Fiber initiative. Google had earlier said that the winner will be announced by the end of the year but today reportedly delayed it into 2011. For all those towns and cities that were so eager to have the Google fiber, will just have to wait. Google said the reason for the delay is the huge demand making it hard for it to choose a finalist.
Google is to announce a US community and wire it up with 1Gbps fiber followed by making the fiber network open so any internet provider can sell service on it. Many cities went to great lengths to get Google to pick them including the city of Topeka that changed its name to Google, Kansas, while a Raleigh, North Carolina city council member offered to name his unborn twins Sergey and Larry Gaylord if Raleigh got the nod.
Today Google said that it “had planned to announce our selected community or communities by the end of this year, but the level of interest was incredible—nearly 1,100 communities across the country responded to our announcement—and exceeded our expectations. While we’re moving ahead full steam on this project, we’re not quite ready to make that announcement.”
Google might take a few more months to make up its mind.