After going back and forth with different internet providers for over 10 years, the Springville City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to allow Google Fiber to dig into the city streets to run fiber throughout the community, ultimately bringing a new service option to individual homes and businesses.

The process to attract Google Fiber dates back to 2013, when officials in nearby Provo promised to bring the service to the community before the end of the year and held true to their word. At the time, citizens in Springville expressed hopes that Provo’s neighbor to the south would be the next step for the company.

Fast forward eight years and Jacob Brace, government and community affairs manager for Google Fiber, announced at Tuesday’s council meeting that the company would start building its network as early as spring of 2022. Brace said fiber would be laid starting from the north end of town, connecting on to the Provo network in that area and moving south throughout Springville.

Brace said Google Fiber likes to do contiguous builds with current infrastructure that Google Fiber and indicated the time was right to come to Springville. A similar approach was taken, he said, as the company built out around Salt Lake City and later moved on to the Holiday area, Millcreek and Murray.

The expected build-out time would be two years or less, Brace said, with completion sometime in 2024. He warned that there will be some places the company cannot get the service to because of homeowner associations that currently exist, along with getting under railroad tracks and other obstacles along the way.

According to Brace, as Google Fiber moves through the city, a 1-inch cut will be made in the roadways close to the gutter where the fiber will be laid in, then filled back up and asphalt applied to patch the work.

The goal, he said, is to get to as many homes in the community as possible, with a cost to residents of $70 per month for 1 gigabit service. A 2-gigabit service plan also will be offered for $100. There will be no hook-up fees for citizens in Springville.

Additionally, a 2% fee will be added to each bill that will be passed along to the city for the use of the roadway, or $1.40 for the $70 gigabit service.

According to the plan approved Tuesday, Springville will be required to keep up with the blue stake process, as Google anticipates laying up to 1 mile of fiber per day as crews move through the city.

Current plans also anticipate connecting to homes on the same side as the electrical connections by taking the fiber in the road to the soft landscaping and then hand-trenching to the home and putting the network box close to existing electrical connections.

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