Google Fiber Shares Plans For Service in Sandy Springs

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The men and women tasked with bringing Google Fiber to Sandy Springs and parts of metro Atlanta have shared exactly how they plan to accomplish that goal.

Representatives with the company recently outlined their objectives to the Sandy Springs City Council during a work session.

Amanda Shailendra, the local partner manager with Google, said the company is building its network from scratch, and it will encompass over 7,000 miles of fiber around the metro Atlanta area.

In Sandy Springs, the plan is to build two huts that will serve as hubs for the network in the city. The first location will be at Fire Station No. 1 at 1425 Spalding Drive and another will be at the Sandy Springs Tennis Center at 500 Abernathy Road.

Residents who live on the southern end of the city could be served by huts in the city of Atlanta due to the distance limitation of those two areas.

Regardless, Chris Carpenter, public affairs consultant with Google, said the company will deliver the 1 gigabyte per second connection to all residents in the service area.

Along with Sandy Springs, Google Fiber will offer service in Atlanta, Smyrna, Brookhaven, Decatur, Avondale Estates, East Point, College Park and Hapeville.

The huts would be 30 feet by 12 feet, and the compound that encloses them would be about 50 feet by 32 feet.

Shailendra said the goal is to build the structures so they blend in with the surrounding area. At the fire station, the company would like to install landscaping in front of the hut that would not impact the entrance and exit of fire trucks to and from the station.

At the tennis center, the hut will be located near the dumpsters on the site. Sandy Springs parks and recreation officials encouraged Google to have the hut blend in with the surroundings, so the wall that will encompass the hut will be painted green to match the the tennis court and fencing.

The wall will be about nine feet high, so residents won’t have to see the structure as well as the dumpster. However, the construction will require the removal of one pine tree, a recommendation made by the city arborist.

The removal of the pine tree, Shailendra said, will help preserve an old oak tree on the site, and she added “we were happy to do that.”

Shailendra said she could not provide to city leaders a concrete time frame on when the service will be up and running, but said the company hopes to move quickly on securing the permits and the engineering needed for the huts. Google, she said, is committed to doing everything in its power to get the service up and running in Sandy Springs as quickly as possible.

Google has said its Fiber service operates at 100 times the speed typically provided by other cable companies, and at a competitive price.

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Photo credit: Google Fiber