Editor’s note: Thus guest post was written by Spencer Walston, Head of Sales; Jason Smith, Head of Metro Technical Operations, and Jess George, Government & Community Affairs Manager for Google Fiber in the Triangle.

RALEIGH – The Triangle isn’t just a Google Fiber city — it’s our East Coast hub, and we’ve got a lot going on across the region. Right now, customers can sign up for 1 Gig and 2 Gig in Morrisville and Carrboro, and parts of Cary, Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. And we’re continuing to expand our network across the region. Construction is underway in all of the cities we’re still working to complete our network build, including Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Cary. 

With all that activity, our team is also growing. Just before the pandemic, we’d expanded our downtown Durham offices on Chapel Hill Street to make room for our expanding team, but we haven’t yet gotten the chance to properly move in. We’re looking forward to doing that later this year. Plans for the new space include a lobby featuring the work of our incredible non-profit partners’ digital equity work across the Triangle. Once we’re back in the office, we hope you’ll come and get to know these organizations, whose work has only become even more critical.

Google Fiber rolling out ‘upgraded’ TV service in Triangle, Charlotte

And if you’re looking for your next opportunity, we’d love to have you join the Google Fiber team and help us connect more customers in our area and across the country to great internet. We have both local and central roles open in the Triangle, and, just like Google, we’re growing here and need your help! 

Serving our community

Despite the weirdness of the last year — or maybe because of its challenges — our community impact work continued to grow over the last year. Google Fiber is a lead sponsor of “Building a New Digital Economy” ( BAND-NC ), created by the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State and the Broadband Infrastructure Office at the NC Department of Information Technology. This initiative provides mini-grants to communities to implement digital inclusion plans, begin a digital inclusion planning process, or meet immediate digital needs, with the ultimate goal of making North Carolina the first state with a digital inclusion plan for each county. 

Google Fiber expanding in Triangle, Charlotte after 32% increase in bandwidth demand

Earlier this spring, Google Fiber partner RIoT, along with Facebook Reality Labs and US Ignite launched an augmented reality challenge called RIoT Your Reality. Google Fiber teamed up with The City of Raleigh and the Town of Cary to sponsor an opportunity challenge, “Improving Inclusivity and Accessibility for City Programs & Services,” focusing on using augmented reality to make our cities more inclusive and accessible. The applications are in and candidates are currently going through the pitch process — winners will be announced in July, so stay tuned! 

2020 challenged many of our local institutions to find new ways to connect and engage our communities, and Google Fiber was proud to be able to support these efforts. The Museum of Life & Science brought STEM programming to life during quarantine by creating Field Trip Fridays, behind the scenes visits to see science at work at local businesses throughout Durham and the Triangle. You can take the journey yourself by watching the 2020 recap video or any of the Field Trip Friday Episodes

We continue to focus on our traditional areas of digital inclusion and STEM education, but also added a new focus this year, racial justice and equity. Google Fiber sponsored the United Way of the Greater Triangle’s Anti-Racism Fund, with a clear vision that our work on digital equity is a piece of a much larger puzzle. Creating anti-racist capacity across our community will provide the opportunities for our entire region to grow and thrive

Faster and farther

The Triangle is growing in leaps and bounds, and Google Fiber is so excited to keep working towards connecting the region to the fastest internet in town.