We know that Google Fiber customers want more flexibility and control in accessing the streaming content they want. Our goal as customers transition to streaming has always been to help them navigate the different options and find what works best for them, from devices to content providers. This was potentially a major change that could affect the daily habits of our customers, and we wanted to make it as painless as possible. 

One definite pain point was live sports. No matter where they live, people are devoted to their teams (yes, we see you KC Royals and Atlanta Braves fans!) and many want to be able to watch as many games as possible. This requires access to specific regional sports networks (RSNs) in most places, many of which do not have wide streaming distribution availability. 

We want to make it easier for customers to find their team (and other content). Today, I’m excited to announce that we’ve added DIRECTV STREAM to the line-up of streaming options available to existing customers. DIRECTV STREAM features other live TV options, in addition to live sports and On-Demand content and new subscribers receive unlimited cloud DVR. Additionally, as of today, DIRECTV STREAM is currently offering a 5-day free trial to all their new customers. 

Posted by Liz Hsu, Director, Product Strategy

From time to time, we like to share insights from some of our amazing partners on the tools they offer to help our customers get the most out of their internet service. Today, we’re featuring a blog post from Dan O’Connell, Chief Strategy Officer at Dialpad detailing his recommendation on how to make your  business ready for the internet age. The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong only to Dan O’Connell, and do not necessarily reflect that of Google Fiber. 

Whether you’re a first-time small business owner (in which case, congratulations on getting it off the ground!), an experienced professional, or just trying to help someone get their small business started, know there are certain things that no business should be without. Some may be obvious, while others are often (tragically) overlooked.

Let’s take a look at four essentials that no small business should be without (and why).

1. A website

Let’s be real: we’re living in a digital world, and if you don’t have an online presence, you might as well be a ghost. No matter what kind of business you run, customers will still want to check out your website.

Depending on your business, customers could go to your site for basic information, to place orders, see what you have to offer, or any number of other reasons.

I recommend creating a website where your potential customers can find that info quickly. Fortunately, it’s easy to get started—the first step is to buy a domain which you can do from a number of services. From there, it’s time to build your website, create a web presence (time to brush up on search engine optimization), and make sure your site has all the information your customers will need.

Oh, and don’t forget about social media! Having a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn page can help build a customer base, get information out, and give your customers a way to contact you directly.

2. Fast, reliable internet

What good is a website if it takes ages to load? You need a fast internet connection (that’s not going to glitch) to properly reply to customer queries, receive orders, and manage your online presence.

This is especially true if you use the internet for VoIP calls, video meetings, messaging, and so on. (You don’t want your video or audio cutting out mid-call!)

Thankfully, there are some fast and affordable internet service providers out there.

3. A unified communications platform

This is where we start getting into the technology that can make or break your business.

When your customers need to contact you, how do they do that? Do they call? Send an email? Text message you? What about your sales team or contact center—what do they use?

This is where a good unified communications (UC) system is vital. A proper UC platform, like Dialpad, seamlessly combines all your communications channels into a single solution.

What, exactly, does that mean for your business? With Dialpad, for instance, you’ll get:

• Voice, video, messaging, and contact center, all on a single app

• The ability to take business calls on your computer or mobile device, all from the same number (so you can take calls anywhere without giving out your personal cell phone number)

• The ability to set up a contact center and add agents in literally minutes

• Insights and analytics into all your business’s calls

• AI support for your contact center agents and sales reps

• And a whole lot more!

For most businesses, a mix (or all) of these things is essential for growing your customer base and working from anywhere.

4. Customer relationship management

What’s a business without its customers? It’s not.

That’s why you need a good customer relationship management (CRM) system to help with your business’ relationships and interactions with customers.

CRM systems help manage contacts, sales, agent productivity, and of course, individual customer relationships. They do this by saving customer and prospect information (including past topics they’ve called in about), finding sales opportunities, and managing marketing campaigns.

In short, they’re essential tools for keeping customers satisfied and bringing them back by providing personalized experiences and keeping agents and reps informed.

Best of all? You can even integrate unified communications platforms with your CRM—like how Dialpad can integrate with Salesforce, Kustomer, or Hubspot to let agents launch calls with a click from within the CRM, and then automatically log the call details when they’re done.

Remember…

The saying “if you build it, they will come” isn’t necessarily true anymore. Building the business is the first step, but you also need to build an online presence (with a speedy internet connection), reliable service and support (from a great unified communications platform), and good customer relationships.

The good news is: all of those are within your reach. All you have to do is find the right services for your business, and you’ll see the difference that they can make.

Posted by Dan O’Connell, Chief Strategy Officer, Dialpad

If you’ve been following Google Fiber, you know that we’ve been buzzing right along. Growing in our existing cities, improving our already awesome customer experience and service reliability, refining our construction methods to enable rapid and efficient network construction, and even launching service in new places. 

The success of these efforts has paved the way for even more expansive growth. And today we’re sharing what (or, rather, where!) is next for Google Fiber.

I’m especially excited about this announcement, as it’s in my home state of Arizona. On July 11, the Mesa City Council is expected to vote on measures that will enable Google Fiber to deploy a gigabit speed, fiber-to-the-home network in Mesa. Mayor John Giles and the city staff have worked tirelessly on this issue, and Google Fiber is honored to join them in advancing their goals of increasing choices, connectivity and bandwidth throughout the city. 

If approved by the City Council, we'll kick off the engineering and operations effort right away and begin construction in Mesa early next year.

If you’re in Mesa and want to stay up to date on our progress, you can sign up here for updates on offerings and availability. And stay tuned … things are just heating up in Arizona.

Posted by Ashley Church, General Manager, West Region

A lot has happened since we last checked in from Nashville. Over the past year, we’ve more than doubled our service area in Nashville, and we expect to add a similar number of new households this year. We are working closely with Metro Nashville to allow us to achieve our goal of bringing fast, reliable internet to more people all across the city.

That progress has paved the way for conversations in some surrounding communities, including Smyrna, where we stood with the mayor and the town council today to announce that we’d be beginning construction on a new fiber network later this year. We’re grateful for the opportunity to bring Google Fiber service to this vibrant community.

Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed and Ryun Jackson

We’re looking forward to connecting Smyrna residents to everything the internet has to offer, as we continue our build out in the city of Nashville as well. With all this growth, we’re also growing our team (including me — I joined the team in May, moving from Memphis to Nashville!), and looking for more people to help us keep the momentum going as we expand in Nashville and beyond. 

The Google Fiber Nashville team recently made welcome home boxes for the Nashville USO.

Posted by Ryun Jackson,Government & Community Affairs Manager

Welcome to Connect! The official Google Fiber blog has a new look, but remains the place to get the latest news and information on what’s happening with Google Fiber and our products, meet our team, and get an inside look at each of our cities, along with anything else in the GFiber-sphere.

Connect is what we do in the real world — bringing fast, reliable internet to more people and businesses in our communities every day, so we thought it was a fitting title for how we tell our stories online. We hope you’ll check in regularly and you can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram for updates. 

Posted by Sunny Gettinger, Head of External Communications 

Google Fiber works with organizations across the country to help address digital equity issues in our communities. We love to share their stories on the Google Fiber blog and hear about the impact of their amazing work from the people they serve. 

About the program:

Digi-Bridge and Google Fiber have teamed up to launch free virtual STEAM Lab programs designed to engage underserved 4th through 8th graders in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus Counties (including Charlotte and Concord) in a hands-on exploration of technology in the arts, coding, gaming and design engineering.

STEAM Lab arrived after Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reported a significant decrease in Science EOG scores in 5th and 8th grade from 2019 to 2021. STEAM Lab provides an engaging learning experience hands-on, yet virtual experience for partner school students by pairing personal learning kits of materials with virtual instruction led by the student's teachers. This additional learning time for students is an effort to promote academic exploration and increased testing scores.

Today, we’re spotlighting a STEAM Lab student, I.T., who has been participating in two courses with Digi-Bridge’s Virtual STEAM Lab — the Design Engineering Process, where students learn the fundamentals of building using geometric concepts, and Art & Tech, where students learn about foundational graphic design skills, such as pixel art and stop-motion animation. Check out his experience below!  

Meet I.T.:

Hello, My name is Isaiah “I.T.” Twyman and I am a 5th grade student at Druid Hills Academy in Digi-Bridge’s Virtual STEAM Lab sponsored by Google Fiber. I’m 11 years old and enjoy playing video games, coding and soccer after school. 

I live off in Northwest Charlotte. I like it, but I really like being near my grandparents in Mallard Creek. My grandfather lives in a house and teaches me a lot of hands-on things, like how to plug tires, how to work with circuits and how to stop and enjoy life! We love going on walks. Also, during the program he helped with my circuit greeting card project. 

Those are all the things that I like. Also, if you didn’t know, my dream is to recreate Jurassic Park! STEAM Lab is cool because I like creating new stuff all the time! For example, a zip line or playing with electric circuits or anything related to video games. 

I really enjoyed the Pixel Art. I'm into coding and Digi-Bridge made it easy to understand. I love trying to code and make video games. I actually like to create games in my free time!

Here’s what a regular morning in Virtual STEAM Lab looks like for me:

6:00- I brush my teeth and wash my face. If I have time, I play my game and just chill out. 

8:00-8:45- I will eat a breakfast that I can make, like a Cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. 

8:45- Set-up for my classroom in the kitchen. We sit separately from my sister. 

9:00- I greet my teachers Ms. Nicole and Mr. Moats. Then, we start off by sharing our emotions so the teacher knows how we are doing. 

9:15- Then Ms. Nicole tells us that we will get started. They sometimes show us a video and tell us what to do. 

10:00- Show the teacher what we did. We will code on SCRATCH if we finish early. 

11:00- Start cleaning up after finishing. We send a picture to Ms. Nicole and then we can eat part of the project if it’s edible! 

Thank you for reading as I shared my morning as a DIGI-Bridge Virtual STEAM student. Have a good day! 

Posted by Isaiah “I.T.” Twyman, 5th grade student at Druid Hills Academy