Provo, Utah is Google Fiber City Number 3

Google Fiber is coming to Provo, Utah, where Google Fiber will get a headstart by buying  iProvo, an existing fiberoptic network owned by the city.

The deal has to be approved by the City Council on April 23, 2013. It would be accurate to describe the network as "troubled," at least historically.  The network was sold to Broadweave Networks.

Broadweave then merged with Veracity Networks, which defaulted on its agreement with the city. In 2012 Provo took control again, and has been looking for a buyer ever since. 

Competing Internet service providers will feel more heat now that Google Fiber operates gigabit networks in three cities. That might not mean that major ISPs start upgrading to 1 Gbps everywhere. 

As typically is the case, major ISPs will upgrade where they have to, because of competitive conditions. So unless Google wants to build everywhere, and most seriously doubt that, gigabit networks will take some time to arrive. 

But gigabit networks seem likely to become the new benchmark. That alone will put increasing pressure on ISPs to upgrade.

Technology Futures, a firm with an extraordinary record of broadband predictions, now argues it is reasonable to expect that half of U.S. broadband access users will be buying 100 Mbps connections by about 2020.

Technology Futures also predicts that about 10 percent of customers will be buying 50 Mbps connections, while 24 percent will still be buying 24 Mbps service.

That might seem a crazy amount of bandwidth for “many typical users,” but standard technology forecasting techniques have, for more than a decade, actually suggested that would happen.

In 2001, for example, Technology Futures predicted that by year-end 2004, over 25 percent of U.S. households will have adopted broadband services, up from about five percent at the end of 2000. The actual U.S. broadband penetration rate was 30 percent, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

“By 2010, we expect that the percentage will exceed 60 percent,” Technology Futures predicted in 2001. The actual penetration wound up being 66 percent.

Google Fiber's gigabit networks might actually push 100 Mbps access, in the near term.