Google Fiber kills TV service, focuses on broadband and YouTube TV
Google Fiber will no longer offer cable-style TV service to new customers, but it will continue selling broadband and urge customers to sign up for streaming video plans such as YouTube TV.
“The best TV is already online,” and the only thing customers need to get TV is “fast, fair, reliable Internet,” Google Fiber said in an announcement yesterday. “So, as of today, Google Fiber will no longer offer a linear TV product to new customers.”
Existing customers who already subscribe to Google Fiber TV can continue to use the service. New customers can buy Google Fiber broadband on its own or in a bundle with Google’s YouTube TV, which is similar to cable TV but is provided entirely over the Internet and works with any Internet provider. YouTube TV costs $50 a month and provides live TV from more than 70 channels.
Google Fiber is also partnering with FuboTV, a similar streaming service with a heavier focus on live sports than YouTube TV (though both offer live sports). Customers can choose either YouTube TV or Fubo TV when they sign up for Google Fiber broadband, or they can just buy broadband alone and purchase any online video service separately. Google Fiber also offers a home phone service for $10 per month when added to an Internet plan.
Google Fiber still sells 1Gbps Internet access for $70 a month with no data cap, just as it has since beginning operations in November 2012. Google used to sell a 100Mbps plan for $50 a month but stopped offering that to new customers in December.
Before eliminating the 100Mbps Internet plan and the TV service, Google Fiber sold several broadband-and-TV bundles costing between $95 and $160 a month, according to a price list in Kansas City in September 2019.
With the recent changes, Google Fiber has simplified its value proposition to $70-per-month gigabit broadband with unlimited data for video streaming, downloads, and everything else. That would be a compelling pitch to millions of customers around the US who are stuck with cable or DSL providers—if only Google Fiber availability wasn’t limited to a few parts of the country.
