Google Says It Has No ‘Serious’ Plans To Bring Fibre To The UK

Google says it has no “serious plans” to bring its 1Gbps fibre service to the UK, following reports it discussed a potential partnership with CityFibre.

The Telegraph claims talks broke down because CityFibre feared it would threaten its existing agreement with Sky and TalkTalk to joint-build a fibre network in Coventry with a view to expanding the model to other cities where CityFibre already has FTTP infrastructure.

Google Fibre UK

Although Google does not currently offer television services in the UK, access to a gigabit network capable of streaming high-definition and 4K video could lead Sky to view the search giant as a potential rival.

Google Fiber was first made available in Kansas City and has since expanded to Provo, Utah and Austin, Texas. The company announced earlier this year that it plans to expand the availability of the service to 34 cities across the US.

However despite the plans for expansion, the company denies that the UK is in its sights – although it does not refute claims it met with CityFibre.

“We have informal conversations with other telecom companies all the time,” a spokesperson told Engadget. “But we’ve never had any serious planning discussions about bringing Google Fiber to Britain.”

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