Will Google be your next ISP? It's possible.

Today Google unveiled their plans to experimentally offer fiber-optic internet service to "a small number of trial locations" across the US. Their initial effort will target at least 50,000 households, but strive to reach up to 500,000. This service will provide internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most of us have access to right now, at 1 gigabyte per second through fiber-to-the-home connections (much like Verizon's FiOS).

Not only is Google going to build, operate, and provide this service directly to customers, but they will also make the network and technology open and available to other providers. This will give consumers a choice of who to use instead of requiring them to sign up through Google. I would imagine that this is along the lines of phone companies having to lease out access to their lines to smaller companies, or old regulations requiring wireless providers to lease access to cell sites which allowed providers like AllTel and T-Mobile to spring up in the US.

This will, no doubt, raise fears of Google coming one step closer to controlling everything but what's wrong with that? The services they provide now are great and hopefully Google will continue to operate them responsibly (despite a recent deal with the NSA).

This is going to be a game changer. Not only is the potential for Google to be your next ISP a huge deal, but the massive expansion of fiber-optic broadband service across the US is going to benefit everyone. This can make broadband internet available to more households, increase our average internet speed per-household, and lower the cost of high-speed internet access by creating new competition. These are all good things for current and future internet users.

I, for one, welcome our new ISP overlords.