Google is investing Rs 1,500 crore in a new campus in Hyderabad, reckoned to be its biggest outside the US.
Speaking about the project, Jayesh Ranjan, Telangana's IT secretary said, “Google is focusing on three key projects from its upcoming Hyderabad campus, including its super-fast Google Fibre broadband services, Street View and Google Education".
"Google Inc will shortly depute internal teams for driving all three activities from Telangana where it plans to build a new campus that will house some 13,000 staff," he further said.
"Google planned to invest Rs 1,500 crore in the campus rollout over the next four years for its growing local team".
It was known that the Telangana government delegation was led by IT minister KT Rama Rao which also included Sujai Karampuri, director (electronics) and Amarnath Reddy Atmakuri, Chief Relations Officer. Among them Ranjan was a key member of the delegation.
However, there is no such official announcement from Google regarding the rollout investment details or its upcoming activities there. "On the campus side, it is still very early days, so we don't have all the details, but will share more as our plans come together," one of the company member said.
On the other side, the Telangana government's claims, Google said, "it has no immediate plans to expand Google Fibre to India as it is still busy growing its presence in a number of US cities".
Telangana's IT secretary Ranjan, however, maintained that Google would "shortly send an internal team to examine the pros and cons of rolling out its high-speed fibre broadband services in both urban and rural homes across the state".
If the sources are to be believed, Google's internal team would examine the existing fibre topography of key cities and towns in Telangana and also explore infrastructure-sharing options since leveraging existing infrastructure would cut greenfield fibre broadband deployment costs for delivering affordable fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services.
Till date, except in Kansas city, Google's ultra-fast fibre-based internet service is not available in any other place. But now the officials are planning to roll out in other US cities such as Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Provo, Raleigh-Durham, and Salt Lake City, along with 34 other cities.
By Phani
