To all those people eagerly wanting Google Fiber – remember all those intense marketing drives a couple years back to win a site selection for the Triangle – you apparently will have to keep waiting.

But folks in Austin, Texas, can see plenty of progress right in their own neighborhoods.

While Google Fiber mulls where to deploy its gigabit Internet network in coming months, its project in Austin, Texas, is well underway with machines burying cable and technicians stringing more fiber from utility poles as Google reports in a blog. But The Skinny is told we shouldn’t expect news about a Triangle network until later this year.

WRAL TechWire reached out to Google recently, asking the Internet giant to participate in its upcoming “Fiber Transforms the Triangle” event on Oct. 13 at SAS.

Google declined, saying it preferred to stay mum about a possible Triangle project and others until the end of the year. Agreements with various local governments are in place for rights-of-way and such, but those are only part of Google’s planning process.

However, Google is talking about its Austin project where Google Fiber will take on  AT&T’s U-verse with GigaPower for ultrafast Internet.

“Pardon Our Dust”

“Hey Austin, have you seen us around town lately? Our Google Fiber crews are now in the process of building a high-speed network that will one day include more than 3,000 miles of brand new, state-of-the-art fiber optic cables — enough to stretch across the longest Interstate highway in the U.S. (or from Boston to Seattle),” writes Mark Strama, whose title is “Head of Google Fiber, Austin,” writes in a new blog post.

“Since we don’t use any existing copper cables, we’ve been planning and designing our network from scratch. Today we have a detailed network plan in place and our crews are hard at work constructing the network, starting with the core infrastructure that will form the foundation of Google Fiber in Austin.”

AT&T is gearing up for its fiber network in the Triangle as part of the North Carolina Next Generation Network. So even if Google takes a pass on the Triangle, regional residents can still expect to see similar construction in these parts.

So what kind of drilling and cable hanging are we likely to see?

“Our underground crews operate powerful drills that can tunnel through Austin’s limestone, guiding a bore head through the earth to create an underground path for our conduit, then running fiber through the conduit. While we wish we had x-ray vision (we’re working on it!), our crew members work hard as a team to avoid existing infrastructure and utilities, calling in “locates” with Texas 811 and using everything from detailed city diagrams to sonar detection to hel,” Strama says.

“Meanwhile, aerial crews are doing work across thousands of Austin utility poles, reconfiguring communications and power lines to ensure we have room for our fiber. This work allows us to use existing infrastructure and avoid additional underground construction, which tends to be more disruptive to the community.”

Strama coins a nice phrase to sum up Austin and gigabit Internet:

“Austin is well on its way to showing the world how it thinks big with a gig.”

Soon, the Triangle will as well.

Adds Strama: “Underground or in the air, pardon our dust — in order to bring Google Fiber to a city, a whole lot of heavy lifting has to happen!”

To gain gigabit Internet – which is 100 times faster than standard cable access – it’s a safe bet the Triangle will more than tolerate the dust, too.