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I hope this becomes a reality all over the world, not just America.
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Most of the rest of the of the developed world are doing just fine :
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/323...internet-speed
I know that HongKong, SKorea, Japan and few European countries has faster internet speed option than this google offer for at-least 4-5 yrs now at much much lower price. What Google is doing might be new in USA and at a very small scale, but its not new to a lot of the developed world.
On a related note. My guestimation is that 98% of on internet users won't benefit from a gigabit connection because your bottleneck would be your network, disk, router and websites/web-services you are using. Chances are 98% of the website/webserver don't have anything more than a 50-100mbit upstream connection.
You won't even notice and difference between 100mbit and 1gbit connection from your end, from a regular user perspective.
A die hard geek could do a lot of cool stuff with that kind of speed though.
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Wearing my tin-foil hat.
Google is doing this is in USA because its trying to save its a$$ for future anti-net-neutrality bills that the big media are trying to pass for the last 4-5 years. Basically 3-4 companies that control the internet backbone in USA is trying to restrict internet usage for consumers by instituting tiered based internet usage (ie, package 1 gives you access to youtube/gmail package 2 gives you access to google.com and so on and so forth) and they are also trying to stop unlimited internet plans on wired broadband connection. Legally they can't do it, but they can do it on wireless network; like how verizon and att gives you 2gb package.
If this kind of bill passes in USA (and there is a good possibility in the near future depending on the outcome of the election) then it will seriously screw up google's earning. Not only is USA Google's biggest market but google thrives because of the unrestricted way the internet works.
Currently the internet backbone is heavily controlled by 4-5 players (verizon and att to name a few). By becoming an internet backbone themselves google can restrict its heavy dependence on verizon network. In the event if a restrictive internet bill passes google will have an option to directly serve unrestricted internet option which will prevent other internet companies from having restrictive internet packages.
Everyone wins if google is successful in this. The users win with unrestricted high speed internet and google wins by more internet usage and not being dependent on others.
I am 99.99% sure google is unlikely to provide Google Fiber service outside USA anytime soon if ever. This is not like a software you install, this not even a hardware, this is a utility service like laying train tracks or telephone lines; which big companies spent years and billions of dollars to install. Its not easy and not going to happen over night.