Back in February, Google announced that they'd be building a fiber to the home deployment offering speeds up to 1 Gbps to anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 consumers in one city. Google made it clear then they weren't interested in being an ISP -- but were interested in running a wholesale operation where other ISPs offered the service, while Google collected data on next-generation content and network operations.

While that city hasn't been named yet, in October Google announced they'd be launching 1 Gbps service to 850 residences in Stanford. The goal of the smaller launch was to test ideas ahead of Google's planned citywide launch. Today California ISP Sonic.net announced they'll be the ones running it:We predicted back in April that this could be a big win for a smaller ISP eager to make a name for itself. While Google gets a pre-launch testbed for wholesale experimentation and data collection, Sonic, who has shown interest in fiber to the home deployment will get national brand recognition from a media enamored with Google's fiber efforts. Construction of the network will begin in early 2011 according to the two companies.