Google acknowledged today that it will miss its self-imposed deadline of announcing the winner of its high-speed fiber-optic network investment by the end of 2010.

Instead, the Google fiber project, which Ann Arbor is hoping to land, will be awarded in early 2011, wrote Milo Medin, Google's new vice president of access services, in a blog post.

The decision to delay the program comes after Google received some 1,100 applications from municipalities throughout the country. The city of Ann Arbor, buoyed by a grassroots community campaign dubbed "A2Fiber," filed an application, and the city of Saline and Pittsfield Township submitted a joint application.

"We’re sorry for this delay, but we want to make sure we get this right," Medin wrote. "To be clear, we’re not re-opening our selection process—we simply need more time to decide than we’d anticipated. Stay tuned for an announcement in early 2011."

Google announced in March that it would install and operate the fiber network, for free, in one community or a few communities somewhere in the U.S. Google has said the network would provide wired Internet service 100 times faster than typically available service.

Google would rent network access to service providers, which would then sell access to residents and businesses. The firm has indicated it would not restrict access to specific service providers.

Google wants to study the fiber optic network's effect on innovation by watching to see whether faster speeds led to creative mobile software applications, for example.

The firm has indicated that, during the application assessment process, it would examine "local factors that will impact the efficiency and speed of our deployment, such as the level of community support, local resources, weather conditions, approved construction methods and local regulatory issues. We will also take into account broadband availability and speeds that are already offered to users within a community."

Google also said that it would meet with local officials in the communities it's considering before making an announcement.

Officials from Ann Arbor and Pittsfield Township said last week that they had not heard from Google.

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.