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Google announced this morning it has chosen Kansas City, Kansas as the site of the search giant’s experimental 1Gbps fiber to the home service.
The announcement came at 12 Noon ET on Google’s blog:
After a careful review, today we’re very happy to announce that we will build our ultra high-speed network in Kansas City, Kansas. We’ve signed a development agreement with the city, and we’ll be working closely with local organizations, businesses and universities to bring a next-generation web experience to the community.
Later this morning we’ll join Mayor Reardon at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, for an event we’ll carry live on the Google YouTube channel—be sure to tune in at 10am PDT to watch.
In selecting a city, our goal was to find a location where we could build efficiently, make an impact on the community and develop relationships with local government and community organizations.
Google’s video talked a lot about bandwidth and the need for more of it. While Google is striving to bring one gigabit access to ordinary consumers, other providers like AT&T are seeking to limit it. The competition between cities looking for super high speed access was fierce, demonstrating Americans are hungry for better, faster, and unlimited broadband service. Unfortunately, some of the country’s largest providers want to deliver the least amount of service possible for the highest price.
Google’s project is likely to call out more than a few providers, but until companies like Google can deliver real competition to America’s phone and cable broadband duopoly, only a handful of communities like Kansas City will exist as an oasis in the broadband desert AT&T wants to create across its middle-America service area.
[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google and Bandwidth.flv[/flv]
Google released this video showcasing what its 1Gbps network will do for the people of Kansas City, Kansas. (3 minutes)
Wow..
I’m envious. Very envious. Austin was in the running. Was kinda hoping we’d get it. Ahh, well. Hopefully this will bring true competition to the broadband market and stop many of these caps that are beginning to pop up.
Phillip-
What do you think the chances are of the ISP’s suing Google for infringing on their monopoly like they have done to municipalities?
That won’t happen. Instead, Republicans in the House and Senate are doing drive-by investigations into Google for this or that. I tweeted earlier today I found it ironic that the very red state of Kansas has some members in Congress who are willing to applaud Google’s choice today while calling for investigations into Google’s business practices yesterday and tomorrow. For whatever reason, a lot of the GOP hates Google with a passion. They are hiring tens of thousands of workers with high paying jobs, are innovating (and disrupting) the duopoly broadband marketplace like the other guys are not, and are… Read more »
There is certainly no love lost on my part for the GOP but that holds true for the Dems too. I’m one of those in the “Middle”. You know, good ole common sense. I definitely don’t hate Google either. I am, and will continue to be, concerned about privacy however. I don’t want any one company, no matter who it is, to have ultimate power. You know the old saying – Absolute power……. So I am very glad Google is offering this broadband product – it at least has the potential to be a game changer. But this is one… Read more »
Yah…..er, Go Google! While I live in a town on the very edge of KCK, I am hoping that I will be able to get Google as my ISP, and if so, I will dump Time Warner in a heartbeat. Unfortunately the elected officials in Ks are so on the take that I could see them coming up with something to prevent this from happening, I don’t know how, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I am in constant contact with my elected representatives, and none of them have yet to show me that they have a backbone or even that… Read more »
I think Google is just going to build the network out. They are not going to be an ISP but sell wholesale access to that network. You should see many ISP’s appearing just like back in the dial-up days. Hopefully this experiment will show that competition is the best solution to get cheap fast Internet.
I predict most incumbent providers will boycott participation on the retail level, although they might use it for middle mile or commercial accounts. I do not see retail telco and cable companies partnering with anyone other than themselves. You might see Earthlink on such a network or Knology, which will sell branded services over other networks, but I can’t see Charter, Time Warner, AT&T, or Qwest doing business with Google’s network, especially if they already have their own facilities in place. I think Google will have to create or hire a third party to administer retail services for this network.… Read more »
You mean it’s technically possible to deliver internet service that wipes out a uverse user’s monthly allowance in like 4 minutes and not “clog” the network?????? Somewhere, AT&T’s execs are burning $1000 bills to light cigars while Google’s slowly making the internet what it SHOULD BE. Google can track me all they want for that kind of service! I already have fiber to my home, Google! Sign me up!!!!!!! Saddest part of this: google will be attacked by federal regulation driven by back-door lobbying deals.