The first US city that will be the beneficiary of Google 1Gbps fiber to the home is announced.
They might not have a playoff contender, but Kansas City now has something significant to hang its hat on. It will soon have the fastest Internet in the US, if not the planet.
Google (GOOG) announced today that it had selected Kansas City as the first community of its rollout of 1Gbps fiber to home. Previously, Google announced it would roll out the connectivity to Stanford’s faculty housing. The original Fiber to communities announcement was made in February of last year.
We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
The service is pending approval from the city’s Board of Commissioners and should see a rollout beginning in 2012 –that is unless the ISPs put a block in place. Google’s fiber won’t only displace the cable/Telcom ISPs in Kansas City, but it will also force U.S. customers nationwide to ask why they can’t have the same options.
That’s a good question. I had 100Mb fiber in France 3 years ago for €50/month. Today, my best option from Verizon(VZ) is less than half of that speed at $145/month.
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. We’ve found this in Kansas City. We’ll be working closely with local organizations including the Kauffman Foundation, KCNext and the University of Kansas Medical Center to help develop the gigabit applications of the future.
Besides the cable companies and telecoms, one other party has to be pretty dismayed about the announcement. Neighboring Topeka Kansas renamed itself Google, Kansas last year in a bid to woo Google and its super fast broadband connections.
Video of the announcement below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o7bKLG3A3w&w=600&h=375]