4 ms·

Google Selects Kansas City for Its Ultra High-Speed Internet Project

33 points by acconrad 16y ago

westbywest 16y ago
I am interested to see how this project proceeds. The article mentioned that the service will be built in conjunction with the city, suggesting a Public Private Partnership (PPP). Previous efforts with using PPPs to build municipal broadband services have faltered in conflict (lawsuits alleging anticompetitive activities) with the incumbent providers. This happened in Philadelphia, IIRC, and more recently in North Carolina. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of-muni-broadband-eternal-war-with-time-warner-cable.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of...
- chris11 16y ago
  There might be some lawsuits, but I doubt there will be any significant legal problems. Google would have a market cap several times larger than any potential plaintiff. So they definitely have resources for any legal battle.
deweller 16y ago
This is an important step in the battle against telcos trying to protect their broadband monopolies. If Google can launch this, then it would establish an important precedent. Go Kansas City!
ry0ohki 16y ago
And just to be clear, it's Kansas City, KANSAS not Kansas City, Missouri. Interesting small town pick!
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  As a Topeka, KS native, ... what? KCK is not a "small town", and for all intents and purposes it's just part of "Kansas City".
  - mhewett 16y ago
    KCK and Wyandotte County in particular are economically depressed, yet near a lot of infrastructure and near an international airport. I think Google could do a lot of good there. As another Topeka native, I'm interested to see the reaction in Topeka after they tried so hard to win.
mschwar99 16y ago
Interesting that the Google provides several offerings for Sprint and then the fiber project picks KCK which is a stone's throw from Sprint headquarters. Could be completely unrelated, but could be hinting at further alignments.
westbywest 16y ago
Also, amusing reader comment from the article, highlighting an interviewee's remark: "the average high schooler has texted 1200 times from the time they get out of bed to when they hit school at 7:30 in the morning." I imagine this figure off by only a single order of magnitude.
- yellowbkpk 16y ago
  My college-aged sister consistently sends 10-20,000 text messages a month over the last year or so. I know because my mother insists on receiving the paper AT&T bill and AT&T insists on listing each send/receive on a separate line of a sheet of paper.
  - icegreentea 16y ago
    That's still 700 per day on the high end. 1200 in the few hours between waking up and getting to school is ridiculous. If it took 2 hours, you would be sending 10 txts every minute, or one every 6 seconds. Unless the majority of these txts were 'lols' and 'kkz', then you -would not be able to do anything else-. In fact, you would have seen a complete epidemic of kids getting hit by cars while walking to school. Also, does anyone know if they count messages that get split up as one message, or multiple?
aidenn0 16y ago
Headline should really read "Kansas City, Kansas" since "Kansas City" typically refers to either the Missouri half, or the combined whole of the two.
- jemfinch 16y ago
  "The Missouri 75%" would be more accurate :)
codexon 16y ago
Kansas City is the geographical middle of the US. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kansas+City,+Wyandotte,+Kansas&gl=us&ll=39.774769,-87.451172&spn=35.205519,86.572266&t=h&z=4 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&i...
deleted 16y ago
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josiahq 16y ago
Chattanooga has had true gigabit fiber to the home for about a year now w/o Google's help, and it is awesome.

33 points by acconrad 16y ago

I am interested to see how this project proceeds. The article mentioned that the service will be built in conjunction with the city, suggesting a Public Private Partnership (PPP). Previous efforts with using PPPs to build municipal broadband services have faltered in conflict (lawsuits alleging anticompetitive activities) with the incumbent providers. This happened in Philadelphia, IIRC, and more recently in North Carolina. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of-muni-broadband-eternal-war-with-time-warner-cable.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of...

chris11 16y ago
There might be some lawsuits, but I doubt there will be any significant legal problems. Google would have a market cap several times larger than any potential plaintiff. So they definitely have resources for any legal battle.

deweller 16y ago

This is an important step in the battle against telcos trying to protect their broadband monopolies. If Google can launch this, then it would establish an important precedent. Go Kansas City!

ry0ohki 16y ago

And just to be clear, it's Kansas City, KANSAS not Kansas City, Missouri. Interesting small town pick!

drivebyacct2 16y ago
As a Topeka, KS native, ... what? KCK is not a "small town", and for all intents and purposes it's just part of "Kansas City".
- mhewett 16y ago
  KCK and Wyandotte County in particular are economically depressed, yet near a lot of infrastructure and near an international airport. I think Google could do a lot of good there. As another Topeka native, I'm interested to see the reaction in Topeka after they tried so hard to win.

mschwar99 16y ago

Interesting that the Google provides several offerings for Sprint and then the fiber project picks KCK which is a stone's throw from Sprint headquarters. Could be completely unrelated, but could be hinting at further alignments.

westbywest 16y ago

Also, amusing reader comment from the article, highlighting an interviewee's remark: "the average high schooler has texted 1200 times from the time they get out of bed to when they hit school at 7:30 in the morning." I imagine this figure off by only a single order of magnitude.

yellowbkpk 16y ago
My college-aged sister consistently sends 10-20,000 text messages a month over the last year or so. I know because my mother insists on receiving the paper AT&T bill and AT&T insists on listing each send/receive on a separate line of a sheet of paper.
- icegreentea 16y ago
  That's still 700 per day on the high end. 1200 in the few hours between waking up and getting to school is ridiculous. If it took 2 hours, you would be sending 10 txts every minute, or one every 6 seconds. Unless the majority of these txts were 'lols' and 'kkz', then you -would not be able to do anything else-. In fact, you would have seen a complete epidemic of kids getting hit by cars while walking to school. Also, does anyone know if they count messages that get split up as one message, or multiple?

aidenn0 16y ago

Headline should really read "Kansas City, Kansas" since "Kansas City" typically refers to either the Missouri half, or the combined whole of the two.

jemfinch 16y ago
"The Missouri 75%" would be more accurate :)

codexon 16y ago

Kansas City is the geographical middle of the US. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kansas+City,+Wyandotte,+Kansas&gl=us&ll=39.774769,-87.451172&spn=35.205519,86.572266&t=h&z=4 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&i...

deleted 16y ago

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josiahq 16y ago

Chattanooga has had true gigabit fiber to the home for about a year now w/o Google's help, and it is awesome.