NKC does have fiber but I think they only offer dedicated 1Gbit to businesses for over $2000/month. They're residential service is much slower and kind of expensive on the top end...

http://linkcity.org/residential-internet

Surewest also has fiber to home in parts of JoCo but also not as cheap as Google likely will be. My _guess_ is that Google will offer non-dedicated 1Gbit for about $80/month (though probably 300Mbs avg shared) and 100Mbit for $50-$60/month. Probably a lower tier option too.

It's true. It caused me to seriously consider NKC at one point, heh.

Dang, that is awesome. Kudos to NKC. I wonder if the investment by Google and corresponding pricing will make fiber more affordable in NKC. One would think that they have to risk losing money to avoid losing residents to the South.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-gri ... 95318.html - Good blog post at The Huffington Post, though it's a few weeks old now.

It seems that the two easiest ways to grow a regional economy these days are via rapid expansion in either the energy sector or high-tech industries. Seeing what is happening in the 'Silicon Hills' of Austin, TX, it's hard to argue against taking every effort possible in order to encourage the growth of the tech-related industries in KC. We don't know how long it will take Google to roll-out their fiber network in other cities, but it looks like we'll have at least a headstart of 2-3 years.

The American 'cloud market' is expected to reach $240 billion by 2020, and this is one of the areas that KC reaps the most benefits from Google fiber.

It's not quite a headstart as Google has yet to release service while other towns are already doing 1Gbit. Most cities price full 1Gbit much too high for consumers but one town just popped up with reasonably priced service - 250Mbps for $50 and 1Gbit for $90. Granted, this is a tiny town and it takes massive resources to do large metro areas, which probably only Google can do. But small cities within major metros could easily pull this off too...

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/network ... d-network/

Google may still come in priced a little better than that but the opportunity window is shrinking fast as other towns build their own Gbit networks that are comparably priced. Hopefully the Google testbed aspect of it for future apps will differentiate the KC network from other Gbit networks going in.

I thought google said the main point of them doing this was to shame/prod traditional service providers to offer Gbt service at a reasonable price. Shounds like it must be working.

Saw Atlantic Engineering trucks on Metropolitan Ave and Down S 55th St in south KC, KS ... also saw them working on SW Trfcwy in KCMO... finally we can see some progress.

Found a city in California, Sebastopol ...getting GB internet from a company called sonic.net. They are offering GB connections for $70. They also offer a plan for $40 with 100 MBPS and unlimited nationwide telephone.

Wonder if Google will beat the $70 a month price point.

Yeah, that's one aspect but in terms of KC having a 'head start' with Gbit, that's not so much the case. Some are doing it at much higher rate but now others are doing it with rates that will probably be more similar to Google. They are city sponsored though, not trad cable companies.

If we get 100,000+ households with a gigabit connection, we'll definitely have a head start. There are fiber projects throughout the country, but none at that kind of scale.

Sonic is looking to wire all of San Francisco at a price point similar to that mentioned above. Or was as of December.

Sonic.net is the company managing Google's 1Gbps fiber network in the neighborhood around Stanford University. Google built out that network as a testbed for the larger project here. Sonic.net has since rolled out its own fiber network in Sebastopol as well. Ars Technica ran a good article on Sonic.net a month or so ago.

Anyway, those two fiber networks in Cali cover a total of only about 1,500 households. All the same, it will be interesting to see how they do. Sonic.net is only charging about twice as much for 1Gbps as its competitors charge for a standard 10Mbps or slower broadband pipe, and it's yet to be seen whether (a) people are willing to pay even twice as much for Internet access that's orders of magnitudes faster (b) whether the finances of stringing fiber works if you're not going to charge an arm and a leg for it.

Even if these sorts of smaller roll-outs catch on here and there, it's likely to be the better part of a decade before another major metro will have anything close to the super-fast broadband penetration that Kansas City will soon have. Maybe longer if nothing spectacular results after KC gets hooked up. ...

Saw a couple Atlantic trucks around noon today at 43rd/Main in front of the health food store. Saw several guys stringing the fiber cable through the sewer access.

Is that where all the gigabit pron is?

saw them again today (along main) working their way north up past westport rd to 39th street...stringing through the sewers or so it seemed.

Saw some around downtown today but looked like they were coming from somewhere else and parking just to get lunch.

Have seen more trucks stringing fiber down Main/Broadway in Midtown. I see trucks about every other day.

The skeptical side of me wonders if Google can fully pull this off but either way, KC is getting a _major_ infrastructure upgrade whether it's operated by Google or they pass it on to someone else.

Looks like its delayed yet again. I think it was back in December when they missed that milestone they pushed it to June, now they are pushing it out yet again. No word on why or how long.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/36 ... -city.html

I would swear I saw them in River Market yesterday along Delaware. Either that or it was some other group of workers stringing their giant spool of fiber through the sewer.

They also may be delaying in order to get TV services up and running for launch.

I wonder how many will go with Google for just Gigabit Internet. They'll probably need a full TV package comparable to cable in order to attract a large number of users. Many won't want to have both Google and a cable service. They'll get some satellite users who have separate unbundled internet but there probably aren't many of those in KC.

So will you get Google Gbit (and stay) if they don't offer a full TV package on launch or for the next year?

Yes, depending on the price. We don't have cable but do use TWC for internet and I feel like for $50/mo. it could be faster.