14 DAY TRIAL // Google's quest for a suitable city to build its super high-speed fiber network is over. The company chose Kansas City, Kansas as the place where it's going to deploy its experimental internet connection. It took more than a year to select a site, but Google has already started working on the planning stages of the project. It hopes to have something to show for itself in 2012.
"After a careful review, today we’re very happy to announce that we will build our ultra high-speed network in Kansas City, Kansas," Google's Milo Medin, Vice President, Access Services, announced.
"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," he said.
"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," he explained.
Google said it had several reasons to pick Kansas including local support from the authorities and other groups. Google will be partnering with the Kauffman Foundation, KCNext and the University of Kansas Medical Center and others.
The reason why it needs local partners is because it plans to not only offer high speed broadband, but also test services and user behavior to see how and if a next generation network connection changes the way people use the web.
Google has come to an agreement with the city and only needs a final approval to get things moving. If everything goes according to plan, it's going to start offering service by 2012.
But this is only the first stage. While Google doesn't have any more plans to share, it has said that it is still evaluating the possibility of rolling out a fiber optics network in other cities in the US.