In March, Google announced that it had chosen Kansas City, Kansas to be its first high speed fiber community. Now, thanks to successful lobbying efforts by the community an additional agreement with Kansas City Power & Light and Great Plains Energy, the companies will install fiber-optic lines along existing electrical infrastructure thereby extending the network into Kansas City, Missouri. This will extend Google’s first network to nearly 800,000 people.
Google plans to have installation completed and ready to offer to consumers by early next year. The lines will offer upload and download speeds of one gigabit per second. Kansas City Power & Light is the first utility in the world to create a partnership with Google. Under the terms of the agreement with Kansas City, Kansas Google will be offering free internet access to schools and municipal offices in exchange for free use of the cities electrical infrastructure. Extending the project across the stateline into Missouri will ensure that the already heavily blended area will be able to easily maintain continuity.
Mayor Sly James said the project was a great advance for the city. “As a city we should be proud to once again push the frontier forward and once again be the launching point for trails yet untraveled. Together with our sister city in Kansas, we will lead the way into a new age of ultra high speed connectivity. Our region’s future relies on recruiting the smartest and most innovative people.”
Google has a small website up about the project which can be viewed at http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/index.html
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