Last year, Google announced that they would be bringing 1Gb per second fiber to the home broadband to one lucky city in the US. After that announcement, they had over 1,100 cities apply for the chance to be the lucky city chosen by Google. Today, on the Official Google Blog, Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas would be the one to get the experimental high speed network.
Not only will Google be laying down fiber in the city, but it will also be working with local organizations to build applications to make the most of the deployment. They 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. 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.
According to Google, their network services will begin starting in 2012, pending approval by the city’s Board of Commissioners. Google is looking forward to see what kind of applications come out of Kansas City having a gigabit network to work with. They believe that with the increased availability of bandwidth we will see innovations in online applications. Kansas City, Kansas is only the first of many to come; According to Google, this city will be a test environment for future deployments.