Kansas City, KS, FTTH test bed city
Approximately three months after its initial deadline, Google has named Kansas City, KS, as what it implied would be the first partner city in which it will test 1-Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH).
Google made its announcement on its blog at 9:00 AM this morning in a post authored by Milo Medin, Google’s recently hired vice president, access services.Kansas City made the cut after nearly 1,100 cities responded to Google’s FTTH testbed RFI (see "Google evaluates FTTH submissions"). “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,” Google said in the blog post. “We’ve found this in Kansas City.”Details of the network architecture were not provided in the blog post nor during an announcement ceremony held this afternoon at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City. However, Google states in an FAQ page about the project that “we plan to manage the development and deployment of this network, working closely with outside vendors.” It also says that it will be working with the local utility company.
June 19, 2011