My goal is to continue informing and educating folks about the Unified Government and about District 2 (my home district). Today we're headed off into a looooooooong post about cyberspace, because yesterday Google unveiled the details of how it will provide gigabit Internet to the citizens of Kansas City.
It was really exciting news.
It was particularly great news to me because my wife and I fight. Now, before you say, "That's too much information, Brian" or "It sounds like you need family counseling" let me clarify. We fight over the Internet.
My wife works for North Kansas City Hospital. She works from home three days a week. On those days, she uses the Internet to connect to the hospital servers all day long.
If I'm also home on any of those days and try to work from home by connecting to the servers at Rockhurst, my wife and I compete for Internet connectivity and we definitely slow each other down.
We are excited that the new Google fiber service may allow both of us to work full speed at the same time.
City Hall displays Google colors
on Thursday evening
Fiberhoods and Pre-Registration
However, it's not as easy as just saying, "Hook us up."
Google has divided our city into what it calls fiberhoods (fiber neighborhoods...get it?). Google will not run its fiber cable into any fiberhood until a minimum number of residents have pre-registered and confirmed that they are interested in signing up for the Google Internet service.
Here are some screenshots taken from the Google fiber website this afternoon. They show the different fiberhoods that Google has created with in District 2 of the Unified Government. You can find your neighborhood in one of the pictures below (click any picture to enlarge it).
You can see how many people are already pre-registered in your area and how many more it will take before Google adds your fiberhood to its list. If you are interested in pre-registering for Google connectivity, simply go to www.google.com/fiber and type in your street address. There is a $10 "up front" fee for pre-registering.
It's interesting that each map lists the schools and public buildings that will get a free connection once the fiberhood itself reaches its target sign up. Those schools and public buildings won't get a Google Internet connection unless the fiberhood around it meets the pre-registration goal.
So...What Will All This Cost?
If it costs $10 just to sign up, what will the service cost once it arrives in neighborhoods later this year?
Google has outlined all of that on the Plans and Pricing page of its fiber web site. The breakdown is pretty simple (but be sure to thoroughly read *all* fine print on the Google web site).
- Gigabit Internet + Google (cable) TV = $120 per month with no up front installation fee.
- Gigabit Internet = $70 per month with no up front installation fee.
- Free Internet = $0 per month after paying a $300 up front installation fee (the $10 pre-registration fee counts toward this total). This last option is probably the most interesting. Although $300 is a fairly hefty installation fee, you can pay $25 a month for 12 months and then Google will guarantee an additional 6 years of Internet service at no additional charge (no monthly bill) after installation (7 years total). The speed of this connection will not be the same "1 Gigabit" speed as its premium service, but will be "5 Megabit" speed, which is roughly the same as today's "fast" DSL or cable Internet connections.
Learn more on the Google Fiber KC Blog.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
~ Brian
bmckiernan@wycokck.org
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