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5 More Google Fiberhoods Coming To Kansas City

Posted by samzenpus on from the more-the-merrier dept.

skade88 writes "If you live in KC, Google is doing their part to make sure you get your daily fiber. They are launching their gigabit home internet service in five new areas in KC. From the article: '"In 2013, we're going to hit the ground running, finishing installations in Dub's Dread, and then quickly moving on to five more fiberhoods," the company wrote, using its invented term for zones where Google Fiber will be deployed. "Based on pre-registration results, the next fiberhoods on the list are Piper Schools, Delaware Ridge, Painted Hills, Open Door, and Arrowhead. And we have some more good news for folks in some of these areas—we've extended a few fiberhood boundaries slightly, so that more people can get Google Fiber. You can see the new boundaries below and on our website, where you can check to see if your home is now eligible."'"

48 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. GPON or Active Ethernet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those of us in the telecommunications industry, what type of FTTH deployment are they doing? For that matter, who's gear are they using? Calix, Ericsson, Occam, Adtran, or something homegrown?

    1. Re:GPON or Active Ethernet? by klui · · Score: 2

      For comparison, Sonic.net, which Google partnered with to bring fiber to some Stanford residences in CA, is using Adtran GPONs for their fiber rollout in Sebastapol. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26685216-Is-GPON-Good-Enough-For-The-Future-

    2. Re:GPON or Active Ethernet? by tnewt · · Score: 2

      Okay, I searched around and found out a little more. Google's TV box is the GFHD100, built by Humax: http://www.wikidevi.com/wiki/Google_Fiber_TV_Box_(GFHD100) It, and its software is apparently derived from Sage TV, which they acquired a while ago: http://www.geektonic.com/2012/07/google-fiber-tvis-its-htpc-dna-sagetv.html This doesn't answer the 'Active vs GPON' question. Anyone in Kansas with Google Fiber that can answer any questions? Does this box connect directly to the fiber going outside of the house? If so, then a teardown would reveal the chip interfacing to the fiber, which might answer the question.

  2. Dub's Dread? by Sez+Zero · · Score: 1

    Man, I really want to move to Kansas so I can live in Dub's Dread. Dub's Dread: I am the law!

    1. Re:Dub's Dread? by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 4, Funny

      Man, I really want to move to Kansas so I can live in Dub's Dread. Dub's Dread: I am the law!

      It'd only be cool till you realized that it's a suburb named after a golf course that's named after . . . a different golf course.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    2. Re:Dub's Dread? by Sez+Zero · · Score: 1

      Man, I really want to move to Kansas so I can live in Dub's Dread. Dub's Dread: I am the law!

      It'd only be cool till you realized that it's a suburb named after a golf course that's named after . . . a different golf course.

      That's even better! Can I send them all my hipster douchebags around here? We're all full up.

    3. Re:Dub's Dread? by game+kid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Golf courses all the way down...

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    4. Re:Dub's Dread? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Hipster douchebags play Frisbee golf.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:Dub's Dread? by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      That's even better! Can I send them all my hipster douchebags around here? We're all full up.

      Oh Hell yes! The West "Dot" is totally looking for some. Sushi and NASCAR, together at last!

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
  3. Re:I hope they expand South by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My uncle lives around Oklahoma City. He gets 1 Mbps for what we pay for 25 Mbps near St. Louis.

  4. Lucky bastards... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile Telenor (my ISP) has limited my bandwidth to 500kbps for 30+5 days because I downloaded more than 100GB in a 30day sliding window.
    The world is unfair

    1. Re:Lucky bastards... by vlm · · Score: 1

      What did you download for 100 gigs? You're AC so don't worry about telling the world if its all furry pr0n I'm just idly curious. The largest torrent I ever downloaded was about 120 gigs of audiobooks and it took a couple months, at least a couple years ago. A somewhat overcompressed star trek series averages 50 or so gigs per series. Then again high def isn't going to make the plot of "spocks brain" or the space hippies any better. It would take me months to watch 100 gigs of stuff, even if I downloaded that much in a month (lets just say I finally watched the high def directors cut 4 hour LOTR: TT last week... I read the books back when PDP-11s roamed the earth so I already knew how it turned out, its not like I've been in suspense)

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Lucky bastards... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      100 gigs is nothing...with only legitimate usage i can go over that with netflix, youtube, gaming and video streaming(up/down)

      its sad, really, that you have to suffer such low limits. I've got comcast with their now-unenforced 250g cap. since they said they wouldnt enforce it, i stopped metering myself and found my 'normal' usage is actually around 550gb on a normal month, or 750 if i go down the dark and shady roads.

    3. Re:Lucky bastards... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      No, just Telenor. I have Altibox and downloaded a ~500GB torrent in three days + whatever else I downloaded that month, no complaints. For the Americans I'll explain, remember those crappy monopoly/duopoly choices you have? Well, Telenor is like that except we have more choices, but some choose to use them anyway...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Lucky bastards... by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 1
      The Touhou Lossless Music Collection is over one terabyte. Terabyte.

      http://www.tlmc.eu/

    5. Re:Lucky bastards... by PNutts · · Score: 1

      I work from home (connected to the work network 24/7), the kids stream Netflix all the time, the wifey is at home all day on wifi, I'm on wifi all day for personal stuff, Carbonite backups, iOS devices backing up and downloading apps, etc., etc. It's unusual for me to go over 200GB and it's usually around 180.

    6. Re:Lucky bastards... by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      I had to get Cox Business Internet to avoid losing service all together. Business Internet is unlimited in data and we have six active Internet users living here. 100GB is a few days at most.

  5. Other Gigabit Communities by mysqlrocks · · Score: 2

    While Google Fiber is getting most of the attention, Kansas City isn't the only place with gigabit Internet speeds. Chattanooga, Tennessee and Burlington, Vermont (my city) both have gigabit Internet via fiber-to-the-home as well as a few other places around the country. I've started an initiative in Burlington called BTV Gig (http://btvgig.org/) to try and bring attention to this and decide how our community is going to leverage gigabit.

    --
    Bradley Holt
    1. Re:Other Gigabit Communities by mysqlrocks · · Score: 4, Informative

      BTV is our airport code and a common shorthand for Burlington, Vermont. It's used as the hashtag on Twitter for our city, for example.

      --
      Bradley Holt
    2. Re:Other Gigabit Communities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good thing they made an official hashtag. Now the 5 residents who actually have Twitter accounts will be able to tag and track all the happenings of the town.

    3. Re:Other Gigabit Communities by ediron2 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, between GE and IBM, half a dozen colleges, countless telecommuters that figured out how to get the hell out of metro Boston/NYC/etc, and the metro BTV area alone having well over a hundred thousand people, I'd say that your guessing there are ** 5 ** twitter users seems about the douchiest uninformed remark of my day.

      Full disclosure: writing this from a conservative flyover state that gets this sort of mocking on a regular basis, not Vermont. Coastal provincialism is a plague -- y'all really don't seem to be aware how snark like that makes you sound like dimwitted, uninformed cretins.

  6. Massive Privacy Concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google is great and all, but I wouldn't be so quick to subscribe to their fiber service.

    If you run all of your internet traffic through Google then they have the ability to mine every last ounce of data from your activity. While other ISPs might have access to the same type of data already, Google is the only one that has a business model based on targeted advertising. Google wants to know everything about you in order to sell advertisements. Other ISPs do not. If you care about privacy at all, Google seems like a bad ISP to use.

    1. Re:Massive Privacy Concern by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      So tunnel through a VPN.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:Massive Privacy Concern by Kiraxa · · Score: 1

      If you care about privacy at all you don't use the internet, because everything is monitored and logged. Seriously stop being a paranoid.

      --
      http://phelannguyen.blogspot.com/
    3. Re:Massive Privacy Concern by kllrnohj · · Score: 2

      Or you could, *gasp*, read their privacy policy (which is really simple and easy to read) instead of stocking up on unnecessary tinfoil.

      Also, you vastly overestimate how much data Google uses for ads (and you are ignoring that Google will happily let you turn *off* targeted advertising if you so choose: https://www.google.com/settings/privacy?hl=en -> ads -> opt out)

    4. Re:Massive Privacy Concern by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      If you buy tinfoil... they'll know you buy tinfoil!

      Then you'll get adverts for turkey and cookbooks for roasting large flightless avians!

      It's too risky, man!

      Can I bum some change?

    5. Re:Massive Privacy Concern by LordKronos · · Score: 1

      Ohhhhhhh, scarrrrrrrrrry. Targeted Ads.

  7. Re:I hope they expand South by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

    I live in Oklahoma,

    Well, there's your problem.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  8. Re:Will Google 'Wal-Mart' local providers? by i_ate_god · · Score: 1

    They will probably offer a great service, so long as your usage of that service can be monitored.

    But, on the bright side, Google doesn't seem too interested in the minority of users who are smart enough to get around it...

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
  9. Insulting coverage by BenJeremy · · Score: 1

    Wake me when they decide to give the rest of the nation fiber. I'm stuck locked into my local provider, which instituted caps last year without proper notice (Charter) on their top tier residential service.

    When Charter came to our town, buying the local cable outfit, they delayed the internet rollout for 4 years, even though the town was already wired and ready to go.

    I'd love to have Google Fiber. Cheaper, no caps.... it would certainly force Charter to change their tune and suddenly be more affordable.

    At the rate Google is working, I guess the rest of the nation will see Google Fiber around 2032.

    1. Re:Insulting coverage by Delarth799 · · Score: 1

      The whole reason Google is rolling out fiber like this is to try and shake up the trees of the large ISPs and get them moving on fiber. Over the next couple of years they will probably drop it into a few other major cities giving Comcast, TWC, ATT, and the likes a real run for their money forcing them to do something to stop the loss of customers.

    2. Re:Insulting coverage by dywolf · · Score: 1

      They had to find a munipality that would allow it and wouldnt have the local telco sue them to stop them like happened in a Carolina town when the LOCAL RESIDENTS tried to build/create their own fiber ISP cause the cable company's ISP sucked so bad.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
  10. Fiberhoods? by wiedzmin · · Score: 2

    Are those them things they used to cover engines in Fast and the Furious?

    --
    Bow before me, for I am root.
  11. fiber in silicon valley? by ctime · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is it any indication of how bad regulation and costs are that this sort of thing isn't a reality yet in SV, despite it being most densely populated area of nerds in the country?

    Does anyone know of any other "official" reason why even Verizon FIOS isn't in santa clara valley? It just amazes me how shitty communication bandwidth is (wireless and otherwise) in the valley compared to podunk idaho or kansas city. What in the world is going on here?

    1. Re:fiber in silicon valley? by russotto · · Score: 1

      Does anyone know of any other "official" reason why even Verizon FIOS isn't in santa clara valley?

      Last I heard, Verizon isn't building any more FIOS because they get higher ROI on mobile.

    2. Re:fiber in silicon valley? by gawbl · · Score: 1

      I believe that the most of the Santa Clara Valley ("Silicon Valley") has legacy landline service from AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly PacBell). I think Los Gatos was served by GTE, and GTE is now part of Verizon, but I've never heard anything about FIOS in Los Gatos, or anywhere else in the Valley. FWIW, most of the AT&T DSL in the Valley is supplied by beige boxes on the sidewalks; every box is filled with DSL equipment, has a conspicuous power meter, and has an upstream fiber link. But AT&T has no plans to extend that fiber to any homes; you get DSL, served over a twisted pair.

      gawbl

  12. What is the Google Strategy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I don't understand why Google is strategically selecting the areas of Kansas City with the lowest incomes and populated with the least amount of technical people. Johnson County, Kansas was ranked #9 best county to live in by Money magazine in 2012 and it looks like Google is intentionally avoiding them. I seriously don't get it.

    1. Re:What is the Google Strategy? by Cyrano+de+Maniac · · Score: 1

      It makes some sense to me. What I wager they are hoping to see is substantially improved economic activity in those areas, as well as rising property values, directly attributable to the availability of cheap bandwidth.

      If that happens then Google will be able to begin making a case to the public, the FCC, and politicians that the state of U.S. broadband is terrible, and that the country needs to get its act together to improve the situation. If they can point toward the economic uplift of a downtrodden area they are then pushing the right buttons to get all sorts of politicians to agree that increasing bandwidth is a good and necessary thing. The FCC may begin mandating/encouraging higher speeds, and the politicians may even pry open the taxpayer's wallet to help make it happen.

      Increasing the amount of data coursing through the Internet is a plus for Google, as the contents/attributes of that data can then be used for advertising, research, product development, and the like. They can only stand to gain from there being more data circulating.

      --
      Cyrano de Maniac
    2. Re:What is the Google Strategy? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Perhaps as a "worst case" start? If they can do it it profitably there then they can do it anywhere, possibly inflated costs to lay fiber in high-income areas notwithstanding. And if they're sure it can be done in low-income areas then doing the initial roll out there will give them an extremely strong bargaining position against obstructionist politicians and entrenched local monopolies. I mean if they launch a media blitz saying "Look, we have proven we're able to do this profitably even in areas with substantially more economic difficulty than yours, and we could do it here if X,Y,and Z weren't standing in our way" then people may well start paying an unhealthy amount of attention to what was previously a relatively safe source of graft. I imagine many politicians would become suddenly more cooperative just knowing such a campaign could be launched at a moments notice.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. Re:What is the Google Strategy? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      KCK politicians gave the best head, duh.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:What is the Google Strategy? by Jartan · · Score: 1

      The whole thing is a big test. Likely they are picking the area's based on their ability to handle the expected customers. They'll work their way from the bottom up in that situation.

    5. Re:What is the Google Strategy? by ReverendLoki · · Score: 1

      Looking at this map, there are a lot of poorer neighborhoods that made it. Not all, but a lot. I understand they are deploying first to those with the highest demand/met their threshhold first, which makes sense, and a lot of richer neighborhoods where among the first to qualify.

      I recall more than a few charitable and NPOs stepped up to help some of those areas meet their threshhold, and Google itself worked really hard to get the word out, and explain the benefit door to door in some of those areas. To be honest, they've gone so far, I'm not sure how you can hold them at fault as a for-profit company in this.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  13. Boy will NASA have egg on its face by Lucas123 · · Score: 1

    If they're wrong.

  14. Don't wait for Google by cortex · · Score: 1

    Lobby your local city and county officials to support the installation of fiber infrastructure. Along the Wasatch Front we have the excellent UTOPIA project, which brings fiber to the home. Local cities used bonds to support setting up the infrastructure, and home owners pay for the connection from the street to their house. The fiber infrastructure is treated like a utility and any ISP can compete for your business. I have a symmetric 100 MB connection for about about 1/3 less than Comcast was charging me for a 15 MB connection, and I get MUCH better service.

  15. KC, Kansas: The armpit of the KC Metro area. by GrantRobertson · · Score: 1

    Just reminding folks that the "KC" which is getting the fiber is one of four separate "Kansas City"s in the KC metro area. It is the one that is in Kansas instead of Missouri, and is almost all poor neighborhoods. That is why it was chosen. It is a lot of poor people but really close to wealthier areas with good infrastructure.

    I know, Missouri isn't much better politically, but I just get tired of everyone thinking that all of "Kansas City" is in Kansas just because it has "Kansas" in the name. It was called "Kansas City" because it is the city next to Kansas. Kansas City, KS came later.

    Just sayin'.

  16. Re:Nigga Tyrone approves by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 1

    I see, but you do have to get over the point, carrying guns is not as acceptable option. you may evoke the amendments , or the traditions, or even a as to do so, but sometimes, it's just the time to change, stone to death womens is also a tradition in some realities, and they also have to change. it's simply not acceptable. there are no gods but we upon ourselves, and it is our sole responsibility to look upon us. As for me, on a problem there are always two guilty sides, the one that committed and the one that let it happen. you are the US of A, you can do better than this, you are the bastion of the civilized world, please behave as so, and we the fair mans will follow. Causality can be avoided, we are the owners of our future.

  17. Re:Nigga Tyrone approves by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    Considering the statistics, one could make a better case for doing away with baseball bats than guns.

    Ferran: We Must Stop Baseball Bat Violence!

    Against the gun control that won’t work

    National Review: Gun Control Doesn't Work

  18. Re:No love by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    Hey Google, how about running fiber to a city with a population that appreciates the bandwidth....someplace where they believe in science.

    Wish I had points. San Diego would be a good start! :)