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Google Fiber Draws Startups To Kansas City

Posted by samzenpus on from the doing-business dept.

Google's super fast internet has turned Kansas City into an unlikely incubator for startups and tech entrepreneurs. One small neighborhood where a group is working on their ideas has been dubbed, the "Silicon Prairie." From the article: "The advantage here for startups is simple: A fast Internet pipe makes it easier to handle large files and eliminates buffering problems that plague online video, live conferencing or other network-intensive tasks. Though the Kansas City location presents challenges for startups, including the ability to raise money outside the traditional Silicon Valley venture capital scene, entrepreneurs like Synthia Payne believe it's the place to be right now for up-and-coming tech companies. Payne is one of those entrepreneurs hoping to launch her startup dream — an Internet subscription service for musicians who want to collaborate online — on the cheap. She shares the State Line Road house, known as the 'Home for Hackers,' with other startups under a deal that allows them to live rent-free while they develop their business plans."

38 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Silicon Prairie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The term "Silicon Prairie" goes back more than 20 years to when NewTek was developing the Video Toaster in Topeka, Kansas. Where is Brad Carvey today, anyway?

    1. Re:Silicon Prairie by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 2

      I hope not in Topeka, it's a real shithole. Everything that's bad about living in a small rural town and everything that's bad about living in a big city.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  2. One hacker space - that's all by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative

    So there's one house that has a hacker space. Big deal.

    Besides, for anything real you use servers in a data center. Nobody runs production servers out of their house.

    1. Re:One hacker space - that's all by symbolset · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For proofs of startups yeah, this is OK. Bidirectional Gigabit access to Google's backbone with 2ms latency? Don't throw me into that briar patch.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    2. Re:One hacker space - that's all by TheLink · · Score: 2

      But managing servers from your house can become much easier with a 1Gbps low latency connection.

      Find out that for some unfortunate reason you need to push an entire VM to the server farm? Not such a pain at 1Gbps. Or maybe it becomes faster to push a known working prebuilt machine to the farm than to rebuild it there (and hope it works the same). The farm provider may charge you more $$$ for the gigabytes of transfer, but it could still be worth it.

      Or you want to make an offsite backup of data in your "Cloud"? Much easier at 1Gbps.

      --
    3. Re:One hacker space - that's all by Yobgod+Ababua · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I'm concerned about the data, I either encrypt it before transmitting or encrypt the pipe, both things you SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY, regardless of who owns the last mile that happens to connect to your house/business.

      Yeah, it still might not stop the NSA, but Google is NOT the NSA.

    4. Re:One hacker space - that's all by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      end to end, if you are allowed to run encryption, that's fine. allowed, meaning that the dest site is also running it.

      but given what I know of mitm attacks and faked certs, I don't trust encryption on the web and that lock icon on the browser. if you built your pc 100% and did not ever have any IT guy touch it, it might be safe. otoh, any company owned computer has to be assumed to have mitm certs preinstalled on it (trust me, I know this) and so you may even think your tunnel is private, but its really not.

      having google be in the phys layer is a bad bad BAD idea.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    5. Re:One hacker space - that's all by kwerle · · Score: 2

      I'm selling 100% effective tinfoil hats!

      Seriously: why are you worried about google doing cable, and why do you think mitm attacks are possible when using encryption?

    6. Re:One hacker space - that's all by tattood · · Score: 2

      Seriously: why are you worried about google doing cable, and why do you think mitm attacks are possible when using encryption?

      He's being overly paranoid. When he refers to MITM certs, he means that in theory, someone could have installed their own root certificate into ALL of your computer browsers, and then they could intercept your outbound SSL traffic. This is how SSL proxies work, but it requires you (or your IT) to install the trusted certs in the browser.

      It is quite unlikely that this would ever happen, and is not difficult to detect and mitigate (remove the untrusted certs).

      --
      WTB [sig], PST!!!
  3. That's the whole point by stox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    By making an example of Kansas City, the rest of the country will demand similar resources. The days of gouging the US public for Internet connectivity may soon be coming to an end.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    1. Re:That's the whole point by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The days of gouging the US public for Internet connectivity may soon be coming to an end.

      Not as long as internet connectivity is in the hands of monopolies they won't. Monopolies don't give a toss about what the public demands.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:That's the whole point by schnell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By making an example of Kansas City ...

      Per story submission...

      an unlikely incubator for startups and tech entrepreneurs

      Why is Kansas City an "unlikely incubator?" Because it's fucking Kansas City (no offense intended). Putting Google Fiber there will not change that. Look, I have been to KC, and enjoyed the hip downtown district thoroughly, etc. - but putting Google Fiber in any given town is not going to make it a good place to put technology businesses! Or has everyone magically forgotten Missouri's attitude towards teaching evolution in schools just because Google bought some fiber there?

      There are lots and lots of other places that have fast, cheap fiber. Slashdotters love to talk about how they have 50 Gbps Internet for $5/month in Sweden or free cloud-based dick-sucking anime robots in Korea or whatever. Yeah, we all get how much broadband access in the US sucks.

      And yet... none of these magical places have somehow displaced the US and its terrible, awful, no-good Internet as the center of the tech world. Silicon Valley is still what it is due to the physical proximity of employers and investors. I love what Google Fiber is doing, but it isn't going to make anywhere else the new Silicon Valley, any more than all the other places in the world with cheaper Internet displaced that region before... which is to say "none."

      Google FIber is not going to magically make anywhere a Mecca for technology. What really makes a place a tech center is a.) the tech companies that are already there are form an ecosystem; b.) the universities or other talent pools to draw from; c.) the local state or country's tax policies for residents/companies + immigration/visa policies for new entrants; and d.) the quality of the cultural, educational and political environment to attract new employees and their families to the area. Sadly, Kansas City does not excel on all four, whether cheap fiber is there or not. And if Google Fiber comes to your hometown of East Dead Cow Skull Texas, it doesn't mean that you will be able to attract tech companies either - sorry but it's the truth.

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    3. Re:That's the whole point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      By making an example of Kansas City ...

      Per story submission...

      an unlikely incubator for startups and tech entrepreneurs

      Why is Kansas City an "unlikely incubator?" Because it's fucking Kansas City (no offense intended). Putting Google Fiber there will not change that. Look, I have been to KC, and enjoyed the hip downtown district thoroughly, etc. - but putting Google Fiber in any given town is not going to make it a good place to put technology businesses! Or has everyone magically forgotten Missouri's attitude towards teaching evolution in schools just because Google bought some fiber there?

      There are lots and lots of other places that have fast, cheap fiber. Slashdotters love to talk about how they have 50 Gbps Internet for $5/month in Sweden or free cloud-based dick-sucking anime robots in Korea or whatever. Yeah, we all get how much broadband access in the US sucks.

      And yet... none of these magical places have somehow displaced the US and its terrible, awful, no-good Internet as the center of the tech world. Silicon Valley is still what it is due to the physical proximity of employers and investors. I love what Google Fiber is doing, but it isn't going to make anywhere else the new Silicon Valley, any more than all the other places in the world with cheaper Internet displaced that region before... which is to say "none."

      Google FIber is not going to magically make anywhere a Mecca for technology. What really makes a place a tech center is a.) the tech companies that are already there are form an ecosystem; b.) the universities or other talent pools to draw from; c.) the local state or country's tax policies for residents/companies + immigration/visa policies for new entrants; and d.) the quality of the cultural, educational and political environment to attract new employees and their families to the area. Sadly, Kansas City does not excel on all four, whether cheap fiber is there or not. And if Google Fiber comes to your hometown of East Dead Cow Skull Texas, it doesn't mean that you will be able to attract tech companies either - sorry but it's the truth.

      Since when was "physical proximity" an issue when obtaining VC funding? What, do you think they still deliver the money by horse-drawn carriage? I suppose we'll have to wait weeks to get overseas talent, as they only travel by fucking sailboat.

      A "tech center" can be built with a damn forum online. And I've probably gathered more good information that way in the last 5 years than I have in the previous 30.

      We (as in the US) perhaps remain the center of the tech world regardless of our shitty internet speeds due to the talent that is driving that, not the technology itself. Perhaps pull your head out of the 90s and realize that the only way we're going to stand a chance of growing is through innovation in all aspects of the game. If the Internet has proven anything, it is that location should not mean jack shit anymore. And there's always Kickstarter if you find investors with their head stuck in the 90s too.

    4. Re:That's the whole point by unixisc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't have strong views either for or against teaching evolution, but how is that attitude even remotely relevant as to whether MO or KS are good places in which to set up tech companies? It's certainly better than the stratospheric costs of the Santa Clara Valley.

    5. Re:That's the whole point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      More or less suprisingly tech companies need educated, taletented and skilled people to work for them. The vast majority of them would take offense in the idea of evolution not being taught in schools. This would be a showstopper for them to move to that certain place. In other words: this removes alot of people from the pool of possible hires...

    6. Re:That's the whole point by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google Fibre is an enabler. This is part of the reason I believe in government funded internet infrastructure, which is leased out to private entities. The format I would imagine is each company leasing would pay for a access to a frequency band, and would have their own hardware in the main hub, so that they aren't impacted by data usages of other competing companies.

      This reduces the risk for the private entities, encourages competition and gets them to compete with better prices and services. The only people that this can be bad for is the monopolies, for everyone else a healthier market develops.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    7. Re:That's the whole point by Vintermann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole point of this exercise, from Google's point of view, was to intimidate the monopolies into providing real connectivity. They don't want to be in the ISP business, but they also aren't going to sit idly by when those monopolies choke progress with high prices and poor bandwidth.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    8. Re:That's the whole point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I moved to KC a couple years ago, working remotely for a company in Dallas. I've since switched jobs to a local. I don't know how far along it is to becoming a technology mecca, but I could leave my job today and have a couple offers by next week.

      When I first moved up here, the job boards seemed dead, but that's certainly not the case now. It's obviously not Silicon Valley, but I think its got a healthy tech economy.

    9. Re:That's the whole point by maugle · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you even read his response? His answer was: nothing directly, but educated people tend not to want to move to locations infamous for their lack of education.

    10. Re:That's the whole point by ctrlshift · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole point of this exercise, from Google's point of view, was to intimidate the monopolies into providing real connectivity. They don't want to be in the ISP business, but they also aren't going to sit idly by when those monopolies choke progress with high prices and poor bandwidth.

      I don't believe there is any business Google doesn't want to be in.

      And as much as I'd like to believe that Google will save us all from shitty ISPs, I think it will turn out much like it usually does when Google supplants an existing product/service. They bring a bizzare form of destruction that kills the competition but also radically changes consumer expectations of that type of service: i.e. they make everyone think X should be free or ultra cheap. See GMail, see Google Apps, see Google Voice, Books, Maps, etc.

      Pretty much every product they put out makes it harder to convince people that type of prouct is worth paying for. Why pay dollars when you can just pay in privacy and screen-clutter? Google as an ISP is only going to convince people that a) bandwidth is limitless and b) It should cost next to nothing. Pray they don't alter that deal because there isn't anyone to supplant them.

    11. Re:That's the whole point by Cyberax · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Proximity to employees is also important. Silicon Valley and San Francisco are _surrounded_ by universities so there's a lot of academia-industry interactions going on there. Besides, you also need support staff: marketing, legal, business development, etc. It's possible to interact with them remotely, but it's yet another hurdle that's absent in San Francisco/Silicon Valley.

    12. Re:That's the whole point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As a consumer: I am already convinced that a) bandwidth is limitless and b) It should cost next to nothing.

      I know how the bandwidth game works, in a broad sense, the consumer and businesses are being gouged horribly.

    13. Re:That's the whole point by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2

      Since when was "physical proximity" an issue when obtaining VC funding?

      You underestimate the importance of face-to-face meetings for getting VC money. As in, you don't get any without a face-to-face meeting.

      There's a reason dog-and-pony shows were created and are still around: we humans love us a good in-person circus show.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    14. Re:That's the whole point by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      the backwardness of the region (evolution is just ONE thing they suck at, sorry..) will keep forward thinking people away from that hellhole of a state.

      you could triple my salary and I'd not go there. I know I'm not alone in that feeling, either.

      sorry, but 'fast internet' is not even CLOSE to what it takes to draw silicon valley types to backwoods hickville.

      the local attitude is EVERYTHING. even if I worked there, I'd have to live there and deal with the local attitudes. I simple could not do that. I simply would not do that. not for any amount that anyone would reasonably pay.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    15. Re:That's the whole point by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      Having lived in KC, the deep south, and civilized big cities, I can tell you that the differences are more "city vs rural" than "Kansas City vs other moderately sized city." You might have more religious people, but it's DEFINITELY not anything like rural Alabama. Kansas City is firmly blue. You'll see more pro-life signs driving from Kansas City to St. Louis than you would San Francisco to LA, but your neighbors will not be much more likely to judge you for being atheist than any other state.

  4. Can you run a business server on this connection? by linuxguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have been under the impression that Google prohibits business use of these connections. Including running servers. Can somebody confirm or deny this?

    If they allow this, then it would be very tempting. A 1Gbps pipe costs a lot more, even at wholesale prices, from other vendors.

  5. Re:Can you run a business server on this connectio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are correct. The terms of service prohibit running a server unless you get specific permission, in writing, from Google Fiber.

  6. What will they do when Google pulls the plug? by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with a lot of Google innovations is that Google likes to beta the shit out of it and often likes to call it quits when they figure out that they don't know how to monetize it. What will the entrepreneurs do when Google decides that they do not want to continue dealing with the keeping their black fiber alive in Kansas City?
    .
    Those entrepreneurs will be stuck with zilch or with whatever new price structure is set by google or whomever follows them!

    1. Re:What will they do when Google pulls the plug? by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      Read the contract? Seems like buisiness 101. If you pay to have the fiber installed at your house, you're guaranteed seven years of broadband speed internet connection at no additional cost. If you're starting a buisiness, and you don't bother to get some guarantees that service won't skip out suddenly, then you're asking to lose a lot of money.

  7. Indiatimes.com didn't credit AP/Maria Sudekum. by Seor+Jojoba · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is actually an Associated Press article by Maria Sudekum. See this link. Indiatimes.com didn't give credit to Maria or AP, which may mean they just snatched and reposted the content. I like to see the original author credited and let her reputation be affected (good or bad) by the quality of her work.

  8. Re:Can you run a business server on this connectio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged.

    https://fiber.google.com/help/

    Google Fiber: just keep consuming, consumer.

  9. Subsidy bait does not work by Required+Snark · · Score: 2
    This is just another instance of a subsidy swindle. Some organization, usually a city/county/state, offers funding/tax breaks/business space to attract new business. The target is always something glittery and/or high tech: internet, biotech, film. As soon as the subsidy ends, everyone leaves. Typically there is no earthly reason for the location to have the business in the first place. If there was, there would already be that kind of activity going on.

    Film production is the poster child for this stuff. There are film production companies who never do any projects. All they do is get subsidies, lure investors, and never really make films. I head a tail about some producers who set up a company in Minnesota when they offered matching funds for equipment purchased in state. The production execs all bought fancy SUVs for "location scouting" for essentially half price. Then when the subsidy ended, they closed their office and drove off in their fancy cars.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
  10. If you build it, they will come by kawabago · · Score: 2

    Was there a corn field there?

  11. Re:Why? by donatzsky · · Score: 2

    You already can: Crashplan and Backblaze will do exactly that.

    --
    VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
  12. GF in KC by lionchild · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are two things about Google Fiber in Kansas City that are interesting to note:

    1.) Kansas City (and the midwest) has a low cost of living, making the idea of boot strapping your own startup without lots of Venture Capital possible.

    2.) Google Fiber isn't available to business at this time, which means that if you're not at a home address, you can't get it. I'm just not sure why that is, since one of the benefits of getting enough people intersted in the project in your neck of the woods means when it comes in, various NPO's such as the KC Public Library or Union Station will get a Google Fiber feed for free.

    --
    Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
    1. Re:GF in KC by petermgreen · · Score: 2

      Google Fiber isn't available to business at this time, which means that if you're not at a home address, you can't get it. I'm just not sure why that is

      I suspect the problem is figuring out how to price it and what terms to offer.

      For home users they just make it unmetered, ban using it to run servers (a ban which I suspect will be selectively enforced) and operate on the understanding that the vast majority of users (hell even the vast majority of hoarder-pirates) won't come anywhere close to maxing out a gigabit connection on a long term basis but buisnesses will want the ability to run servers and one buisness premisis could contain tens or even hundreds of users. So some form of metered billing seems inevitable.

      *Of course while this works for now if some new application comes along that can actually use up that bandwidth they could be in a world of hurt just like the traditional ISPs were when bittorrent showed up and their infrastructure couldn't cope..

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  13. They did credit AP by Frankie70 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It says just above the story's title

    "14 Jan, 2013, 01.19AM IST, AP"

  14. Please succeed! (at least initially) by jrmcc · · Score: 2

    I have a house to sell south of KCKS and I need the market to heat up there. It's really not a bad place to live if you're OK with nothing but horizon on horizon...