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Google Fiber Expands To Olathe, Kansas

skade88 writes "If you are one of the lucky 125,000 people who live in Olathe, Kansas, the rest of us congratulate you on your new amazing $70.00/month, 1 GB Google fiber service. Google also announced they will be letting us know about further cities that will be wired up with Google Fiber service soon. This shows that Google Fiber is not just a sandbox they are going to keep in Kansas City, Google Fiber is a real business they will keep expanding. In other exciting news, the FCC wants to see at least one community in each state with 1 Gigabit home service by 2015."

17 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. 1 GB Google fiber service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So 1 GB? Thats only 8 seconds at 1 Gb/s. Now thats a low data cap, or a bad summery.

    1. Re:1 GB Google fiber service by Bongoots · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, there really is some ignorance towards basic computing terms out there.

      If the service was 1 GB/s, then that'd be 8 Gb/s. Let alone that the fine summary says "1 GB Google fiber service", so is wrong twice over by using B and no '/s' or 'ps'.

      All laughing aside, data transfer speed is rated in bits per second (bps or b/s), while data storage capacity is rated in Bytes (B), with a capitalised prefix T/era, G/iga, M/ega. There's a huge difference between B/b, and even major stores which sell lots of computer equipment get them mixed up. I'm sure I don't need to preach to the converted, as they say, but I've started so I'll finish..

      I'm often annoyed by things like "portable 500 Gb drive" which if such an ad was correct should only have 62.5 GB of space. The same the other way around where Internet (capital I) service providers sometimes use B when advertising speeds. It doesn't help when the idiots who should know what they're on about say the wrong things for such simple matters.

      Maybe it should've said "125 MB/s Google fiber service" (which I know is the wrong way to report data speed, unless you're trying to simplify how fast you can pillage the Internet with your download speed in an easy-to think of way), but then that would confuse the poor common IT-illiterate users into thinking that it was wasn't "big" and "fast".

      Likewise, but on a tangent, years ago the memory in a computer wasn't a large selling factor, but now laptops are advertised with the memory size before the drive space. This can only help to confuse users when they see "Intel Pentium Dual Core 4GB 500GB 14" HD LED..." for sale. Previously the standard used to be drive space before memory size, and sometimes is still done that way today. No fixed standard. Does it have a 4 GB drive with 500 GB memory?! Of course not, but I'm sure some might still ask the question in bewilderment.

      For the record, I've only got 30 Mb/s service here in the UK from Virgin.

  2. Wow, amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is incredible.

    Korea and Japan must be looking on in envy. Why, by the year 17000, over 50% of US homes will have a fast internet connection! Won't that be something!

    1. Re:Wow, amazing by rusty0101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the providers in South Korea and Japan have figured out that they have a market for the out of date networking equipment they are replacing.

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  3. 2 years by slackware+3.6 · · Score: 2

    to set up Gigabit internet service in 52 communities?
    That's a real lofty goal.
    And how much will this cost taxpayers in the for of subsidies for the large telecoms?

    1. Re:2 years by rusty0101 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some people think all taxes are bad. In this case I would say that if Google is the only company working to provide 1Gig service, then any tax money going to Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, CenturyLink and so on needs to be pulled back and redistributed to those companies that are actually providing 1Gig service as part of their funds for continuing to build out the service. If one or more of the large telecoms wants in on the funds, they can demonstrate that they are actually rolling out relevant improvements.

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    2. Re:2 years by firex726 · · Score: 2

      Or just make it a utility since the tax payers are already paying for it.

      Here in Texas we got one company that manages the actual power lines then resellers that sell directly to the consumer and have to compete with each other.

    3. Re:2 years by Looker_Device · · Score: 2

      Hey, don't knock it. At that rate, I should be getting Google Fiber sometime around 2042.

      --
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    4. Re:2 years by nschubach · · Score: 2

      I'm perfectly fine with that. I'd even argue to have the local village/municipal put fiber/power/water/sewer to every home and have a central patching building for the service provider to connect to. Part of every bill would then go to the city for further upkeep. This way you don't have to worry about companies having right of way to bury lines and monopoly situations.

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  4. Olathe by slag02 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am one of those residents - (Just moved back from Chicago-Land last October) - For those curious the city is pronounced O-LAYth-UH We are a suburb of KC and it seems the Olathe Government took cues from the issues with the city that Google was having In KC and tried to ease Google's issues by putting what they want explicitly in the writing of the contracts. I hope it arrives sooner than later and thank you for your Congratulations

  5. Re:One community in each state by Arker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not only are they talking one community per state, they are counting each suburb as a different community, so it seems to me they are saying it will be years before it moves beyond the suburbs of capital cities. Which is a real shame because obviously this is a great ISP. Almost makes me wish I lived in Kansas City but... nah.

    In 2002 they had residential 100mbit symmetrical connections for ~$50/month in Sweden. Still cant get anything near that in most of the US. But it's good to see google doing something about it, just a little frustrating that it's obviously going to be so long before this sort of thing is available where I live.

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  6. I find it interesting .... by ChronoFish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That Google choose what is pretty much the geographic center of the (continental) US to start this endeavor.

    From Kansas City,
    1500 miles to Google (Pacific ocean)
    1000 miles to Atlantic ocean
    660 miles to Canada
    660 miles to Gulf of Mexico

    And is uniquely situated, split between Kansas and Missouri.

    Really does make for a great statement to grow the broadband infrastructure from the center out.

  7. How do they make profit ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Funny

    1GB/s line, only 70 bucks / month

    How do they make any profit ??

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    1. Re:How do they make profit ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In sweden i pay $9 for 100/100mbit fiber, so i'm pretty sure google is raking in a profit for $70 a month even if its for 1gbit/s.

  8. This probably explains.... by Jaysyn · · Score: 2

    ... why Cox is buying up all the small CATV systems in Kansas that it can.

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  9. Re:Not really seeing the point by olau · · Score: 2

    Fiber is being rolled out in Denmark too, mostly in the country-side because the old electric utilities (owned by the residents) decided to have a go at it. So I too have been wondering about this. But if you have 3 TV sets/house streaming on demand in a good quality, you're going to need more than 20 Mbit/s. And with most of the ADSL solutions, it's a hit or miss whether they can actually deliver up to what they promise.

    I have a friend who moved to the middle of a 300k residents city and his 20 Mbit ADSL couldn't actually deliver more than about 7 Mbit. So if his girlfriend is watching a SD channel, the line is so bogged down that it's more or less useless.

    Also I have an online backup of our family photos, and working with even 40 GB of data over ADSL is sloooooow.

    So more juice is definitely needed in the not-so-distant future.

  10. Low hanging fruit. by westlake · · Score: 2

    "If you are one of the lucky 125,000 people who live in Olathe, Kansas, the rest of us congratulate you on your new amazing $70.00/month, 1 GB Google fiber service.

    They can afford it.

    The median income for a household was $61,111, and the median income for a family was $68,498 (these figures had risen to $72,634 and $82,747 respectively as of a 2007 estimate. Males had a median income of $45,699 versus $30,217 for females. The per capita income for the city was $24,498. About 2.4% of families and 4.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.1% of those under age 18 and 4.1% of those age 65 or over.

    The median age in the city was 32.9 years. 30% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.5% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 32.1% were from 25 to 44; 23.1% were from 45 to 64; and 7.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49.5% male and 50.5% female.[2010 Census Data]

    Olathe, Kansas

    The 2012 Median Income of US households was $45,018 per annum.

    Household income in the United States

    Olathe is 20 miles southwest of Kansas City.

    In Kansas City, Google offers three tiers of service. The baseline fiber installation fee is $300, or $25 per month for 12 months. After paying that amount, Kansas City residents are guaranteed seven years of free broadband Internet service at current national âoeaverageâ speeds. The second tier costs $70 per month for the super-fast Internet service, and the top tier, which includes Google's TV service, costs $120 per month. The $300 installation fee is waived for the top two tiers.

    Google Fiber Expanding Superfast Internet Service to Olathe, Kansas