Google picks KCK/KCMO for ultra fast fiber network

[GRID]

I just turned on 980 for the first time in like 2 years and the first thing I hear is that google chose KCK over KCMO because of the etax.  I quickly changed the station to keep my blood pressure down haha.  Why do people that have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to KC own the radio waves?

I hope to god nobody actually listens to that station.

[ignatius]

The Biz Journal says KCK approved a 10-year agreement with Google.  That's a huge commitment from Google.  3 years is an eternity in the tech world. 

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... oogle.html

[KCMax]

I just turned on 980 for the first time in like 2 years and the first thing I hear is that google chose KCK over KCMO because of the etax.  I quickly changed the station to keep my blood pressure down haha.  Why do people that have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to KC own the radio waves?

I hope to god nobody actually listens to that station.

I'm surprised they didn't blame it on Obama.

[kcmetro]

I just turned on 980 for the first time in like 2 years and the first thing I hear is that google chose KCK over KCMO because of the etax.  I quickly changed the station to keep my blood pressure down haha.  Why do people that have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to KC own the radio waves?

I hope to god nobody actually listens to that station.

Worst talk radio station in the world.  Conservative fuck heads.

[justin8216]

Here is a link that nicely sums up that local media's reaction to the news.

Kansas City Reacts to Google Fiber Project | Stop the Cap!

KCK is getting a ton of press over this.

.....

Thank you for sharing that link.... I really enjoyed seeing the varying degrees of coverage from KC's news channels.

I'll have to say the best coverage in my opinion was from KSHB 41. I especially liked their segment with the CNBC reporter who follows Silicon Valley and was live via satellite. He provided them with a credibility that was sorely lacking on the other news channels. They were very fortunate, as an NBC affiliate, to have a resource such as CNBC at their disposal. Kudos to KSHB for having the wisdom to take advantage of that resource to the benefit of their viewers. Boy. Channel 41 news sure has come a long way since 1993.  :lol:

The award for the worst coverage I would say goes to KCTV 5. Their news anchor reminded be of a preschool teacher and their guests, the blogger.... whatever his name is and the Assistant Vice Chancellor or whatever from KUMED; well neither one struck me as very knowledgeable about what was being discussed.

Fox 4's coverage was decent. A little bit over the top sensational and lacking in substance at times as is customary for them.  I especially enjoyed their newly coined term "Dottecom"  :D
Also they reported that a Google official said Kansas City, KS's government wowed them by moving at "Google Speed" on this. If Wyandotte County's government moves at Google Speed; then what speed does KCMO's move at? Dial up?  :P

KMBC 9 had okay coverage I suppose. Trying to demonstrate what 1 GBPS internet means by using a water faucet is pretty ridiculous. And Michael Mahoney looks ready to retire. Also was he really reporting live from KC, KS? It could have been from the Rosedale Arch, but it looked more like to me he was reporting live from a bluff in KCMO that overlooks KC, KS. Anybody?

[justin8216]

I was reading a lot of news reports today about this whole Google Hoopla.

According to an industry expert; the cost to deploy this is between $3,000 and $8,000 per service connection. Depending on which technology Google selects for the network. It was also reported that B.P.U. has 70,000 service connections in it's territory.

I ran a quick calculation and at the lowest cost estimate of $3k times 70k service connections... your looking at an investment by Google of at least $210 million dollars.

If you look only at subscriber fees, even if every single household and small business in KC, KS signed up for this service at an estimated price of $40 to $50 per month, it would still be 5 or more years before Google could recoup the investment of just building the network. Not to mention the costs of maintaining and marketing it.

It would seem to me that Google isn't looking for a direct financial return on their investment in the network itself. The key will be the other possible avenues of generating revenue as a result of this network; most of which haven't been explored or even thought of yet. That is what Google hopes to learn through this experiment. And they will take that knowledge and apply it to the tune of billions of more dollars in future profits; as they will be the most prepared tech company to capitalize on the next revolution in the World Wide Web.

Kansas City, KS through competent government and a little luck of timing, just happens to be a side beneficiary of this experiment.

Also, in helping a city with a large percentage of its population considered to be poor and marginalized; Google (who is sitting on a pile of cash reported to be around $25 billion) demonstrates social responsibility to their customers and the public at large.

IMO

[Joe Smith]

KCMO City Government moves at less than Pony Express speed. Actually they seem to move slower than the cogs in Funk's head.

Btw, every large company in the U.S. is sitting on billions of cash. Apple's probably got more than Google laying around gathering dust. They're barely paying dividends on their stock.

[shinatoo]

I was reading a lot of news reports today about this whole Google Hoopla.

According to an industry expert; the cost to deploy this is between $3,000 and $8,000 per service connection. Depending on which technology Google selects for the network. It was also reported that B.P.U. has 70,000 service connections in it's territory.

I ran a quick calculation and at the lowest cost estimate of $3k times 70k service connections... your looking at an investment by Google of at least $210 million dollars.

If you look only at subscriber fees, even if every single household and small business in KC, KS signed up for this service at an estimated price of $40 to $50 per month, it would still be 5 or more years before Google could recoup the investment of just building the network. Not to mention the costs of maintaining and marketing it.

It would seem to me that Google isn't looking for a direct financial return on their investment in the network itself. The key will be the other possible avenues of generating revenue as a result of this network; most of which haven't been explored or even thought of yet. That is what Google hopes to learn through this experiment. And they will take that knowledge and apply it to the tune of billions of more dollars in future profits; as they will be the most prepared tech company to capitalize on the next revolution in the World Wide Web.

Kansas City, KS through competent government and a little luck of timing, just happens to be a side beneficiary of this experiment.

Also, in helping a city with a large percentage of its population considered to be poor and marginalized; Google (who is sitting on a pile of cash reported to be around $25 billion) demonstrates social responsibility to their customers and the public at large.

IMO

60 bucks might be the max they could charge for resi customers but they will get 10 times that from commercial accounts. Maybe more.

[ignatius]

A $200M-$300M R&D investment is probably not unusual for Google.  Pharmaceutical companies often invest that much or more for R&D.  If it turns out to be that amount, it's like Google paying to drop in a Sprint Center class arena but this might have far more economic impact for KCK and the metro if the EDC can properly promote it.

Google probably isn't expecting to directly profit from the pipe.  It is an R&D investment/expense for nextgen internet apps/services and KCK is the lab.

[ignatius]

Before thinking this is all good, there will likely be some downsides.  Google has been creating a lot of services that challenge privacy.  They'll be using this network to push the limits of privacy, such as the face recognition app for Android they recently came up with.  Not only will this be a testbed for apps/services, it will be a test for how far they can go with challenging privacy.

It would be interesting to see the KCK contract to see if they are exempt from any privacy concerns.

[dmtony]

Apparently, a lot of secret negations were going on behind the scenes before the final decision was made.  I never knew KCK was even in the running.  I do think that historic Wyandotte High School in downtown KCK was a good location to make the announcement.

http://wycowest.com/forum/15-google-fib ... as.html#23

[KCMax]

Wall Street Journal profiles KCK

[voltopt]

Funny, the aerial photo attached to the article shows the historic boundaries of Kansas City, KS before consolidation - which was simply the Kansas side of the west bottoms, east of the Kansas River.  The rest was called Wyandotte, or Riverview, or Armourdale, or Rosedale, or Argentine, or Quindaro, etc, etc.
 

[mlind]

I was wondering what the population of KCK was when I was growing up.  In 1950, it was approximately 129,000, and a little higher in 1960.  Smaller than I thought and smaller than it is now.  But, in 1950 it was a functioning city with a strong middle/upper middle class, decent schools, a downtown and neighborhood business districts, industry,etc.

Nobody in my family lives there now.

Of course, there was de facto segregation.

[rokhok]

A few points...

.. some have speculated that this development will spur development of data centers.  While it certainly will not hurt, the fact is we already have a large data center community (both private centers and hosting companies).  I work for what is probably the largest managed hosting provider located in the KC metro and I can tell you this will have minimal impact on us.  We already have multiple 10 gigabit connections coming in to serve our clients.  Indirectly, having major fiber backbones like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and now Google helps us all in terms of lowering latency, improved backbone performance, etc. though.

.. The area this will make a difference for many businesses is last mile access.  A big reason why bandwidth is expensive for individual businesses is the lack of fiber to their building to access it.  That can account for half the cost or more in some cases.  If a data intensive operation can build/move into a building where they can get 1000mb service for the price of 10-45mb that would be a huge advantage operations wise.  I can see that impacting startup locations as well as potentially getting businesses to move from out of town

... It will be interesting what impact this has on the telco and cable company strategies.  They already have backend networks that can support this type of buildout.. its just the last mile costs (and lack of competition) that stop them.  What will be interesting is if Google will wholesale them last mile connections for their services.

[shinatoo]

A few points...

.. some have speculated that this development will spur development of data centers.  While it certainly will not hurt, the fact is we already have a large data center community (both private centers and hosting companies).  I work for what is probably the largest managed hosting provider located in the KC metro and I can tell you this will have minimal impact on us.  We already have multiple 10 gigabit connections coming in to serve our clients.  Indirectly, having major fiber backbones like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and now Google helps us all in terms of lowering latency, improved backbone performance, etc. though.

.. The area this will make a difference for many businesses is last mile access.  A big reason why bandwidth is expensive for individual businesses is the lack of fiber to their building to access it.  That can account for half the cost or more in some cases.  If a data intensive operation can build/move into a building where they can get 1000mb service for the price of 10-45mb that would be a huge advantage operations wise.  I can see that impacting startup locations as well as potentially getting businesses to move from out of town

... It will be interesting what impact this has on the telco and cable company strategies.  They already have backend networks that can support this type of buildout.. its just the last mile costs (and lack of competition) that stop them.  What will be interesting is if Google will wholesale them last mile connections for their services.

What kind of savings levels are we looking at?

[bobbyhawks]

What kind of savings levels are we looking at?

Based upon my limited knowledge and research, I'd say the difference could be between multiple thousands of dollars a month for a current 1 gbps connection and under a few hundred for what Google will offer.  If prices are placed at or under $100/month for residents, it would be among, if not the cheapest price points for 1 gbps in the world.

[mlind]

A few points...

.. some have speculated that this development will spur development of data centers.  While it certainly will not hurt, the fact is we already have a large data center community (both private centers and hosting companies).  I work for what is probably the largest managed hosting provider located in the KC metro and I can tell you this will have minimal impact on us.  We already have multiple 10 gigabit connections coming in to serve our clients.  Indirectly, having major fiber backbones like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and now Google helps us all in terms of lowering latency, improved backbone performance, etc. though.

.. The area this will make a difference for many businesses is last mile access.  A big reason why bandwidth is expensive for individual businesses is the lack of fiber to their building to access it.  That can account for half the cost or more in some cases.  If a data intensive operation can build/move into a building where they can get 1000mb service for the price of 10-45mb that would be a huge advantage operations wise.  I can see that impacting startup locations as well as potentially getting businesses to move from out of town

... It will be interesting what impact this has on the telco and cable company strategies.  They already have backend networks that can support this type of buildout.. its just the last mile costs (and lack of competition) that stop them.  What will be interesting is if Google will wholesale them last mile connections for their services.

The 'last mile' issue is quite true.  A friend has a business that is located across the street from a bank that has very high speed access.  My friend's building does not because no business case can be made to offset the costs of installing it.

[mean]

A few points...

.. some have speculated that this development will spur development of data centers.  While it certainly will not hurt, the fact is we already have a large data center community (both private centers and hosting companies).

Right, but are there any in KCK / WyCo? I was under the impression that pretty much everything was in JaxCo and JoCo.

[ignatius]

Google was in town apparently yesterday to discuss more about the network.  The Mayor explains more about it to Bloomberg.

http://kansascitykansan.com/blogs/nick- ... iber/10058