kansas city

Google Fiber is about ready to launch in its third city, according to The Wall Street Journal. The service is apparently about 3 months behind original schedule, and sign ups will be launched this December focusing on the south and southeastern parts of the city. The company’s original announcement touted “mid-2014” for launch, but it looks like laying groundwork for a fiber internet service isn’t exactly an easy task.

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Some medical schools are using Google Glass to train the surgeons of tomorrow, however Mountain View’s wearable computer is also teaching some old dogs a few new tricks. Kansas City plastic surgeon and Lt. Governor of Kanas, Dr. Jeff Colyer recently added Google’s high-tech eyewear to his equipment list. When performing medical procedures from North Kansas City Hospital, Dr. Colyer uses Glass during facial reconstructive surgeries.

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As first reported by the Kansas City Star, several cable companies have started bumping up their internet speeds for customers, free of charge, in order to better compete with Google Fiber in Kansas City. Both Comcast and Time Warner announced changes for their internet packages.

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Ben Barreth, owner of the Homes for Hackers house

When Google first announced Fiber, thousands of cities jockeyed to be the first test location, but to many people’s dismay, Kansas City was eventually named the winner. For the past year, internet service in the area has been booming thanks to the network, which in turn has made it a popular area for startups and entrepreneurs, according to a new report from CNET. When Google announced Fiber, web designer and Kansas City local Ben Barreth bought a house in the startup district in hopes of being one of the first people to be connected to the network. In order to pay for the house, he started it up as the “Home for Hackers,” which he says is a place for startups and entrepreneurs to rent out a space to work and be connected the incredibly fast internet service.
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Google will add Provo, Utah, to the list of cities set to receive its ultra high speed Google Fiber Internet service.

Austin, Texas was revealed earlier this month to be joining Kansas City as host to Google Fiber.

The announcement by Provo Mayor John Curtis will be live streamed at 3:30 PM EST.

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Google officially started rolling out its new gigabit fiber Internet and TV service in Kansas City in July. Google asked households in the various “Fiberhoods”, which are made up of 800 or so residents each, to sign-up, but the service has not yet rolled out to businesses. Now, as reported by GigaOm, businesses are going as far as purchasing residential homes in the city to take advantage of the $70 per month Internet plans:

the startup community wasn’t willing to settle — and since most of them worked from their homes, coffee shops or communal space anyhow, it wasn’t a big leap to decide to find a house in an area slated for fiber and move in.

Tyler Vanwinkle of Leap2, a mobile search company, said his company was already based near a neighborhood slated to get fiber and a friend of his owned a house there. So he talked to his friend about renting space for the company in the house, now dubbed the Hacker House. “Google fiber the speed is phenomenal but it’s only residential,” he said. “Since we were interested in renting the house as office space and so were some of our friends, this has evolved into this common bond of entrepreneurship.”

GigaOm also noted many other startups and businesses in the city are considering making the switch to residential to gain access to Google’s new Internet service. The company originally said it would provide more information on offering the service to businesses at a later date, but has yet to do so.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZVqPuq81c]

Google plans to make a “special announcement about Google Fiber and the next chapter of the Internet” at 12 p.m. EST.

The company revealed earlier this week that it would launch the “100 times faster than broadband” Internet service today in Kansas City.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amuKO83W1c4&feature=player_embedded]

Google announced on the Google Fiber blog today that it will launch the “100 times faster than broadband” Internet service on July 26 in Kansas City. We do not know a lot about what to expect, but a Google Fiber-branded set-top box of sorts did make its way through the Federal Communications Commission in June. We will keep you posted later this month when Google reveals more about its Google Fiber plans for Kansas. Until then, you can sign up to get the latest announcements:

Google Fiber is coming to to Kansas City on July 26. We appreciate your help and support, and we feel privileged to be part of the Kansas City community. For updates on our project, please sign up for our mailing list and look out for an announcement on July 26 at http://google.com/fiber.

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Google announced last spring that Kansas City, K.S., landed the search engine’s super-speed Internet project, but disputed details within the original agreement created a troublesome 10-month delay. However, it now seems KCK is finally fiber-ready.

Google claimed it would begin KCK customer signups for the service in the fourth quarter of 2011, and the company planned to power-up the fiber optic network in the first quarter of 2012. For a while, it seemed those plans would not come to fruition, but Google announced in an official blog post today that it is ready to lay fiber now.

“We’ve measured utility poles; we’ve studied maps and surveyed neighborhoods; we’ve come up with a comprehensive set of detailed engineering plans; and we’ve eaten way too much barbecue. Now, starting today, we’re ready to lay fiber,” wrote Google Access General Manager Kevin Lo.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company said it plans to stretch thousands of miles of cables across Kansas City, K.S., and Kansas City, M.O…

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Google Offers, the search giant’s deal-of-the-day website that launched six months ago, is now expanding to five new cities in the United States. Beginning today, people in Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tampa can take advantage of the Offers website to subscribe to great deals in the aforementioned cities. According to a post over at the official Google Commerce blog, these deals include $11 for a beer tasting, growler bottle, souvenir glass and soft pretzel at The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery in Charlotte ($22 value), $5 for $10 of food and drink at Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque Restaurant in Kansas City, $5 for $12 toward burgers, brews and more at Sobelman’s Pub & Grill in Milwaukee, $10 for $20 of fine sandwiches, pasta, steaks and more at Liberty Bar in San Antonio, and $5 for $10 of Greek cuisine at Louis Pappas Market Cafe in Tampa. You can subscribe to these and other deals via email at google.com/offers or through the Wallet app on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone on the Sprint network.

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Google Inc., announced last spring that Kansas City, Kan., landed the search engine’s super-speed Internet project, but disputed details within the original agreement over wires and fees have created a troublesome hurdle, and lawyers and engineers are still attempting to find middle ground nearly 10 months later.

The local community was nicely suited for hanging Google’s cables, so it vied against 1,100 other United States localities that were courting the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company and its ambitious Internet plans. Subsequently, KCK became known as the first “Gigabyte City” or “Fiber Town.”

“Since we announced our plans to build experimental, ultra high-speed broadband networks, the response has been tremendous. Hundreds of communities and hundreds of thousands of individuals across the country have expressed their interest in the project,” said Google on its Fiber Network website.

“We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people,” Google added on its official blog.

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The story continues below.

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