UPDATED 10:45 EDT / SEPTEMBER 10 2012

NEWS

Kansas City Set for Blanket Coverage with Google Fiber

Kansas City residents have moved quickly to embrace Google’s new superfast fiber optic internet service since it was unveiled earlier this summer, with 180 of 202 eligible neighborhoods on both sides of the Missouri/Kansas state line having signed up so far.

In order to make the project economically feasible, signing up for Google Fiber isn’t as simple as just putting your name down on the list and waiting for an engineer to pop round. Instead, Google drew up a map of Kansas City, then chopped it up into 202 ‘fiberhoods’ comprising roughly 800 homes each, and then set each one a ‘goal’ of anywhere between five and twenty-five percent of residents needing to sign up in order for that neighborhood to qualify.

Since Google started accepting applications, the response they’ve received has been overwhelming. The web giant revealed in its latest Google Fiber blog post that to date, just 11% of homes in Kansas City will miss out when the final list of neighborhoods is published this Thursday. However, pre-registrations for the service are still being processed, so some neighborhoods may yet achieve their goals and be brought into the fold.

Once the neighborhoods have been confirmed, those residents there who put their name down and stumped up the $10 application fee will then be able to choose from a variety of packages, starting with their ‘free package’ which offers unlimited internet access at regular broadband speeds for a one-off payment of $300; 1,000 Mbps web access at just $70/month; and the same package plus Google TV for $120/month.

Those who sign up for the premium (monthly) packages will obtain a number of perks, including 1TB of storage space in Google Drive and no data cap whatsoever, while anyone who opts for the $120/month package will receive 2TB of Drive-space, plus a free Nexus 7 tablet that they can use as a remote control. You can read more about the Google Fiber services in-depth in our earlier coverage.

There has been some criticism of the way Google has handled its signing up process, especially as a number of poorer neighborhoods have apparently missed out on Google Fiber, but Google says that these neighborhoods will be given a second opportunity at a later date.


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