This Tiny Town Is Getting Ultra-Fast Google Fiber Before You

By Brian Anthony Hernandez2013-05-05 18:00:14 UTC

Google continues to expand its Google Fiber service to more cities, adding a small city in Kansas to the lucky places slated to get the search giant's ultrafast broadband connections.

The city council in Shawnee, Kansas — population just upward of 60,000 people — approved the Google Fiber expansion Thursday night. Shawnee joins Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, as the latest Google Fiber additions in the past month.

"We’ve also been impressed by Shawnee’s vision to keep their citizens informed and involved using the Internet," Google Fiber community manager Rachel Hack said in a blog post, touting the city's revamped website that lets citizens "easily access city info" such as audio of city council meetings, crime maps and fiscal reports.

Google didn't say when Fiber would arrive in Shawnee, but it likely won't be anytime soon because the Google folks "still have a lot of planning and engineering work to do."

Kansas City, Miss., and Kansas City, Kansas, are the only two cities with working Fiber so far. Other than Shawnee, Provo and Austin, these Kansas areas are scheduled to get Fiber: Westwood, Westwood Hills, Mission Woods and Olathe.

Google Fiber is a fiber optic cable Internet that Google says provides "an Internet connection speed 100 times faster than today's average broadband, paired with crystal-clear high definition TV." Here's how Google Fiber works:

Fiber's faster speed means that items such as videos and photos can be uploaded and downloaded noticeably quicker than typical broadband connections, making way for high-speed tools that were never possible before.

"Imagine chatting with your doctors or teachers via HD video conference, or collaborating on a work or school project with contributors across the globe in real time, without delays," Google explains. "Imagine new online billing applications that don't freeze. Imagine automatically saving all of your work to the cloud in a blink of an eye — and never having to worry about losing files to a computer crash again."

A gigabit-per-second connection is equal to 1,000 megabits per second. Compare that to the average broadband connection in the U.S., a comparatively pokey 7.4 megabits per second.

Google offers three subscription packages for neighborhoods with Fiber:

Aside from the fast Internet speeds, Google is getting into the TV space with Google Fiber TV, whose users get a Nexus 7 tablet and a TV app with a subscription.

Google Fiber TV is similar to Verizon FiOS, in that it bundles Internet and TV service in one package. Fiber pricing — and its specifications for TV fans particularly — are appealing at first glance compared to FiOS and other broadband services, but they're unlikely to compete heavily because each service isn't in every state yet. FiOS, for example, is only in a dozen or so states while Fiber is in fewer.

Google Fiber TV, which recently added HBO and Cinemax to its offerings, lets subscribers watch and record 500 hours of TV, record eight shows simultaneously, search via DVR and connect to Netflix and other services.

Image via Julie Denesha/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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