Google starting work on first fibre city in Kansas

Google has released fresh details regarding its fibre-to-the-premises project in Kansas City. On the Google Fiber blog, Kevin Lo, general manager of the Google Access division said that the  company was now conducting the next phase of the project which he referred to as “detail engineering”.

Lo said that this part of the work would provide Google with the geographical data it needed to build the fibre network later in the year and would involve its engineers being out on the streets of Kansas City and performing seemingly mundane but necessary tasks such as counting or measuring telephone and utility poles and asking residents details such as their address.

Google’s fibre city project involves the online search and advertising giant creating ultra-high speed broadband networks of 1Gbps speeds in selected cities in the US in a bid to reduce the digital divide. Over 1,100 communities applied to be the first to receive Google’s largesse and the announcement that Kansas City had been selected first was made in March 2011 with a projected deadline for completion of early 2012. It later said that the larger Missouri side of Kansas city would also be included in the project. Details such as end user pricing however, have yet to be revealed.

Google Access general manager Kevin Lo will be a keynote speaker at the Broadband World Forum, which will take place at the CNIT, La Defense in Paris, France on the 27th-29th September 2011.