Stanford gets sneak preview of Google Fiber! What Does It Mean For Kansas City?
According to an article in the the KC Star, some of the staff & faculty at Stanford University got early access to Google Fiber.
Connectivity to homes began rolling out in July, and the lucky recipients have this gigabit pipeline free for an entire year!
Highlights from the Google Fiber article
In this section, I’ll comment on a couple of segments I found interesting.
A faster Internet gets rid of a big bottleneck. But it doesn’t make them all vanish. Hardware in people’s homes — or scattered across the Internet — is only as fast or slow as it was before.
As technology professional, you likely had that same thought when you first heard that Google Fiber was coming to Kansas City.
For a non technical enduser, this is an important concept to understand. It’s great to see that discussed in the article!
Next:
As much as people like the service, and feel grateful to Google, it’s not an instant life-changer.
Perhaps the users at Stanford already had adequate access to high speed internet? An understandable viewpoint, if so.
I think that from a Kansas City perspective, Google Fiber’s impact could instantly affect lives in terms of access. One example of this is the deployment to educational and public entities that may not have previously had sufficient connectivity. 
Long Term Impact
Unrelated to the article itself, but relevant to this blog post is the long term impact for Kansas City. How will the deployment of a gigabit speed network impact economic development?
According to one survey for Fiber To The Home (FTTH) in North America:
Small businesses run from fiber to the home residences added $41.6 billion to the U.S. economy in the past 12 months.
Definitely an interesting report, which you should check out. Stats aside, the opportunities are tremendous for growth in KC!
More tech startups?
Aside from the obvious benefits to government, education & the community at large, hope to see a more tech startups.
The technology community here in KC seems to grow stronger every day & momentum is building! Recognition from outside of the region includes a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, which listed Kansas City as a top technology hub (partly due to Google Fiber).
It’s going to take more than a strong tech community, though. Thankfully, there are some great organizations who help entrepreneurs, so I’m sure we’ll see more access to capital & other resources.
All of this should help drive more entrepreneurial success stories & benefit KC!
Your Thoughts?
What are your thoughts on the article, gigabit connectivity & it’s impact to KC?
PS: If you’re an information technology professional in Kansas City, are you a part of our community yet? Here’s how to get involved
