Google is notorious for blazing trails. We may be annoyed at them for some of their shenanigans but, at the same time, they offer a lot in return. This newest endeavor is no exception. You are going to be impressed.
Google is debuting a new, incredibly fast broadband speed. World – meet Google Fiber. Google Fiber reaches speeds of 1 Gigabit per second. With data transfer like that, you can have access to a full movie feature download in just five minutes. But home users would not be the only beneficiaries. Imagine what this will do for office productivity. One example given is that medical needs would be promptly met by being able to download even 3D images with weighty data loads in very short times, enabling conferencing with specialists all over the world. In the educational field, 3D lectures would be available for online students.
However, Google doesn’t want to take too many risks with this. In a bright idea born over much coffee and bean bag chairs, I’m sure, they decided to make cities compete to be the first one to get to try out the service. And compete, they did! More than eleven hundred cities expressed an interest and joined in the competition which was initialized in February of 2010.
One mayor from the Sunshine State went swimming with sharks, hoping to win some Google Love. A Minnesota mayor decided a visit to Lake Superior, topped off by jumping in, might get Google to glance their way. Have you heard of the city of Google, Kansas? Well, Topeka changed it’s name for a month to show their Google loyalty. Skydiving was a popular stunt, but it didn’t make Google bat an eye. As a final mention – I have no idea what Google tastes like, but apparently Madison Wisconsin does. They created a Google ice cream, hoping the way to Google’s heart was through its stomach.
So who won? Kansas City, MO, that’s who. Leaving us only silently bobbing our heads in agreement with the “Oklahoma” show tune entitled, “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City”.
Yay, Kansas City!
So now what?
Good question. The competition is not over. Now residents and businesses in the area must compete for getting this experimental service by cash bid. Kansas City metropolitan area has been divided into grids of residential, school, and business areas. They are calling them FiberHoods. Cute, eh? If you want to get the service, you must get at least 40 to 80 customers to put down $10 each in hope of winning the bid to try out the service. This is their pre-registration fee and the competition goes for 6 weeks, ending on the 9th of September.
I can only imagine the lengths to which these areas will go to garner favor for Google’s publicity stunt. Should be fun to watch.
I suppose it’s all in good fun and I’m all for innovation and friendly competition. I guess what rubs me the wrong way is that Google has to be one of the wealthiest companies on earth and they are not only making a lot of money but also getting hopeful internet addicts to fork over their much needed income just on the chance that they might get the service.
However, it is a free country. I don’t think there should be a law to keep people from buying lottery tickets nor to prevent people from paying for a service they might not get. Chances are, this is going to go through. 3D internet is on its way, no doubt about that. The economy runs on money and businesses provide what people want. From this desk, it seems like a fairly sure bet.
So let’s keep our eyes on this one. I, for one, am looking forward to being able to get my data transfers done here at my desk at speeds of 100 times faster than we are getting now. I’m just glad I don’t have to do tricks on an elephant to get it.
David Ching is blazing trails of his own at his office desk. He writes for this site that ships nationwide both new and used furniture from the west coast and Texas.
