By LESLIE COLLINS
Northeast News
August 8, 2012

More and more Kansas Citians are going gaga over Google, including Northeast.

Strings of Facebook posts from Northeast residents encouraged fellow neighbors to pre-register for Google Fiber. Pendleton Heights resident Kristin Johnson chalked the outside of her brick home with the message: “Pendleton Heights loves Google Fiber.”

Other Northeast neighborhoods have posted videos rallying for Google Fiber and two have already fulfilled their pre-registration goal.

“This is going to be huge,” Scarritt Renaissance resident Dylan Smith said of Google Fiber. “In an age that is becoming increasingly more digital and exponentially more reliant on the Internet, this is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss. It is the start of a new era and will change the Internet landscape even more than the switch from dial-up to digital.”

Google Fiber boasts it will provide Internet speeds 100 times faster than today’s average broadband. It will also offer Internet speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbps), or 1000 megabits per second (Mbps). That means speedier downloading and uploading and the elimination of buffering.

“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,” the Google Fiber website states. “A gigabit is the Internet experience of the future. And it starts in Kansas City.”

To receive Google Fiber, eligible neighborhoods must meet Google’s pre-registration goals by Sept. 9. Google has dubbed the neighborhoods “fiberhoods,” pitting them against each other in a race to receive the service first. Google will rank the neighborhoods based on the number of pre-registrants and those with the highest percentage registered will receive the service first. Those signed up for service will be connected by the end of 2013, Google said.

Several Northeast neighborhoods have been divided into several fiberhoods, including Scarritt Renaissance, Indian Mound and Lykins. Scarritt has been split into two fiberhoods (Scarritt Point North and Scarritt Point South), while Indian Mound has been split into three fiberhoods and Lykins has been split into two.

Both Pendleton Heights and Scarritt Point North have reached pre-registration goals, guaranteeing them Google Fiber service.

“Pendleton Heights, Northeast and both Kansas Cities will be so far ahead of most of the country in Internet connectivity, it is mind-blowing,” Pendleton Heights resident Harold Smith said. “We will be able to reliably connect to people all over the world or watch a college lecture or high definition movie easily and without fear that we will be throttled for using too much bandwidth.”

Indian Mound resident David Remley said he’s ready for Google Fiber to eliminate Time Warner’s monopoly on the market.

“Time Warner has been your only answer up until this point,” Remley said.

Dylan Smith agreed.

“I’m currently just getting Internet service from Time Warner Cable,” Dylan Smith said. “I’m paying for their Road Runner service, which is supposed to provide speeds of up to 10 Mbps. Unfortunately, I only get an average speed of 3 to 4 Mbps. And would you believe this is considered good? Most people get less than that.”

Dylan Smith explained that when Time Warner originally laid its cables, it grossly underestimated how much Internet usage would grow. The size of Time Warner’s cables limits the bandwidth, he said.

“The more people in your neighborhood that use the Internet, the worse your service is,” he said. “And at this point, it’s not cost effective for them to go back and re-lay bigger cables capable of more bandwidth. And why should they? In most neighborhoods, they’re the only game in town.

“Google Fiber will change all of that.”

Dylan Smith said Google Fiber’s capabilities will affect a number of fields. The expanding business of telemedicine, where doctors treat patients remotely via an Internet connection, could greatly benefit from Google’s lightning fast Internet speeds, he said.

“The Google Fiber project could potentially turn Kansas City into a center for that industry,” Dylan Smith said.

Other industries include online gaming, telecommunications, app development, education, the list goes on, he said.

“I’ve heard from people all over the country, and they are very envious of our neighborhood; they wish they could get Google Fiber,” Harold Smith said. “Google Fiber will allow many people in tech and computing to work from home. Kansas City is now a center of the tech future.”

Google Fiber Stats

NE Neighborhoods guaranteed fiber: 

•Pendleton Heights – As a result, Garfield Elementary School, Scuola Vita Nuova Charter School and the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences will receive free Fiber
•Scarritt Point (Renaissance) North – As a result, the Kansas City Museum will receive free Fiber

NE Neighborhoods still rallying: 

Scarritt Point (Renaissance) South- 41 more residents needed
Indian Mound West- 23 more needed
Indian Mound East- 36 more needed
South Indian Mound- 34 more needed
Budd Park- 26 more needed
Lykins North- 51 more needed
Lykins South- 25 more needed
Independence Plaza- 94 more needed
Sheffield West- 27 more needed (0 percenthave registered)

Google Fiber Plans: 

• Free Internet – requires one-time installation fee of $300; residents will then receive free Internet with speeds of 5 Mbps for 7 years
• Gigabit Internet – provides Internet usage at 1000 Mbps for $70/month and a 1 Terabyte Google Drive Cloud storage; installation fee is waived
• Gigabit + TV – TV package with 1000 Mbps Internet for $120/month; installation fee is waived; also includes a Nexus 7 tablet to use as a remote control and a 2 Terabyte DVR to record and save shows