Since then, however, specifics have proved as elusive as bottles of Boulevard Chocolate Ale — who gets it? when? how much will it cost?
That all changed Monday. Kevin Lo, the Google executive managing the project, emerged from his unicorn cave February 6 to announce that infrastructure work was finally under way. On the Google Fiber Blog, he wrote: “We’re ready to lay fiber.” Assuming that’s not an unfortunate new gastrointestinal euphemism, KCK can let out a big woot.
The Kansas City Star reported the same day that about 100 workers were in the metro. All those hardhats in cherry pickers ought to be pretty visible, with wiring set to run above-ground, alongside existing power lines. But where? Google hasn’t named the contractor or its point of origin, and it hasn’t said where cable is being unspooled first. All we know is all we’ve known all along: Sometime in the first half of this year, Google still insists, a few lucky neighborhoods are going to get their gigabyte switch flipped. (KCMO, the Star reports, will be a few months behind KCK.)
So the next utility worker you see might be stringing the cable that is to deliver the Internet at more than 100 times the speed of current connections. (More likely, he’s the guy about to snap your neighbor’s illegal porn hookup.) Hoping to catch a first glimpse of Google’s panda-rare workforce Monday afternoon, The Pitch sent a reporter to the ’Dotte. At press time, he wasn’t back, and his dickeys were missing from his locker.
Lo’s blog post ends: “As we build, we’ll be sure to post more important updates and announcements right here.” But let’s hope that Google delivers Internet faster than its updates; Lo’s last substantive communiqué on the Google Fiber Blog was August 31.
We’re all in this together while we wait for the Miracle on Minnesota Avenue. If you see workers in your neighborhood and you think they’re putting up fiber-optic cable, snap a pic and send it to us on Twitter @pitchplog. If you’re a worker wanting to know where to get a good sandwich, give us a call. We won’t tell Kevin.
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Newsflash! North Kansas City is the only municipally owned fiber optic ISP and get this....the fiber is UNDERGROUND! It's called www.linkcity.org and get this..$25 a month delivers 3 meg 24/7/365 and get this...it's been around since 2005!
There's been a group from 'Atlantic' surveying all the electric poles. So I assume it's part of the Google upgrade.
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