
Google Selects Kansas City for Its Ultra High-Speed Internet Project - acconrad
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_selects_kansas_city_for_its_ultra_high-spee.php
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mschwar99
Interesting that the Google provides several offerings for Sprint and then the
fiber project picks KCK which is a stone's throw from Sprint headquarters.

Could be completely unrelated, but could be hinting at further alignments.

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westbywest
Also, amusing reader comment from the article, highlighting an interviewee's
remark: "the average high schooler has texted 1200 times from the time they
get out of bed to when they hit school at 7:30 in the morning."

I imagine this figure off by only a single order of magnitude.

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yellowbkpk
My college-aged sister consistently sends 10-20,000 text messages a month over
the last year or so. I know because my mother insists on receiving the paper
AT&T bill and AT&T insists on listing each send/receive on a separate line of
a sheet of paper.

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icegreentea
That's still 700 per day on the high end. 1200 in the few hours between waking
up and getting to school is ridiculous. If it took 2 hours, you would be
sending 10 txts every minute, or one every 6 seconds. Unless the majority of
these txts were 'lols' and 'kkz', then you -would not be able to do anything
else-. In fact, you would have seen a complete epidemic of kids getting hit by
cars while walking to school.

Also, does anyone know if they count messages that get split up as one
message, or multiple?

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deweller
This is an important step in the battle against telcos trying to protect their
broadband monopolies. If Google can launch this, then it would establish an
important precedent. Go Kansas City!

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westbywest
I am interested to see how this project proceeds. The article mentioned that
the service will be built in conjunction with the city, suggesting a Public
Private Partnership (PPP). Previous efforts with using PPPs to build municipal
broadband services have faltered in conflict (lawsuits alleging
anticompetitive activities) with the incumbent providers.

This happened in Philadelphia, IIRC, and more recently in North Carolina.
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-
of...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of-muni-
broadband-eternal-war-with-time-warner-cable.ars)

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chris11
There might be some lawsuits, but I doubt there will be any significant legal
problems. Google would have a market cap several times larger than any
potential plaintiff. So they definitely have resources for any legal battle.

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ry0ohki
And just to be clear, it's Kansas City, KANSAS not Kansas City, Missouri.
Interesting small town pick!

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drivebyacct2
As a Topeka, KS native, ... what? KCK is not a "small town", and for all
intents and purposes it's just part of "Kansas City".

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mhewett
KCK and Wyandotte County in particular are economically depressed, yet near a
lot of infrastructure and near an international airport. I think Google could
do a lot of good there.

As another Topeka native, I'm interested to see the reaction in Topeka after
they tried so hard to win.

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aidenn0
Headline should really read "Kansas City, Kansas" since "Kansas City"
typically refers to either the Missouri half, or the combined whole of the
two.

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jemfinch
"The Missouri 75%" would be more accurate :)

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codexon
Kansas City is the geographical middle of the US.

[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&i...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kansas+city&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kansas+City,+Wyandotte,+Kansas&gl=us&ll=39.774769,-87.451172&spn=35.205519,86.572266&t=h&z=4)

