Happy birthday, Google! Just a few short years and you’ll be borrowing the car and taking your gal YouTube out for a malt and a drive-in movie (kids still do that, right?)
So you’re a teenager now. What’s on your wish list for the Big 1-3? A new smart phone? A trip to… Kansas?
Kansas City, Kansas?
Sure, why not?
It’s all part of Google’s push to make a higher-speed internet, and kick it off in the smaller, less-populated suburb of the better-known community of the same name just across the Missouri state line.
But, as is sometimes the case, there are a few government barriers that need to be scooted over or around in order to create a fiber-optic network in the town of less than 150,000 that promises speeds of 1 gigabit per second for both download and upload speeds using those fiber-optic lines to link to every home.
Started in 2009, the Google fiber project began when the company’s employees were discussing a faster internet, and when the government would take measures to improve on the nation’s broadband system.
However, instead of waiting for Uncle Sam to get the ball rolling, co-founder Sergey Brin suggested starting the project in Mountain View (home of Google HQ), and petitioning for government support once a system was in place and ready to be installed.
With that system now ready for implementation, what lies ahead is up to legislators and how busy/forward thinking they are, with Brin and his team calling for three specific reforms: ease access to public rights-of-way where fiber-optic cables can be laid; ease access to utility poles; and enable special service districts to free sections of municipalities from zoning restrictions.
This legislation will be imperative in the continuing development of the biggest search engine the planet has ever known. With higher internet speeds, Google will be able to “spider” their way through more pages at faster speeds, which will come almost as a necessity as the higher upload/download speeds will inevitably lead to a greater rate of information creation, as detailed in an earlier post.
Will the federal government allow a private-sector corporation to tinker with the mechanics of the information super highway?
Stay tuned…
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