Google is expanding the coverage of its existing gigabit Internet offering from Kansas City into another area of Kansas. The city of Shawnee, just outside of Kansas City, will gain Google Fiber in the future, and joins the high-speed connection construction waiting list alongside Olathe in the same state, Austin in Texas and Provo, Utah.
The Shawnee City Council voted to approve an agreement to deploy Google Fiber in the area on May 2nd, though despite its closeness to the current fiber network being constructed in Kansas City, there is not a set date for when it will be rolled out in the area. The Google Fiber blog confirms the company still has “a lot of planning and engineering work to do before we’re ready to bring Fiber to Shawnee,” but will be providing updates as soon as they are available through the Google Fiber site.
The Google Fiber project has seemingly stimulated other broadband providers into rolling out or upgrading their own fiber networks. While AT&T announced plans for a gigabit fiber network in Austin shortly after Google revealed their own proposal, CenturyLink is building its own pilot gigabit service in Omaha, according to a recent Omaha.com report. Vtel, an Internet service provider in Vermont, revealed during its fiber product launch that the creation of Google Fiber helped it receive stimulus funding to build its network, after a first attempt to gain federal funding was denied.
