Google's plan to bring a 1Gbps fiber network to Kansas City, Kansas has been delayed by disputes over where and how to hang cables on utility poles, according to an in-depth report yesterday in the Kansas City Star.
Kansas City is the testing ground for Google's move toward providing an "open access" network giving users the choice of multiple service providers, having been chosen as the first site in March 2011. But "it turns out that differences over where and how to hang wires on those poles, and what fees or installation costs may be required, have created a troublesome bump in plans to launch the project at 'Google speed,'" the Star reports.
Although Google and city officials haven't publicly acknowledged any significant delay, the Star notes progress has not matched the expectations set by Google when the project was announced. "Google said [in March] that it would begin signing up its first customers in the fourth quarter of 2011 and light up its service in the first quarter of this year," the newspaper said. "To date, while the company says it’s been putting intense effort into engineering the project, it hasn’t begun to sign up customers."
The Kansas project could begin picking up steam, though. A spokesman for the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities said "within the next week or two we ought to be able to hammer out the final details."
Somewhat confusingly, Google is also building a network in the other Kansas City—the one in Missouri. The Missouri project was announced six weeks after the Kansas one, with the city insisting on longer negotiations to determine proper placement of wires. As a result of that foresight, there is "no indication that the project on the Missouri side had strayed from Google’s original schedule," the Star wrote. According to the original schedule, both Kansas Citys are supposed to see active fiber service before the end of March of this year.
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