Google’s amended application to the FCC mentions the installation of 4.5-meter satellite dishes near its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
For a project that’s expected to enable uploads and downloads at ultra-fast speeds, Google Fiber has come into focus at a plodding pace.
But thanks to reports that surfaced over the weekend and early this week, people are beginning to connect the dots between recent Google activity in two Silicon Prairie hubs.
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First, several outlets reported over the weekend that Google had submitted an amended application to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to build an antenna farm on the same site as its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River from Omaha. (For more on the application, see the FCC Public Notice from Feb. 15.)
The Omaha World-Herald reported Sunday that a cluster of antennas and a fixed-Earth receiving station in Council Bluffs could be used for collecting analog and digital video feeds from broadcast networks. Google could then package that as a bundle with its high-speed internet service, which the company announced last year it’s bringing to Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas CIty, Mo.
Then on Wednesday, the Kansas City Star reported that Google Fiber last week filed applications in both Kansas and Missouri to operate a video service. The Star called those filings “the strongest signals so far that … the search and advertising behemoth also intends to compete with cable companies on TV service.”
Google was tight-lipped on the subject. “We’re still exploring what products will be available when we launch Google Fiber,” Google spokeswoman Jenna Wandres told the Star.
Others, however, were more willing to speculate on the significance of Google Fiber’s recent activity. The Star story cited a report from Bernstein Research that suggests Google may be preparing to unveil “cloud TV,” which could render digital video recorders obsolete. More from The Star:
“We could call this the ‘YouTubization’ of linear TV,” the report said. “Expect Google to store (and make available to consumers) the content across all or most TV channels it will provide …storing the content of hundreds of TV channels for days, weeks or longer and serving them on-demand to individual users requires large amounts of storage and processing capacity. Of course, this is only possible if homes are connected to the cloud through very high-speed connections.”
Stay tuned for more. The pace of press on the project is bound to pick up as additional dots are connected.
Credit: Photo from Caveman Chuck Coker on Flickr.
Gig Bits is an occasional feature that provides a rundown of the latest newsworthy nuggets related to the Google Fiber project in the Kansas City area.
