Gig Bits: Q&A sheds light on 100-mile mark, Fiber Huts

Google has already hung more than 100 miles of fiber on utility poles throughout Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. But that’s not all that’s up in the air when it comes to Google’s ultra high-speed network. A post Wednesday on the Google Fiber Blog shed some light on what stands between Kansas Citians…

A diagram on the Google Fiber blog provides a look at the basic infrastructure involved in the project. 

Google has already hung more than 100 miles of fiber on utility poles throughout Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. But that’s not all that’s up in the air when it comes to Google’s ultra high-speed network.

post Wednesday on the Google Fiber Blog shed some light on what stands between Kansas Citians and access to the one-gigabit speed of Google Fiber, but plenty of questions regarding the project remain unanswered. 

In the blog post, Rachel Hack (far left), the community manager for Google Fiber, conducts a question-and-answer with John Toccalino (near left), a manager of the project.

Toccalino provides a basic explanation of how Google Fiber will work and touches on the significance of the fast upload speeds it will enable. He also sheds light on what Google crews in Kansas City are up to at the moment.

“We’re working on 2 pieces of fiber infrastructure right now: installing fiber and building the Google Fiber Huts,” Toccalino says.

“Most of our crews are out on boom trucks every day, hanging fiber on utility poles throughout Kansas City. A few of our crews are also busy digging trenches to install fiber underground.

“We’re making good progress on the Google Fiber Huts as well—we’ve already built half of them!”

That said, Toccalino goes on to emphasize they “still have a while” before infrastructure is complete. Toccalino says Google has to hang fiber throughout “almost all” of Kansas City before it begins connecting homes to the high-speed network.

Toccalino doesn’t indicate Google’s intentions in terms of what neighborhoods will receive the service first, saying crews have been working throughout Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. But he does make mention of those “Fiber Huts,” which are equipment aggregators from which fiber will be run to utility poles. So perhaps, it stands to reason, neighborhoods in which these huts first appear can expect to be among the first to receive service? Stay tuned.

 

Credits: Google Fiber graphic from the Google Fiber Blog. Photo of Hack from linkedin.com. Photo of Toccalino from linkedin.com.


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.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

Get the latest news and events from Nebraska’s entrepreneurship and innovation community delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday.