Updated 1 p.m. – Embedded recorded video of full event.
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Google Fiber arrives today, or so Google announced last week of its ultra high-speed network, which will provide internet connections to homes in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. at speeds 100 times faster than high-speed broadband. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company first revealed in March of 2011 that Kansas City, Kan. – and soon, Kansas City, Mo. – had been chosen from a pool of 1,100 applicants to be the site of its first large-scale fiber network.
An invite-only event is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Google’s “Fiber Space” in Kansas City, Mo.
You can watch the event’s live stream above and I will be on hand covering the action for Silicon Prairie News. Follow the official Google Fiber feeds on Twitter (@GoogleFiber) and Google+. Find Twitter chatter about it by searching #GoogleFiber.
For more on today’s announcement and how we got here, see our post: “Google Fiber arrives today. How did we get here?“
Live blog
Begging at 11 a.m., refresh this post for updates and observations from the event.
10:35 – Outside the “Fiber Space,” (left) which is nestled just a stone’s throw from the Kansas border on Westport Road in Kansas City, Mo., new signage alerts passersby to Google Fiber’s new digs.
10:50 – SPN is posted up in the second row as a steady stream of local political, business and tech leaders mingle with press and Google representatives. The room — which is loaded to the gills with screens, monitors and high-tech gadgets — is beginning to fill up.
11:00 – We’re underway. Things kick off with a chuckle-inducing video about the upgrade in speeds along the information superhighway, illustrating it with cartoon cars moving up from dial-up to broadband and, at last, fiber.
11:03 – Google CFO Patrick Pichette takes the stage and opens with a comparison of today’s world — with its wealth of web-enabled amenities — to the world of just a few years ago. “You just don’t notice it, but the web has changed your own … well-being,” he says.
11:03 – Google’s Milo Medin takes the stage and puts Fiber’s speed into perspective using a travel analogy: Two cars leave from Kansas City — one traveling at Fiber speeds and the other at normal broadband speeds. The Fiber car reaches New York before its counterpart has hit the outskirts of the Kansas City Metro area.
11:20 – Google continues to entertain as it explains. A pair of Google Fiber reps demonstrate how their pet project could improve normal daily tasks like sharing files and uploading photos. “Dude,” the Fiber-using demonstrator quips to his broadband-wielding counterpart, “how do you get anything done with that speed?”
11:25 – Now it gets interesting. We encounter a moment many had speculated about: the introduction of Google Fiber TV.
11:33 – Medin is back on the mic and sums up Google’s goal with Fiber TV. “With the most advanced internet in America,” he says, “you should have the most advanced TV experience in America too.”
11:44 – Kevin Lo lays out Google Fiber pricing plans. $300 one-time construction fee. Three different tiers: $120 for Fiber and TV; $70 for Fiber; free access to normal broadband.
11:50 – Google Fiber is incentivizing Kansas Citians to become evangelists for its product. The neighborhoods with the most residents to express interest in Fiber will be the first to receive the high-speed connection.
Credits: Video from Google on YouTube. Photos by Michael Stacy.
