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There’s some rough news for Topeka, Kan., the city that courted Google’s ultra-high-speed municipal broadband project by changing its name to Google. The Mountain View, Calif., tech giant announced Wednesday that the lucky city that gets to be its broadband guinea pig not only isn’t Topeka, but it’s Kansas City, Kansas–just an hour’s drive away. Ouch.
More than 1,100 communities had applied since the call for applicants was announced about a year ago. Kansas City will first see the new developments next year, and Google is already looking for additional communities to join the test.
“Over the past decade, the jump from dial-up to broadband has led to streaming online video, digital music sales, videoconferencing over the Web, and countless other innovations that have transformed communication and commerce,” a post on the official Google blog explained. “We can’t wait to see what new products and services will emerge as Kansas City moves from traditional broadband to ultra high-speed fiber optic connections.
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About Mark Milliman
Mark Milliman is a Principal Consultant at Inphotonics Research driving the adoption and assisting local governments to plan, build, operate, and lease access open-access municipal broadband networks. Additionally, he works with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to increase the value of their intellectual capital through the creation of strategic product plans and execution of innovative marketing strategies. With more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry that began at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Mark has built fiber, cable, and wireless networks around the world to deliver voice, video, and data services. His thorough knowledge of all aspects of service delivery from content creation to the design, operation, and management of the network is utilized by carriers and equipment manufacturers. Mark conceived and developed one of the industry's first multi-service provisioning platform and is multiple patent holder. He is active in the IEEE as a senior member. Mark received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
