The long and the short of it is that Google will begin offering Gigabit internet access to Kansas City, KS and central Kansas City, MO starting around September 9.
They’re offering three plans:
- Gigabit Internet for $70/month.
- Internet plus their newly-announced Google Fiber TV service for $120/month (and the TV plan comes with a free Nexus 7 to use as your remote control).
- Or free internet (for up to 7 years) if you’ll pay for them to run the fiber optic cable to your house. It’s not gigabit speeds though; they’ll cap you at 5Mb down and 1Mb up.
Since each house that signs up for Google Fiber will have to have a fiber optic cable physically run to their home, Google is picking which neighborhoods to begin residential activation in by having people pre-register their “fiberhood”. You pay $10 to pre-register your house and then the neighborhoods with the most registrations will get set up first.
Alas, since I live on the southern edge of Kansas City, Google Fiber isn’t yet available in my neighborhood.