Google says no to Greenville

By Cindy Landrum  

MARCH 30, 2011 2:15 p.m. (0)

Google chose Kansas City, Kansas, over Greenville and more than 1,100 other cities for its Google Fiber project, the company announced Wednesday.

Google said one of the reasons it chose Kansas City is because the necessary infrastructure for the project can be built quickly and efficiently there.

Aaron von Frank, one of the organizers of the Google on Main event, said infrastructure was one of his concerns from the beginning.

"The decision is not surprising, given the cost and investment Google is making," he said. "We thought Google's interest would come down to infrastructure and cost."

But von Frank said Greenville did accomplish something during its attempt to land Google Fiber.

"From the public standpoint, we want to make Greenville look good on the national level and I think we accomplished that," he said.

Greenville Mayor Knox White said although Greenville wasn't chosen, the city still benefited from the effort.

“It will have lasting positive benefits," he said. "It helped bring a lot of people in the tech community together and energized the community. The biggest takeaway is Greenville really rose to the occasion.”

Google announced a year ago it would choose at least one city for its “Google Fiber,” an internet connection the company said is more than 100 times faster that what’s available now.

Last March, more than 2,000 people gathered in downtown Greenville and spelled out Google with glow sticks.

It was one of many big events across the country designed to catch Google’s attention. Topeka, Kansas, changed its name to Google temporarily, which led the company to briefly change its name to Topeka on its search engine site.

Google plans to offer service in Kansas City beginning next year.

As a part of the agreement, which has already been signed, the company will be providing free access to schools and city facilities as the fiber network is deployed.

Google said it would provide 1 gigabit per second fiber straight to homes and businesses at a competitive price.

“Over the past decade, the jump from dial-up to broadband has led to streaming online video, digital music sales, video conferencing over the web, and countless other innovations that have transformed communication and commerce,” Milo Medin, vice president for access services at Google, said in a news release.

Kansas City, Kansas, has a population of about 150,000 and is generally considered a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. They are located on opposite sides of the area where the Missouri and Kansas rivers come together.

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