Google (News - Alert) is the only thing that the former Port Authority building in NYC, dark fiber, gigabit-speed Internet, and Kansas City have in common. The Internet search giant, in early 2005 began acquiring high-speed fiber optic lines all over the world.

As reported by Time Business, the company also moved into a building atop “a major physical network node that allows tech and telecom firms to share space in proximity to improve network service and speed.” There was a great deal of speculation at the time that Google might be building its own private Internet.

In 2005, in an article for Search Engine Journal written up by a fellow Journalist Jim Hedger titled “Google Building Alternative Internet,” a hint at the reality to come was slightly exposed. He mentioned that on its ability to organize the world’s information and provide it free of charge to its users, Google has always prided itself. The advertisers bear the cost of Google’s services.

By enticing hundreds of millions of new registered users to take a look at whatever it is they are creating, Google might simply be exponentially increasing its online real estate inventory. As most of Google’s new products when released, tend to be faster and cheaper than its competitors many of those new users will choose to stick around to use the services offered by a Google branded network assuming that it is the coolest thing on the block.

This October, it seemed clear that Google is indeed offering the coolest thing on the block with the announcement that the search engine giant would begin construction on the first gigabit-speed fiberhood. However, the first phase of this project is residential. Google will start talking to businesses about making the ultra-high-speed connections available to them only after the fiberhood construction. Kansas City has already benefitted by the Google Fiber Project. The need to close the technological gap in poor neighborhoods has become a primary focus. Moreover, new opportunities in education and medicine are also in the pipeline.

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