In Kansas City, Google Fiber has changed workers' lives

In 2010, Nashville was among the 1,100 cities that applied to be the first Google Fiber city. The title went to Kansas City, which has been reaping the benefits since.

While there is something to being first, and Nashville won't have the novelty factor Kansas City enjoyed, Nashville can still look to Kansas City for examples of impact. The list is long, says Kansas City, Mo., Assistant City Manager Rick Usher.

So far, the city has hosted teams of international visitors who have come to observe the effect and operation of the fiber network. Entrepreneurs and young software developers have moved from across the country to take advantage of the faster Internet speeds, he said.

"We really say, they come for Google Fiber, but they stay for the community," Usher said. "We've really had a strong startup and entrepreneur culture going in Kansas City now."

The Kansas City Startup Village is perhaps the most well-known development spurred by Google Fiber. A group of entrepreneurs moved to the first neighborhood to gain fiber access, and the area has developed into a startup community that includes a home for software developers donated by a local programmer.

Another significant development is seen in offerings and prices of existing Internet providers. Since the rollout began, Time Warner Cable has increased its Internet speeds and has begun offering free Wi-Fi connection in the city's Union Station. AT&T committed to offering its GigaPower in Kansas City, and Illinois-based Consolidated Communications made gigabit speed available for $69.95 a month, undercutting Google by 5 cents.

Google Fiber is finishing installation in the core city and is building in the more suburban areas, which bodes well for residents in Franklin and areas surrounding Nashville. Usher said fiber passes over more than 200,000 households — population is about 485,000 — in Kansas City, Mo., and according to a Bernstein Research report cited by the Wall Street Journal in May, 42 percent of Kansas City residents surveyed last year subscribed to Google Fiber.

Of course, with all of the benefits come the headaches of fiber installation. Usher said his advice to Nashville and other new fiber cities is to prioritize communication between Google and residents so households and neighboring businesses are not caught off-guard. That means door hangers ahead of installation and staying in touch with neighborhood association meetings, he said.

Google Fiber announced in April it would be rolling out its network to small businesses, but employees who work from home have already demonstrated its usefulness. Usher said fiber also could help disabled populations that might benefit from more remote work opportunities made possible through more reliable connections.

And while some of the hype may fade as more cities join the Google Fiber network, the usefulness only increases, Usher said. For example, Kansas City is partnering with Chattanooga and Burlington, Vt., on a digital lending library that will allow residents access to each cities' online resources. "The networks are only as valuable as the number of connections that are on them," he said.

Fiber cuts wait for health test results

When explaining the value of faster data transfer speeds made possible through fiber Internet connection, Provo, Utah-based geneticist Reid Robison points to the intensive care unit for newborns — one of the most expensive places to stay the night.

Many babies have suspected genetic conditions for which genome tests can help provide answers. With new technology, whole genomes can be scanned at the same time, but slow data transfer speeds — from the doctor to the lab to the software company and back — can impair the turnaround time for tests. That means higher costs, but more consequentially, longer waits for results.

"In the world of big data, transfer speeds matter, especially in health care, where time is of the essence," said Robison, founder of Tute Genomics.

In Nashville, a fiber network could have significant impact on residents in general, but particularly in the enormous local health care sector. Greater bandwidth can benefit patients as well as support the many hospitals operating in the region.

Provo was the second U.S. city to gain access to Google Fiber. Robison, who moved from Salt Lake City after going through a business accelerator there, doesn't have Google Fiber at his office, but he and most of his 10 employees do at their homes.

Tute Genomics collaborates with other researchers sometimes in other states — or even other countries — to examine patient genomes in hopes of discovering a diagnosis. Some genetic databases take as long as 20 hours to download at work, but when done at fiber-connected homes, the time can be shortened dramatically, turning daylong downloads into less than an hour. It's not uncommon for an employee to go home, download a massive file or send one across the country and return, Robison said.

"Taking the bandwidth problems out of the equation opens up a bunch of opportunities and (yields) a much better turnaround time," he said. "It's just night and day comparison in terms of certain things I can accomplish with big genomic data that take a fraction of time when on Google Fiber."

The Hacker House

Matthew Marcus was a tech entrepreneur living in Boulder, Colo., when he heard Google had chosen his native Kansas City for its first fiber network.

He moved back to Kansas City and operated his next tech venture out of a home he inherited from his mother, becoming an early pioneer of what has become known as the Kansas City Startup Village. The community of now more than 25 startups is centered around a small commercial district and residential area in Kansas City's first fiber neighborhood.

The Startup Village took root in late 2012 with three or four startups setting up offices in the area and grew organically, Marcus said. Teams of entrepreneurs and software programmers work — and sometimes live — out of the houses and commercial spaces. Among them is an online sports photography marketplace and a search site called Leap.it. A security firm, EyeVerify, recently left for a bigger space downtown to accommodate its growth.

"We kind of look at the Village as a springboard to bigger and better things," Marcus said.

Six doors down from Marcus' building is the now well-known Hacker House, created by local Web developer Ben Barreth. After Google Fiber's announcement, Barreth saw an opportunity for the city to further establish itself as a tech and startup destination. He envisioned a program in which hospitable Kansas City residents would open up their basements or spare rooms for coders from outside Kansas City to work from. Households and hackers signed up for his concept, but it would be more than a year before fiber would be built throughout the city, a delay that could kill the program.

Looking at properties one morning, he joked with his wife about buying a home in the first fiberhood to open it up for entrepreneurs and developers from outside Kansas. "We both laughed, we thought it was a ridiculous idea, and four days later we were under contract to buy this house," he said.

Barreth allows a few vetted software developers to live at the Hacker House for three months for free. The goal is to build Kansas City's entrepreneurial community, so residents must come from other places, and he's hosted people from Denver, Boston, the Silicon Valley area, Mississippi and even Bangladesh. To make the house a sustainable enterprise, he rents out one or two of the five bedrooms to Airbnb guests and allows residents exceeding the three-month period to pay for space — $100 a week per person.

While Kansas City was already experiencing growth in tech and entrepreneurship before Google Fiber, it has served as another source of momentum, Marcus said. The Startup Village is one example of its direct impact.

"The power is in the community itself — the density of entrepreneurs working close to one another, supporting one another," he said. "It's really a lot of fun to be a part of."

Heightened productivity

Teri Rogers, CEO of a digital marketing company in Kansas City, doesn't have Google at her house or at her office yet, but her employees do.

When they are working on a big video project that involves transferring large digital files, those with Google Fiber stay home or go to restaurants or spaces available within the Kansas City Startup Village.

"They say they want to go home because they can work faster," said Rogers, CEO and owner of Hint. "And they do work faster. There's no question about it."

In the next few months, Google Fiber will connect Hint and other nearby small businesses to its network, a development Rogers said will improve overall efficiency and allow people to more easily work at their workplace.

When Google Fiber installs its network in Nashville, local companies creating or editing video will have similar options — at home and eventually at the office. Still, Rogers cautions that until partner companies in other cities have similar speeds, productivity can only be heightened so far.

"Until the whole country is wired up with this, it's not that big of an advantage for businesses who are doing business in other parts of the country," she said.

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.